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> But I understand why Nintendo doesn't want that This part I really don't understand. Nintendo has clearly got the technology at play to run everything at lea

> But I understand why Nintendo doesn't want that This part I really don't understand. Nintendo has clearly got the technology at play to run everything at least prior to the GameCube on the Switch, ready to roll... but the only way to access those games is to pay for a subscription service which is already kind of annoying, only to then get a drip-feed of a few games every few months, selected by... somebody, no idea who, with no real consistency as to what makes the cut and what doesn't. It's, by all accounts, completely fucking arbitrary. I love the Switch, it's IMO, the best console Nintendo's turned out in actual decades, and if I was given the option I would buy the shit out of a large library of games from previous Nintendo consoles, and given how many 3rd party projects have made playing those games on all manner of shit, chiefly desktop PCs, a possible thing, I struggle to really sympathize with Nintendo here. And again: the groundwork for this is already laid. I don't know how much work goes between, for example, taking a SNES title like Super Mario RPG and putting it on the Switch's virtual SNES console, but given that their virtual SNES has essentially the same features that every bog standard SNES emulator has had for over 10 years... you'll have to forgive me if I don't think it's much? If any? I would absolutely understand if they want to playtest each game, make sure it's optimized, make sure there's no graphical oddities, etc. etc. but like... you can do that. I could do that. And hell, if a game made it through with some big glitch, give me the option to send your devs a fuckin email about it in-game with a dump of the memory at the time it happened so they can fix it. But no, instead, peacemeal releases of games, on a subscription service only, that range from absolutely S-tier iconic to... what the fuck is this in terms of cultural significance. Instead of just a bloody storefront, and let me pick what I want, and pay a reasonable price for it. I'd bet anything if they charged like $9.99 per game for the entire library of NES, SNES, and N64 titles, they'd be absolutely swimming in money. Like... the big corpos have never understood, this is what gave Steam the position they have now. Piracy is work. Hacking consoles is work. Installing and playing cracked games is work (and risk!). I don't want to work, I want to fucking play Donkey Kong. Give me a legal way to give you a reasonable amount of money so I can play Donkey Kong! And then I get Donkey Kong and you get money! It's the dictionary definition of a win/win scenario.

idle_zealot 3y ago
> Piracy is work. Hacking consoles is work. Installing and playing cracked games is work (and risk!). I don't want to work, I want to fucking play Donkey Kong It takes work on the side of companies like Nintendo to make piracy inconvenient. If Nintendo and others didn't spend their resources locking down their consoles and squashing any form of piracy that gets too convenient then the easiest way to play any game would be to pirate it via some community-maintained all-in-one cross-platform game installer and launcher with every game ever dumped available. Then Nintendo would have no hope of competing with convenience. At a minimum they would need some sort of payment and accounting system which would introduce friction compared to a free piracy frontend. So naturally, Nintendo is not interested in engaging in a convenience competition. They want to use the law to maintain total control of how their games can be played, and then use that granted monopoly to make as much money from them as they can. Why sell an older game for a reasonable price if you're the only game in town and can instead use it as leverage to get people to give you money regularly for the privilege of playing it? Even better, bundle the game they want with a bunch that they don't and several that they kinda-sorta want to play at some point maybe? The more you can dilute and confuse the value of a purchase the more you can make off it. Ideally you reach a point where subscribers feel some nebulous obligation to pay you regularly, and the actual service you provide only serves as to assuage cognitive dissonance should a subscriber consider cancelling. "Oh, but I played Earthbound for a few hours last week, and maybe I'll want to get back to that at some point, so I guess I'll keep my subscription"
- ToucanLoucan 3y ago
  > It takes work on the side of companies like Nintendo to make piracy inconvenient. ... So naturally, Nintendo is not interested in engaging in a convenience competition. Oh, sure, but 9/10ths of that is already done. The eShop already exists and distributes purchased DRM-locked content to their hardware. That's my point: all the pieces for this already exist and are implemented. The only problem is the business side that insists on doing this so bizarrely. > Why sell an older game for a reasonable price if you're the only game in town and can instead use it as leverage to get people to give you money regularly for the privilege of playing it? I mean, without access to their data I can't say this for sure, but I feel like a monthly subscription for these games is substantially less money than just selling them as is. It feels distinctly like a loss-leader for Nintendo's subscription thing so they can buff the numbers of subscribers. > Even better, bundle the game they want with a bunch that they don't and several that they kinda-sorta want to play at some point maybe? The more you can dilute and confuse the value of a purchase the more you can make off it. I really don't think that rule is as hard and fast as you're making it sound. The bundle maybe, sure. But what's the value proposition for all the games not available at all, purchase or subscription? That's my real beef is the arbitrary and often nonsensical selection process. > Ideally you reach a point where subscribers feel some nebulous obligation to pay you regularly, and the actual service you provide only serves as to assuage cognitive dissonance should a subscriber consider cancelling. "Oh, but I played Earthbound for a few hours last week, and maybe I'll want to get back to that at some point, so I guess I'll keep my subscription" But again: just price the Earthbound game according to the work required to bring it to the new storefront. Then you're already in the black without needing to sell a subscription in the first place. And sure you aren't continuing to make money off of it, but who's to say you'll continue doing that with the subscription? People find them irritating and no matter what psychological shit you try and pull on them, at some point it's not bad odds they're just going to go "I don't need this" and cancel.

