Now, That's a good point.

To expand on this, remember that Sega also releases Sega Genesis games over Xbox Live, gives them online multiplayer when applicable, gives you achievements, and charges $5. Many of these are the exact same games available on the Virtual Console. I personally think Nintendo needs to loosen the pricing structure by offering a ceiling no game may go above, but also letting them go lower than the standard price setup for the console's library.

Edit: To those using the Ebay and Amazon argument, it's flawed. Those games are expensive because they are originals, they are physical copies and are collector's items. Even with the availability over VC, they're still expensive. This is no different than saying ebooks arent overpriced because some 20 year old out of print first edition book is on ebay for $70.

That is an idea I get behind, I admit.

Some SNES and PSX games are worth hundreds of euros on ebay; this is where a lot of arguments fall apart. Actually, comparing the ebay prices, virtual console is cheaper than retail and ebay on all systems except NES.

You're comparing a collector's item with resale value to a ROM dump that has no resale value whatsoever. They are not the same thing. We have competitive services offered on two other consoles that you can draw better comparisons from, and all signs point to the Virtual Console charging the most out of the three.

To help explain my point, a Dreamcast copy of Marvel vs. Capcom 2 runs you about $40 on eBay. A PS2 or Xbox copy runs you about $70 on eBay. Why the difference in price for the same game? Easy. It's a collector's market and the PS2 and Xbox copies are rarer than the Dreamcast one. This is why you can't compare an auction market designed for collectors to a digital download service designed for players. This is why the price of a physical copy of Marvel vs. Capcom 2 is still high even though it's now a downloadable title over Xbox Live. You are comparing the interests of two different markets and giving them the same interests in owning a game. It doesn't work that way.

If they were in fact drawing the same audience, then the arrival of downloadable titles would have crashed the value of those particular games on eBay, since they would now be worthless.

It's still a relevant comparison, because players had to buy from collectors up to this point.

why the hell would nintendo need people to recode the games for them to work on the VC??
Acne kids managed to make PC/GBA/PSP/DS emulators that played any games you wanted perfectly (in the 90ies and even enhancing the games) but nintendo would need to tweak every game for them to work?

get real, nintendo only needs to tweak the games so that they are only usable on the wii that bought it, nothing else... and that is something that's detrimental to players, definitely not something you'd want to pay extra for...

VC is a ripoff... especially when you see developpers making a profit on stuff like Iphone games that cost 1$.

I don't believe it is. The most popular emulators on the PC are rather good at emulating games, and the majority work without a hitch. There was no moral reason to not use them since the market had been dead for years and no one was making money on the sale of games. Someone that wanted to play a game could have used that method. Many did. I'm sure many of the people using the "eBay/Amazon" argument in this thread used that emulator method themselves.

It's also not fair to use a collector's market to justify the prices of downloadable titles, because then when is it not fair? So long as Nintendo charges under the standard price of a used cartridge, they'll always be in the right, regardless of how high the price is or how low the competition prices their own ROMs. The bottom line is this. Sony has a sliding scale from $5.99-$9.99 for PSN games, meaning everything under the $9.99 price point is better priced than comparable VC titles. Xbox Live has new enhancements on old classics and still generally comes under the price of comparable VC titles. This is direct competition. ROMs against ROMs. Downloadable content vs. downloadable content. Not collector's cartridges vs. ROMs. We have justifiable comparisons with Xbox Live and PSN, making the Amazon/eBay argument largely useless now.

That is a good argument. I acquiesce on that front, though I would still say that the prices on the Virtual Console are justified by the games themselves.

For every game you feel is justfied, I could probably list off 1-2 games that would feel overpriced at it's current price point. Like I said previously, and you agree with, Nintendo needs to open the pricing structure up for third parties to give their own prices for their games, while still implementing a ceiling so those same third parties cannot take advantage of the customers. Nintendo also needs to look at their own catalog and start pricing games individually based on anticipation and perceived quality. They have a poor pricing model, their third parties are offering the same games with enhanced features for less money on the competition, and that all to me says that there are a good amount of overpriced games on the Virtual Console, far more than there are fairly priced titles.