The Video Game Critic

That's great, and I've read some people have really enjoyed the Kinect for work outs and such.

I should have been more clear. I meant that MS backed off having the Kinect 2 be mandatory, which allowed them to lower the price of their console, and therefore sell more consoles without weakening the core system's abilities. This was at the loss of pushing their initial vision for the XboxOne, and early adopters may have bought the Kinect 2 never wanting to use it, but without an option. At one time, I thought MS had said the Kinect was integral to the system, and could not be removed...until it could be. Now of course we have skus of both MS and Sony consoles with larger hard drives, slimmer and more power efficient, etc.

Nintendo had a similar issue with their tablet controller, but decided to neither double down by making lots of games highlighting how good asymmetric play could be, nor creating a sku without it to lower the console price and sell more consoles. They just stayed the course. Of course, they don't do this for portables, do they, and as Atarifever pointed out, the console market in Japan is declining in favor of mobile markets (although its still pretty big, as the charts don't count digital sales, and perhaps its just a return to the mean, as instead of a decline its more of a correction from the rise of 2006-2010, which if removed, makes the console market look much healthier)

The plus side of what Nintendo did if some early adopters had remorse over game release droughts, but the regret should not increased by feelings that later adopters got a better deal. With this scarcity issue, it may be the opposite - that early adopters had a chance to buy every game on disk, while later adopters may have had to go without or buy digital at physical prices for older games.

I asked Nintendo for a response, I thought maybe since it was a supply issue it wouldn't by secret by any means, but of course got a pretty ridiculous response:

"Thank you for contacting us. I can certainly understand your concerns about the number of games no longer in production. I will be sure to document your comments regarding this matter and share them with other departments here at Nintendo. Unfortunately, we don't have a list containing games that are no longer in production.

Of course, new products are revealed by us and our licensee partners throughout the year, so keep checking our website's “What’s New” section (http://www.nintendo.com/whatsnew) for the latest information and announcements."

Figures. Stuff like this makes me not mind when consoles get hacked and games get ripped because no one else is going to preserve them. Pulling games from production in a very short timeframe is stupid. Then they're behind a paywall for a ridiculous digital download system that almost assuredly won't be carried on to future consoles.

Maybe a Nintendo shaeholder read my mind. From the shareholder meeting ongoing now, the very first question was asked about digital vs. physical sales:

Iwata: We believe download versions have the same value and should be priced the same. Some companies price DLs cheaper due to the there being no used sales or store price reductions. We stress the value of Nintendo software, so we price the same. Purchases can be made through the eShop or with download cards bought at stores. We typically don't discount, but stores may.There are different risks with each. Packaged versions carry inventory risk. Download versions aren't activated without going through the register first. Being on-demand, there is no inventory risk. Nintendo cannot control the price of packaged versions. Doing so would infringe the law. We know some aren't satisfied w/o a diff. We plan to provide some benefit with the new membership service starting in the fall.

scotland wrote:I am thinking of my friend Atarifever's post on how Nintendo is trying new things, many successfully, and then my friend Actraisers post on how Nintendo is disappointing many at the same time. Are they tossing everything in the mix looking forward?

I think we're both pretty right (and thanks for the friend comment even after I turned into a bit of a jerk in the Japan topic ). I think they're being experimental (for them) on one hand, but sticking to some pretty out-dated practices on the other. I've always liked that their games retain value, but this generation, given the Wii U only really has first party games, their pricing model is making it hard to buy many games. I noticed this on Father's Day actually. My wife put a $35 Nintendo eShop card in my card, and my card from the kids had $20 in it. There was no sensible way to work that to get a retail released game (even the digital version, if I turned the $20 into eShop money too). At Wal Mart, the $20 can get a million different AAA third party games for the other consoles, and even some first party stuff. The $35 can get tons of stuff on the other consoles on their online stores.

With Wii U I had to settle for a copy of Monster Hunter Tri (for Wii) and some GBA games from the eShop. Nothing wrong with those things, but it was a pretty meager selection. I feel like they really need to introduce a "Selects" line. They did that with the Wii, and I bought nearly all of them. A $20 line of first party games, with a price reflected that way in the eShop, would help them offer more value for customers.

I also really, really want a subscription service of the quality of Playstation Plus and Games with Gold. It shouldn't be hard. Throw in a major release and two or three VC or indie games a month. A month where a Wii U owner got Mario 3, Balloon Fight, DK 64, and The Wonderful 101 would be pretty great. They have enough long-ago published games (The Wonderful 101, Pikmin 3, Nintendo World, Super Mario U, DK Tropical Freeze, etc.) to combine with a few already failed 3rd party Wii U ports (Watch Dogs, the Arkam games, Mass Effect 3, Assassin's Creed 3, etc.) they could get on the cheap to make it worthwhile on Wii U for a couple years. And they can throw in Virtual Console stuff from here to forever without ever running out. I'd pay good money for that. By the end of that, they'd have the NX out and would already have figured out how a Nintendo subscription service best works. It'd definitely offer more value for money than $50 for three year old games.