idle_zealot 3y ago

> Piracy is work. Hacking consoles is work. Installing and playing cracked games is work (and risk!). I don't want to work, I want to fucking play Donkey Kong It takes work on the side of companies like Nintendo to make piracy inconvenient. If Nintendo and others didn't spend their resources locking down their consoles and squashing any form of piracy that gets too convenient then the easiest way to play any game would be to pirate it via some community-maintained all-in-one cross-platform game installer and launcher with every game ever dumped available. Then Nintendo would have no hope of competing with convenience. At a minimum they would need some sort of payment and accounting system which would introduce friction compared to a free piracy frontend. So naturally, Nintendo is not interested in engaging in a convenience competition. They want to use the law to maintain total control of how their games can be played, and then use that granted monopoly to make as much money from them as they can. Why sell an older game for a reasonable price if you're the only game in town and can instead use it as leverage to get people to give you money regularly for the privilege of playing it? Even better, bundle the game they want with a bunch that they don't and several that they kinda-sorta want to play at some point maybe? The more you can dilute and confuse the value of a purchase the more you can make off it. Ideally you reach a point where subscribers feel some nebulous obligation to pay you regularly, and the actual service you provide only serves as to assuage cognitive dissonance should a subscriber consider cancelling. "Oh, but I played Earthbound for a few hours last week, and maybe I'll want to get back to that at some point, so I guess I'll keep my subscription"

ToucanLoucan 3y ago
> It takes work on the side of companies like Nintendo to make piracy inconvenient. ... So naturally, Nintendo is not interested in engaging in a convenience competition. Oh, sure, but 9/10ths of that is already done. The eShop already exists and distributes purchased DRM-locked content to their hardware. That's my point: all the pieces for this already exist and are implemented. The only problem is the business side that insists on doing this so bizarrely. > Why sell an older game for a reasonable price if you're the only game in town and can instead use it as leverage to get people to give you money regularly for the privilege of playing it? I mean, without access to their data I can't say this for sure, but I feel like a monthly subscription for these games is substantially less money than just selling them as is. It feels distinctly like a loss-leader for Nintendo's subscription thing so they can buff the numbers of subscribers. > Even better, bundle the game they want with a bunch that they don't and several that they kinda-sorta want to play at some point maybe? The more you can dilute and confuse the value of a purchase the more you can make off it. I really don't think that rule is as hard and fast as you're making it sound. The bundle maybe, sure. But what's the value proposition for all the games not available at all, purchase or subscription? That's my real beef is the arbitrary and often nonsensical selection process. > Ideally you reach a point where subscribers feel some nebulous obligation to pay you regularly, and the actual service you provide only serves as to assuage cognitive dissonance should a subscriber consider cancelling. "Oh, but I played Earthbound for a few hours last week, and maybe I'll want to get back to that at some point, so I guess I'll keep my subscription" But again: just price the Earthbound game according to the work required to bring it to the new storefront. Then you're already in the black without needing to sell a subscription in the first place. And sure you aren't continuing to make money off of it, but who's to say you'll continue doing that with the subscription? People find them irritating and no matter what psychological shit you try and pull on them, at some point it's not bad odds they're just going to go "I don't need this" and cancel.