Wii U - thread 3

[Nu-Eclipse]

Sony don't, and I don't see anybody complaining about that. You do give a ****, which is why you are posting about the subject in hand. Or are you not?

Sorry mate - judging by what's available on PSN, it would appear that Sony care slightly more than Nintendo do, otherwise the VC wouldn't be half-dead like it currently is.

[S3M]

Oh come on, it's FOUR games

It's Five so far Pikate, but it will only grow, it's only Nintendo as well, as Capcom released a 60hz image of Breath of Fire 2.

Price isn't a big point but I supect that they would sell more VC SNES games if they were ?5 as you would get 2 for a ?10. That said many of the pricing complains are coming from Australia and other countries were the VC is more expensive than the UK.

Nintendo's handling and implementation of the VC concept has been shoddy at best and piss-poor at worst.

Totally agree with you Nu-Eclipse.

[Nu-Eclipse]

If we look at the currently available SNES VC titles taken from Wikipedia below:

F-Zero [a]	Nintendo	2013-04-27		3	G
Mario's Super Picross	Nintendo	2013-04-27		3	G
Super Mario World	Nintendo	2013-04-27		7	G
Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts	Capcom	2013-05-16		7	PG
Super Metroid [a]	Nintendo	2013-05-16		7	G
Kirby Super Star	Nintendo	2013-05-23		3	G
Kirby's Dream Course	Nintendo	2013-05-23		3	G
Vegas Stakes	Nintendo	2013-06-27		12	PG
Pilotwings	Nintendo	2013-07-04		7	G
EarthBound	Nintendo	2013-07-18		12	M
Kirby's Dream Land 3	Nintendo	2013-07-25		3	G
Harvest Moon	Marvelous AQL	2013-08-01		3	G
Romance of the Three Kingdoms IV: Wall of Fire	Tecmo Koei	2013-08-08		7	PG
Street Fighter II: The World Warrior	Capcom	2013-08-22		12	PG
Street Fighter II' Turbo: Hyper Fighting	Capcom	2013-08-22		12	PG
Super Street Fighter II: The New Challengers	Capcom	2013-08-22		12	PG
Breath of Fire II	Capcom	2013-09-05		7	G
Mega Man X	Capcom	2013-09-19		7	PG
Final Fight	Capcom	2013-10-03		12	PG
Final Fight 2	Capcom	2013-10-03		12	PG
Final Fight 3	Capcom	2013-10-03		12	PG
Super Castlevania IV	Konami	2013-10-31		3	PG
Mega Man X2	Capcom	2013-11-14		7	PG
Brawl Brothers	Hamster	2013-11-21		12	PG
Uncharted Waters: New Horizons	Tecmo Koei	2013-11-28		12	PG
The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past

There doesn't really seem like there's that much that you could call bad. At 26 games, it works out to just over two per month. That seems perfectly acceptable to me.

Remind me why Nintendo couldn't just port over what was already long available on the Wii VC and have that ready for Wii U VC from the off?

A shambles.

[wakka]

Obviously releasing the entire range of games on day 1 would be pointless - a big problem with digital storefronts is discoverability, so it makes sense to dripfeed stuff over time in order to sustain interest and ensure titles receive as many sales as possible.

But Nintendo could have made it really cool, with at least 1 new game every week, 'seasons' of certain franchises gaining across the board discounts or staggered releases over the course of 1 month, a Virtual Console email newsletter with sneak previews of what's coming up and mini retrospectives to get people hyped for the latest titles to become available. They could've done all sorts of fun retro crossover stuff, like making episodes of the Mario and Zelda 90s cartoons available to buyers of VC games in those series.

There are absolutely loads of possibilities for fun marketing and consumer engagement stuff that would hardly have been 'asking too much'. In fact, rather than just being nice for the fans, they probably would've helped Nintendo sell more ROMs and make more money out of the whole endeavour!

Unfortunately online services are hardly Nintendo's strong point, so it's all been rather patchy and incomplete.

They've done a poor job of keeping people engaged with the service, which means it probably hasn't made them as much money as they've wanted, so it's received ever decreasing support.

[J0e Musashi]

Remind me why Nintendo couldn't just port over what was already long available on the Wii VC and have that ready for Wii U VC from the off?

I agree with you there, but then why are no PS1 games available on PS4?

[wakka]

PS4 doesn't even have MP3 playback. The words 'rushed' and 'market' spring to mind

[Nu-Eclipse]

Obviously releasing the entire range of games on day 1 would be pointless - a big problem with digital storefronts is discoverability, so it makes sense to dripfeed stuff over time in order to sustain interest and ensure titles receive as many sales as possible.

But Nintendo could have made it really cool, with at least 1 new game every week, 'seasons' of certain franchises gaining across the board discounts or staggered releases over the course of 1 month, a Virtual Console email newsletter with sneak previews of what's coming up and mini retrospectives to get people hyped for the latest titles to become available. They could've done all sorts of fun retro crossover stuff, like making episodes of the Mario and Zelda 90s cartoons available to buyers of VC games in those series.

There are absolutely loads of possibilities for fun marketing and consumer engagement stuff that would hardly have been 'asking too much'. In fact, rather than just being nice for the fans, they probably would've helped Nintendo sell more ROMs and make more money out of the whole endeavour!

Unfortunately online services are hardly Nintendo's strong point, so it's all been rather patchy and incomplete.

They've done a poor job of keeping people engaged with the service, which means it probably hasn't made them as much money as they've wanted, so it's received ever decreasing support.

Sorry Joe, having the content of Wii VC available on day 1 for Wii U VC would have been anything but pointless, given what Nintendo were trying (and dismally failing) to do with the VC concept. The discoverability would surely have already been there with the large selection of titles/formats to choose from. That's easily better than the sorry state of affairs regarding Wii U VC now.

That aside, it's hard for me to argue with everything else you've written.

[wakka]

I wrote that before your post actually. You and J0e were cranking em out fast.

By 'entire range of games' I meant the entire SNES library.

All of the stuff from the Wii VC should be on there, I agree. It's totally counter-intuitive that it isn't.

[nakamura]

Drip.feeding is not needed for classic games. Upload them all and let people choose what they want.

[J0e Musashi]

How long could you market the VC as a feature if it was all there on the first day? I agree that they aren't doing it particularly well the way it's currently going, but to put a feature like that out there in one fell swoop is suicide.

[J0e Musashi]

Drip.feeding is not needed for classic games. Upload them all and let people choose what they want.

What about all the people who they are not classic to? What about those people?

[nakamura]

Then they have more choice. Choice is good.

[wakka]

Drip.feeding is not needed for classic games. Upload them all and let people choose what they want.

But the objective is to make money. Dumping hundreds of ROMs onto what is a fairly basic storefront is not a great way of letting people know what's on there. You're not going to be getting the sales that you could if you build hype and release a few games at a time.

Nintendo are too slow, with 1 game every 2 weeks. Dumping them all on there would be more convenient for clued-up individuals like ourselves, but I don't think it's the most profitable strategy.

[J0e Musashi]

Then they get bored after less than a year, and there is still five years of the business model to run. You should work for Deutsche Luftschiffahrts-AG Martin.

[J0e Musashi]

But the objective is to make money. Dumping hundreds of ROMs onto what is a fairly basic storefront is not a great way of letting people know what's on there. You're not going to be getting the sales that you could if you build hype and release a few games at a time.

Nintendo are too slow, with 1 game every 2 weeks. Dumping them all on there would be more convenient for clued-up individuals like ourselves, but I don't think it's the most profitable strategy.[/COLOR]

Somebody understands simple business. I am saved.