Again, this has often not been a problem for them; but this generation, there's no one else covering the budget market for them, as it's pretty much all them since last year and into next.

It's probably a matter of shelf space. The WiiU sections in most major retailers are small, so they have to be careful to pick and choose what games to continue selling. I remember entire aisles of NES games. Those days are gone.

GamingTheSystems wrote:It's probably a matter of shelf space. The WiiU sections in most major retailers are small, so they have to be careful to pick and choose what games to continue selling. I remember entire aisles of NES games. Those days are gone.

Except the Wii is dead and I still see sections of those games. Super Mario 64 DS has been on the shelves over 10 YEARS! I'm not sure if it's still stocked but it was as of a couple years ago when I worked at Target, and that was a good 9 years into it's release. And it wasn't even discounted!

I'm not saying keep niche titles on the shelves, but Ocarina of Time 3DS? New Super Mario Bros U? Even really Pikmin 3 and games like Starfox 64. These are games that would continue to sell and tie into new games coming out this fall. Unless they stopped production to make a Player's Choice or combo line in the fall I don't get it at all.

And regarding the comment about early adopters, I don't think it rewards early adopters at all. It rewards opportunists. I still was able to get Ocarina of Time and Starfox 64 about a year after 3DS came out for $20 apiece at Best Buy. Paper Mario on 3DS was pretty notorious for being basically given away at $10 a pop.

There were many opportunities in that timeframe to get games discounting with B2G1 deals, half price sales, and so on. It's just that later in the life for whatever reason they discontinue games creating an artificial demand for games people would otherwise purchase over the life cycle of the system. No major franchise like Mario, Zelda, Metroid, or Starfox should have ANY games discontinued over its lifecycle - outside of maybe the Mario RPG games since they seem to release almost annually on 3DS.

Iwata in the shareholders meeting made a somewhat annoying comment about how they rarely have digital sales and can't control the price of games of retail because it's illegal, but they think digital and physical media have the same value. Almost like he's annoyed he can't gauge consumers $60 for 4-5 year old games at physical retail ticks him off. I mean what the hell? What happened to the Nintendo which offered value to consumers with getting a wider fanbase by being the value alternative? It's like they want to point fingers on anyone but themselves for these issues.

When I worked at Digital River (we provided e-Commerce for primarily software) there was a huge concern from the business on not wanting to undercut retail prices.

At the time retail was the only major way to get your product to consumers. Without retail you were really SOL. Now, retail in the software space is more of an after thought.

Go figure Nintendo is concerned about cutting into the retail space. They're only a decade behind everyone else on coming to the conclusion that it doesn't matter. Although, it's a great excuse to keep your digital product prices high. However, at the end of the day fewer people will want to buy them at such a high price.

I think this makes sense with what the industries agenda is. They want to push digital distribution. I wouldn't be surprised to see all of the big 3 releasing games retail for a limited time & then pushing for download purchases. If you don't buy the game within the first couple of months there won't be anymore copies to buy. Then consumers will be forced to buy the game digitally at full retail price $60 or buy the scarce physical copies at inflated prices of over $60. This way the big 3 can sell downloads at full price. See.... Digital distribution will be cheaper then physical media. Isn't that what everyone wants?

Tron wrote:I think this makes sense with what the industries agenda is. They want to push digital distribution. I wouldn't be surprised to see all of the big 3 releasing games retail for a limited time & then pushing for download purchases. If you don't buy the game within the first couple of months there won't be anymore copies to buy. Then consumers will be forced to buy the game digitally at full retail price $60 or buy the scarce physical copies at inflated prices of over $60. This way the big 3 can sell downloads at full price. See.... Digital distribution will be cheaper then physical media. Isn't that what everyone wants?

Depressingly I think your probably on the money.

I found an older post on another forum regarding a list of games that seem to be discontinued now:

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.ph ... stcount=70

I expect games like Wind Waker, A Link Between World, and other games to probably hit this issue in the holiday.

To be fair, I don't dislike digital downloads. The problem is, the only company that seems to do it right is Valve. You have to add value by offering incentive to buy digitally in the way of having account benefits and you have to have legitimate sales just like a retailer - not 10% off a game for a week. I hope from the shareholder's meeting that they really are working on something for the holiday like they say.