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Forums - Nintendo Discussion - Virtual Console games are too expensive . . .

Scoobes on 10 August 2009
Senlis said:
theARTIST0017 said:
Scoobes said:
They are highly overpriced (especially in the UK). I can get PS1 games for cheaper than SNES games and they took a lot more work and money to produce.

And I don't get the argument people make about shipping and how old games still cost loads if you buy them. With VC games, the game you're downloading is just stream of data of an old game that's only what? 10Mb? if that? If you buy an original cart you're not just paying for a game, you're paying for a piece of history.

Thank you my good man. Some people just won't get that through their skulls :P


 

That's true.  But something to consider is that you are paying for more than ~10MB worth of data.  You are also paying for them to make the games work on the Wii and also to maintain the servers the games are downloaded from.  Also, if the game has any licensing fees, it pays for those also.

I understand that, but people having been doing this sorta stuff for free for years now with emulators and ROMs on PC. I don't know how lega it all is so the licensing is a valid point, but on the technical side, these games should be as cheap as chips. Even with the licensing however, the fact that Sony puts PS1 games for cheaper than SNES games kinda destroys that theory.




Get your Portable ID!

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Senlis on 10 August 2009
Scoobes said:
Senlis said:
theARTIST0017 said:
Scoobes said:
They are highly overpriced (especially in the UK). I can get PS1 games for cheaper than SNES games and they took a lot more work and money to produce.

And I don't get the argument people make about shipping and how old games still cost loads if you buy them. With VC games, the game you're downloading is just stream of data of an old game that's only what? 10Mb? if that? If you buy an original cart you're not just paying for a game, you're paying for a piece of history.

Thank you my good man. Some people just won't get that through their skulls :P


 

That's true.  But something to consider is that you are paying for more than ~10MB worth of data.  You are also paying for them to make the games work on the Wii and also to maintain the servers the games are downloaded from.  Also, if the game has any licensing fees, it pays for those also.

I understand that, but people having been doing this sorta stuff for free for years now with emulators and ROMs on PC. I don't know how lega it all is so the licensing is a valid point, but on the technical side, these games should be as cheap as chips. Even with the licensing however, the fact that Sony puts PS1 games for cheaper than SNES games kinda destroys that theory.

The free PC emulation is illegal.  People were basically coding the emulators and distributing the ROMS on thier own time and hardware.  Nintendo had to use hired labor to design an emulator for the Wii.  That means designing a piece of software that runs older games on hardware not designed for it.  They also had to encode the games to run on that emulator.  For each game they release on the VC they have to code the game to run on the Wii emulator.

I am not saying that I agree with the price tag on VC games.  I am just saying that it costs more than a little bit of data.  There is labor costs in emulating the system and coding the games.  There is cost is maintaining the server and obtaining licenses if they don't own the license.  There is also labor costs in fixing problems that arise with the software.




 

Scoobes on 10 August 2009
Senlis said:
Scoobes said:
Senlis said:
theARTIST0017 said:
Scoobes said:
They are highly overpriced (especially in the UK). I can get PS1 games for cheaper than SNES games and they took a lot more work and money to produce.

And I don't get the argument people make about shipping and how old games still cost loads if you buy them. With VC games, the game you're downloading is just stream of data of an old game that's only what? 10Mb? if that? If you buy an original cart you're not just paying for a game, you're paying for a piece of history.

Thank you my good man. Some people just won't get that through their skulls :P


 

That's true.  But something to consider is that you are paying for more than ~10MB worth of data.  You are also paying for them to make the games work on the Wii and also to maintain the servers the games are downloaded from.  Also, if the game has any licensing fees, it pays for those also.

I understand that, but people having been doing this sorta stuff for free for years now with emulators and ROMs on PC. I don't know how lega it all is so the licensing is a valid point, but on the technical side, these games should be as cheap as chips. Even with the licensing however, the fact that Sony puts PS1 games for cheaper than SNES games kinda destroys that theory.

The free PC emulation is illegal.  People were basically coding the emulators and distributing the ROMS on thier own time and hardware.  Nintendo had to use hired labor to design an emulator for the Wii.  That means designing a piece of software that runs older games on hardware not designed for it.  They also had to encode the games to run on that emulator.  For each game they release on the VC they have to code the game to run on the Wii emulator.

I am not saying that I agree with the price tag on VC games.  I am just saying that it costs more than a little bit of data.  There is labor costs in emulating the system and coding the games.  There is cost is maintaining the server and obtaining licenses if they don't own the license.  There is also labor costs in fixing problems that arise with the software.

And I still say that the labor costs were minimal. After all, nintendo designed the hardware and a lot of the software. Again, the costs of the server maintenance should also be comparably lower than for Live or PSN. Plus Sony seemingly manage to do it for PS1 games for cheap which in theory should be harder to emulate than the NES/SNES. Of course, Sony are losing a lot of money at the moment




Get your Portable ID!

TruckOSaurus on 10 August 2009

I think the VC prices are quite fair. Also, there's less of a risk when buying a game on VC than on WiiWare. Those games have been around for so long, there's tons of info available to help you make an informed decision.



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LordTheNightKnight on 10 August 2009

"And I still say that the labor costs were minimal."

