Topic: George Harrison talks Revolution - Download games for free?

[Mario]

http://www.gamespot.com/news/2005/05/26/news_6126595.html

Well, he talks about GBA and GC as well, but the Revolution stuff is interesting.

A quote that jumped out at me

Quote
Well, I think certainly being wireless out of the box is revolutionary. People sort of picked on us for not jumping in prematurely into online or Internet gaming, but we just looked at it, the way it was evolving, and just felt that it was not time to jump in. But certainly with the next console it would be, with a couple of important changes like eliminating the access fee so there's not really a monthly subscription, and making use of first-party games, downloadable for free.

First party games downloadable for free? That'd be AWESOME! I'd download EVERYTHING.. but there has to be a catch.. doesn't there? I mean, that's too good to be true. Later on he mentions that first party games would be free for online gaming... but third parties were a different story, which makes me think that was a misquote and he didn't mean first party games downloadable for free, he meant first party (Revolution) games playable online for free. Also, he mentions that old games would be used as unlockable features in Revolution games, but there would be no point in doing it like that if you can just download the game for free...

What do you guys make of this?

[Luffy1Piece]

I think it's more along the lines of Nintendo making certain first party games available for free.

[Rocketsastrostexans]

Sounds like good news.....competition always brings out the best in everything....it seems like Nintendo is now (finally) getting that competitive spirit.....and with that they will excel.

[KDR_11k]

Perhaps you can get some premium games for free if you beat certain games.

I'd expect them to offer a few games for free to get people interested (since downloadable games is nice and all but some would like a few games to come with their console). Most will cost money unless their makers say they'd prefer those games as freeware.

Also, I wonder whether NoE will try to combine online and the stars catalogue.

[nickmitch]

Wouldn't you have to buy a lot of memory cards to hold all those games?
Even so I still would.

[Flames_of_chaos]

well TV man Rev will use 512MB SD cards and since NES - N64 games were measures in Megabits to get the MegaByte difference divide the megabit count by 8 so a 512MB SD card will be plenty considering the fact that most  N64 games measure in 8 - 16 Megabytes a 512 MB SD card will be more than enough for gamesaves and downloads.  I was just using N64 games since they would take up the most space on your SD card for the downloads.  

[nickmitch]

Excellent. . .

[NinGurl69 *huggles]

FREE?!  How absurd!!  Silly nintendo!

INDUSTRY CRASH.

[BigJim]

Heck, most NES games can be measured in KILOBYTES. That's an assload of games you could store on a 512MB card.

[Epitaph]

you can fit over 2000 nes roms on a cd and not even use half the space, and about 450snes games on a cd. So theres plenty of space

[Switchblade Cross]

I have 621 NES ROMs on my PC...

Total size = 128 MB

I also have 741 SNES ROMs

Total size = 970 MB


I think we'll all have plenty of space.

[BranDonk Kong]

I'm thinking there has to be some kind of internal hard drive, otherwise surely there will be a USB Memory Card backup deveice made (Datel), and you'd be able to distribute your downloaded games at will. If the games are free, then this won't matter one bit...and now that I think about it, there could be some kind of authentication required ala PSO on Dreamcast.

[TMW]

But if the games are free, why encrypt them? The only thing you'd need is some sort of code, or lock so it would only play on a Rev.  Not on any emulator on your comp. Otherwise, you would create a nasty loophole for downloading roms.  

[Ian Sane]

Reading the interview I interpret it as Nintendo offering free downloads for promotions and stuff.  Obviously I would prefer free first party downloads but it would just be so weird for Nintendo to throw away easy money like that.

I can see one potential annoyance with free promotional downloads.  When people buy a Rev if they download any games Super Metroid is easily going to be one of their first.  So then what if later Nintendo includes Super Metroid with Metroid Prime 3?  That's kind of a bummer.  The really good games are going to be popular downloads yet the really good games are what logically makes sense for promotional downloads.  So what's the ideal way of handling that?  Personally I think for promotions it should be more general like "pre-order and get a free download."  They could highly suggest specific titles by offering reprinted instructions of the "intended" classic game.  So if you pre-order Metroid Prime 3 you get a Super Metroid manual and a card with a number that says "use this to download Super Metroid or any other of the following titles."  So the promotion is clearly based on the classic game but the option is there for people who already have it.

