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> Sure, shut down the storefront To be honest, I still don't understand why they needed to shut the storefront. They still need to host the games so people can

> Sure, shut down the storefront To be honest, I still don't understand why they needed to shut the storefront. They still need to host the games so people can access the titles they've paid for, and I would imagine that makes up the bulk of the cost. The only reason that makes sense to me is that they have plans to shut the entire thing down, including access to purchased games, x years down the line. It's probably much easier to get away with that if even the newest purchase being removed is however many years old. Not that that stopped Nintendo, they took everything down for the original Wii, purchases and all.

Red_Leaves_Flyy 6y ago
Thank God the internet never forgets. Wii games are awesome for small get togethers or rainy weekends. I'd pay a few hundred for a remade wii that has every wii game on it. Last I checked the vast majority of wii games clocks in under a tb, iirc. If I'm right storage wouldn't even be an issue as a 1tb sad is under $100, and the tech specs are equally light. The remaining problem is rights holders strangling the market to sell today's fidget spinner games.
- Wowfunhappy 6y ago
  “I’d pay ~$300 minus the cost of hardware in exchange for thousands of games, including timeless masterpieces like Metroid Prime and Mario Galaxy, many of which sold for $50 individually less than a decade ago and cost millions of dollars to develop.” Don’t get me wrong, I’d buy that too. But if it happened, I’d be more than a little scared about the viability of game development moving forward, particularly for the artfully-crafted single player experiences I enjoy and care about. More scared than I already am. Nintendo would much rather port Mario Galaxy to their new hardware and sell it as part of a much smaller bundle. And as far as I’m concerned, that game is great and they have every right to continue charging top-dollar for it.
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batty_alex 6y ago
> To be honest, I still don't understand why they needed to shut the storefront. I'd guess the cost of maintaining contracts to distribute licenses for games that publishers otherwise don't want to sell anymore. > Not that that stopped Nintendo, they took everything down for the original Wii, purchases and all. Yeah, this one was heart-breaking. A lot of my friends started getting real leery of digital purchases after the Wii debacle. At least the X360/PS3/Vita/Wii/WiiU have been cracked wide-open and the modding community can keep them going at this point - we've still got that to hold onto. The PS4, on the other hand...
brians 6y ago
The storefront was SSL2. It needed major software overhaul that wasn’t justified without being the star revenue source.
progforlyfe 6y ago
Yep. There is always plans to shut the whole thing down eventually, for console stores (the exception maybe being Microsoft?) But you have to do it in phases to manage the negative feedback. If someone purchases a game on Day 1, you definitely don't want to kill download access on Day 2. So the only way to cleanly phase out is to first shut down any new purchases. Then you have a ~4-5 year window for people to play those games and hopefully give an upper bound for when they won't care about them anymore.

Red_Leaves_Flyy 6y ago

Thank God the internet never forgets. Wii games are awesome for small get togethers or rainy weekends. I'd pay a few hundred for a remade wii that has every wii game on it. Last I checked the vast majority of wii games clocks in under a tb, iirc. If I'm right storage wouldn't even be an issue as a 1tb sad is under $100, and the tech specs are equally light. The remaining problem is rights holders strangling the market to sell today's fidget spinner games.

Wowfunhappy 6y ago
“I’d pay ~$300 minus the cost of hardware in exchange for thousands of games, including timeless masterpieces like Metroid Prime and Mario Galaxy, many of which sold for $50 individually less than a decade ago and cost millions of dollars to develop.” Don’t get me wrong, I’d buy that too. But if it happened, I’d be more than a little scared about the viability of game development moving forward, particularly for the artfully-crafted single player experiences I enjoy and care about. More scared than I already am. Nintendo would much rather port Mario Galaxy to their new hardware and sell it as part of a much smaller bundle. And as far as I’m concerned, that game is great and they have every right to continue charging top-dollar for it.
- deleted 6y ago
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batty_alex 6y ago

> To be honest, I still don't understand why they needed to shut the storefront. I'd guess the cost of maintaining contracts to distribute licenses for games that publishers otherwise don't want to sell anymore. > Not that that stopped Nintendo, they took everything down for the original Wii, purchases and all. Yeah, this one was heart-breaking. A lot of my friends started getting real leery of digital purchases after the Wii debacle. At least the X360/PS3/Vita/Wii/WiiU have been cracked wide-open and the modding community can keep them going at this point - we've still got that to hold onto. The PS4, on the other hand...

brians 6y ago

The storefront was SSL2. It needed major software overhaul that wasn’t justified without being the star revenue source.

progforlyfe 6y ago

Yep. There is always plans to shut the whole thing down eventually, for console stores (the exception maybe being Microsoft?) But you have to do it in phases to manage the negative feedback. If someone purchases a game on Day 1, you definitely don't want to kill download access on Day 2. So the only way to cleanly phase out is to first shut down any new purchases. Then you have a ~4-5 year window for people to play those games and hopefully give an upper bound for when they won't care about them anymore.