You can't make it so by saying it is. Just surmising from assumptions of facts is not supporting an argument.



A flashy-first game is awesome when it comes out. A great-first game is awesome forever.

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Scoobes on 10 August 2009
KylieDog said:

£6 for a regular SNES game.  £7.50 for N64 (some cost more than this).


By comparison PS1 titles on the Playstation Store are only £3-4 on average (a few exceptions only).


Want more reasons why it is overpiced?   How about the fact that most of the stuff on the VC has already been re-released in compilation 'classic' packages a load of times on previous consoles including the PS1, PS2 and Gamecube?  Most of these games are only rare in their original format of release and if you just want to play them are have been easily buyable for many years now (and a lot cheaper than VC).

The Sega Mega Drive Ultimate Collection (as the most recent example) was released for PS3/360 this gen and has 40 Mega Drive/Genesis games on it as well as a few arcade games in addition to those 40.  It was released at a budget £25.  How much would those 40 games cost from VC?  


£240!

 

No wonder the Wii didn't get a port of that compilation, you only need buy 3 or 4 games on VC and they would have made more profit than from the compilation.



Yes, the Virtual Console is overpriced.

THIS! I'm glad you worked it all out and said it so I didn't have to, lol.




Get your Portable ID!

Scoobes on 10 August 2009
LordTheNightKnight said:
"And I still say that the labor costs were minimal."

You can't make it so by saying it is. Just surmising from assumptions of facts is not supporting an argument.

No, but a few facts do point towards this assumption being true:

1. People have been emulating NES, SNES and N64 games for many years now for PC. The knowledge and technical base is there. Workers would be easy to find. In fact, ZSNES actually supports extra graphical features not available on VC.

2. Nintendo did design the hardware and software of the previous consoles.

3. Sony managed to sell the PS1 games (and for less than the NES/SNES games on VC) and have to pay for similar labor and maintenance.

4. Nintendo has a very small workforce (4130 according to Wiki) compared to the sheer amount of profit they currently bring in. In fact, I remember reading that they earn more profit per worker than any other games company.

 




Get your Portable ID!

Aion on 10 August 2009
Xxain said:
let SE make there own VC prices.....then you'll beggin Nintendo to turn it back

Agreed, the prices are fair enough.



 

   PROUD MEMBER OF THE PLAYSTATION 3 : RPG FAN CLUB

 

Senlis on 10 August 2009
Scoobes said:
LordTheNightKnight said:
"And I still say that the labor costs were minimal."

You can't make it so by saying it is. Just surmising from assumptions of facts is not supporting an argument.

No, but a few facts do point towards this assumption being true:

1. People have been emulating NES, SNES and N64 games for many years now for PC. The knowledge and technical base is there. Workers would be easy to find. In fact, ZSNES actually supports extra graphical features not available on VC.

2. Nintendo did design the hardware and software of the previous consoles.

3. Sony managed to sell the PS1 games (and for less than the NES/SNES games on VC) and have to pay for similar labor and maintenance.

4. Nintendo has a very small workforce (4130 according to Wiki) compared to the sheer amount of profit they currently bring in. In fact, I remember reading that they earn more profit per worker than any other games company.

 

Once again, I am not necessarily disagreeing with you on a whole.  I would like to mentoin that a lot (if not all) of the emulation on the PC that was free was badly done.  Even the emulators people charged for was crap.  It often looked better on the PC because of filtering effects, but the sound often had problems and the control wasn't all that great.  I remember one time playing a fantasy TBS game.  The fighter hit someone with a sword and instead of the harsh slashing sound I was expecting, I got something like a windows error beep sound.  I thought it was hilarious.

I'm just saying it takes a bit more work than you make it sound.




 

mike_intellivision on 10 August 2009
KylieDog said:

£6 for a regular SNES game.  £7.50 for N64 (some cost more than this).


By comparison PS1 titles on the Playstation Store are only £3-4 on average (a few exceptions only).


Want more reasons why it is overpiced?   How about the fact that most of the stuff on the VC has already been re-released in compilation 'classic' packages a load of times on previous consoles including the PS1, PS2 and Gamecube?  Most of these games are only rare in their original format of release and if you just want to play them are have been easily buyable for many years now (and a lot cheaper than VC).

The Sega Mega Drive Ultimate Collection (as the most recent example) was released for PS3/360 this gen and has 40 Mega Drive/Genesis games on it as well as a few arcade games in addition to those 40.  It was released at a budget £25.  How much would those 40 games cost from VC?  


£240!

 

No wonder the Wii didn't get a port of that compilation, you only need buy 3 or 4 games on VC and they would have made more profit than from the compilation.



Yes, the Virtual Console is overpriced.

Yes, you are right, the Wii did not get a piece of that action -- and it was Sega's decision. I think that is a point that many peopole miss about the VC selection and in some ways the price. Nintendo has to have others agree to post its games -- and it has to pay them for that.  That might explain why (a) some games are not on there and (b) why some games cost more than you would think they should.

What would be really interesting would be to compare the cost of the same new-content game across platforms. For example -- TV Show King (which is on WiiWare and PSN) or Megaman 9 (which is on all three).

Also, how much is PSN charging for the TG-16 games it has?

 

Mike from Morgantown

 



      


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