EarthBound is a game that you can now buy for less than $100.
http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/connectivity/35027
You may have heard rumors of a game called "EarthBound" finally being available on Virtual Console. Apparently it's a big deal, and it's informed this week's entire episode. In our first segment, Alex, Nick, and J.P. discuss the pricing structure on digital games on Nintendo platforms. Is it fair that EarthBound costs two extra bucks? We will answer that, and other difficult questions.
Our second segment is a classic: What We've Been Playing. This time around, Andy, Scott, Mike, and 'Trick talk mostly about EarthBound and Animal Crossing but a few other games as well.
Our mailbag is pretty empty, and we could really use more questions from you. Please send them to us by clicking here. And if you have a moment, please rate and review the show on iTunes.
I couldn't get the idea of he guy saying something about emulating Nintendo games vs selling them on the eshop.As I said a few times, there are ways to compete with piracy outside of pricing it for free. With movies and music, I dont pirate because Netflix and Music Unlimited make things easy for me and offer a reasonable price. With VC games, all Nintendo is doing is taking a ROM, making sure it runs right, giving it off-TV play, and releasing it for 5 dollars. I can already play emulated games on a DS and emulated games on my TV, so all you're offering me is paying 5 dollars for the exact same thing I can get elsewhere for free. If Nintendo added some kind of concept art or bonus features or included the Earthbound guide, that's when the VC games feel like something more than "just a ROM that costs money".
1.- Emulated games are always free....so the only way for Nintendo to compete with is putting their games on eshop for free? Emulating can't be stopped.
2.- Nintendo gonna make money of their intellectual property through eshop anyways. Maybe a 5 dollar Earthbound will make more costumers than a 10 dollar Earthbound...but as long as it sells a minimum projected from their own policies (including costs of porting the old games without glitches). It's ok for them. So I don't get who's losing in this argument? Nintendo is winning if they are selling more than the minimum...and in the case of Earthbound they are selling lots of downloads, consumers who have been waiting for this title are winning cause they are buying it. The only "maybe" is speculating about how many more ppl would buy the game if priced cheaper. But then Nintendo would expect to sell more units in order to achieve their $$$ target.
3.- While I was in college and had more money I also downloaded for free lots of stuff. But made myself the promise to buy things once I started working, which I've been doing successfully. I think that's ok, Nintendo maybe losing money with VC in ppl who's in highschool, College, etc. But I think Nintendo is selling lots of games through ehsop both in 3DS and WiiU, so I don't think they are worrying about that.
4.- The way Nintendo price their games is a topic of discussion. But certainly the numbers are in their favor, ppl buy their games man. The top selling games on the eshop are Nintendos!...only when ppl stop buying their games is when a price drop is expected.
5.- Why do I think some VC SNES classic are priced 8 bucks or more? To me is just intellectual property. Similar argument can be made when buying music. You pay 15, 20 dollars for music made decades ago, despite the change in format. Sometimes publishers made an effort and remasterize the old albums, but you can still find almost 100% copies of music now in CD format still costing more than 10 dollars. You can also drive a parallel with piracy and emulating. Everyone knows how to download music for free...yet still itunes makes money charging for music. In the case of Earthbound...that game sold pretty poorly in the West. So besides Miiverse petitions Nintendo had no assurance of how many copies they would sell through WiiU eshop, so in a way they were taking a risk, plus making sure that the game run smoothly on a VC (remember guys, some ports have been delayed on the WiiU cause of problems with the hardware...like D&D Chronicles of Mystara), and giving you the official Earthbound guide (gamepad optimized) online.
OMG I wrote a lot...but kudos to you guys for a good discussion (although a bit slow).
As I said a few times, there are ways to compete with piracy outside of pricing it for free. With movies and music, I dont pirate because Netflix and Music Unlimited make things easy for me and offer a reasonable price. With VC games, all Nintendo is doing is taking a ROM, making sure it runs right, giving it off-TV play, and releasing it for 5 dollars. I can already play emulated games on a DS and emulated games on my TV, so all you're offering me is paying 5 dollars for the exact same thing I can get elsewhere for free. If Nintendo added some kind of concept art or bonus features or included the Earthbound guide, that's when the VC games feel like something more than "just a ROM that costs money".
As I said a few times, there are ways to compete with piracy outside of pricing it for free. With movies and music, I dont pirate because Netflix and Music Unlimited make things easy for me and offer a reasonable price. With VC games, all Nintendo is doing is taking a ROM, making sure it runs right, giving it off-TV play, and releasing it for 5 dollars. I can already play emulated games on a DS and emulated games on my TV, so all you're offering me is paying 5 dollars for the exact same thing I can get elsewhere for free. If Nintendo added some kind of concept art or bonus features or included the Earthbound guide, that's when the VC games feel like something more than "just a ROM that costs money".