[Pale]

To be honest, I kind of expect them to all be free.  Trying to manage downloadable games is a complete and total headache that I wouldn't want to take up.  I mean... I can't just see the phone calls from angry people who want to redownload a game they already paid for.  Also, knowing Nintendo's stance on piracy, making these games downloadable to a card that can be easily read by a computer sounds like a bad idea if they are intending to make people pay for them.

The good thing about making something free is that it really requires no tech support at all.  If people screw something up and/or can't figure out how to download what they want, its not like they are going to get THAT angry, knowing that they are getting it for free.

Boy, if this is true it would sure be a big change for Nintendo though.  I also think they would sell a TON of Revs.  I would be a little bit worried about this lowering there game to system sales ration quite a bit though, but is that a bad thing if it happens because system sales are going up rather than game sales going down?

[Savior]

Its got 512 MB of Flash Memory right? and an SD adapter... so if you dl alot of N64 carts it might fill up faster...  

[Caillan]

A lot of people I've talked to seem to be sold on downloading old games. Sure there are emulators, but they're not perfect: they have worse controls than the real thing, multi-player is hasslesome, and most of us want to repect Nintendo's copyright (so long as their conditions are reasonable). If the first-party downlaods are free then I swear I'll buy a Revolution at launch. No matter what. Playing Mario Party with controllers that aren't wrecked will once again satiate my gamimg palate (my hunger for Bumber Balls runs deep). I think a lot of units would be sold on that merit as well.

Pre-order bonuses wouldn't be a problem. You could maybe get a demo of an upcomming game or a slightly reworked version of an older one. Like Master Quest. Besides, there's other things they can do except just give out games. I mean, with Harvest Moon you got a giant inflatable cow. How awesome would a giant inflatable mushroom be?  

[MrMojoRising]

I like your idea Ian...that seems to work out well for everyone!  I'm guessing that Nintendo will be looking very deeply into how much of a hassle it would/will be to make people pay for games and then figuring out if it would cost just as much to work out everything with paying for games as just giving them away.  No one is going to buy them if they're too expensive, so they don't have much leeway.  I'm interested to find out what route they take.

[jasonditz]

Quote
Originally posted by: Pale
To be honest, I kind of expect them to all be free.  Trying to manage downloadable games is a complete and total headache that I wouldn't want to take up.  I mean... I can't just see the phone calls from angry people who want to redownload a game they already paid for.  Also, knowing Nintendo's stance on piracy, making these games downloadable to a card that can be easily read by a computer sounds like a bad idea if they are intending to make people pay for them.

It'll be tough to manage, but the potential profit margins are staggering. Having the same guy who talked to all the people who ruined their GBA by improperly installing an Afterburner talk to the same people who accidentally formatted their SD card when they were trying to get their Windows PC to read it is probably good enough. Keeping an account with a record of what they've paid for and allowing them to redownload it isn't that big a problem, and probably worthwhile too.

Plus an encrypted SD Card is not easily read by a computer. Its actually quite a pain in the ass.

Quote
The good thing about making something free is that it really requires no tech support at all.  If people screw something up and/or can't figure out how to download what they want, its not like they are going to get THAT angry, knowing that they are getting it for free.

True, but if its done properly, its a chance to really cash in on those titles once and for all. If you had a reasonable pricing scheme, you're going to make hundreds of dollars off of a lot of people with almost zero delivery costs. There's no reason tech support should be so high it makes the system unworkable.

Quote

Boy, if this is true it would sure be a big change for Nintendo though.  I also think they would sell a TON of Revs.  I would be a little bit worried about this lowering there game to system sales ration quite a bit though, but is that a bad thing if it happens because system sales are going up rather than game sales going down?

That's why I more picture this as a "beat Metroid Prime 3 in under 20 hours, get a unique code to download 2 free SNES titles" kind of situation. Their profitability depends on selling software, so any giveaway scheme has to be designed not to cut into that.  

[KDR_11k]

Quote
Originally posted by: Caillan
Besides, there's other things they can do except just give out games. I mean, with Harvest Moon you got a giant inflatable cow. How awesome would a giant inflatable mushroom be?

Let's not extend that example to the DoA games, 'k?

[Renny]

Why not?

[NinGurl69 *huggles]

Can I have some bedsheets like these but with Daisy instead?

[KDR_11k]

Yeah, the perfect accessory to make you look like a complete nerd...

[Don'tHate742]

I will bet you anything that if Nintendo charges money, the games will be pirated.

[jasonditz]

Quote
Originally posted by: Don'tHate742
I will bet you anything that if Nintendo charges money, the games will be pirated.

So? People still pirate MP3s, that doesn't keep iTunes from making money.