Topic: Will there be Revolution rentals if there are a lot of controller accessories?

[JonLeung]

I remembered someone at Nintendo saying that controller accessories should be cheap to manufacture since the bulk of what is needed is in the "remote control" portion.  Hence, if developers wanted to, it wouldn't be too much to ask, cost-wise, to do so.

Now aside from the clunkiness of possibly having a bunch of accessories that are unique to particular games, I wonder how this would affect my gaming lifestyle, which revolves around renting a game on a weekend, finishing it 100%, returning it, and not caring about it anymore.  I'm very highly dependent on rentals to keep from going broke playing all the games I want to.

Already I'm disadvantaged by Blockbuster not knowing what's going on - if you recall from my other topic, Blockbuster only allocated eight copies of Mario Superstar Baseball to ALL OF CANADA, which excluded the nearest store, or any in this province, for that matter, and I only finally got that straight answer today, the same day I tried to rent Super Mario Strikers but the store "received them incorrectly" so even though they had them they couldn't rent them out...but that's another story.  Point is, sometimes you wonder if they could handle keeping track of games and accessories if they have trouble with just games.

Another Mario game excluded from my local Blockbuster is DDR: Mario Mix, but that's probably because of the large pad that's required to play it.  I can rent the Mario Party games with the microphone, and I've rented Hey, You Pikachu! with its microphone and EarthBound with its packaged-in Player's Guide so they have been capable of dealing with small-ish items.  No DK: Jungle Beat or either of the DKa games, likely due to the fact that the bongos are realtively big.

I'm sure the Revolution accessories will usually be of decent size, but if they are numerous, rental places may become hesitant to rent them out.  Even if the Revolution is so great, you know I've said time and again that Blockbuster has no business sense to pick a dozen Ribbit Kings over a single copy of Mario Superstar Baseball.</broken record>  So it wouldn't be worth it for them, surely.

What do you guys think?  Could having controller accessories get "out of hand"?  Pun intended, I won't lie to you there.

(On a related but more general note: if Blockbuster doesn't carry Revolution games for this very reason, and if there's any truth to the thing about the PS3 registering the discs being used on them so that games can't be lent out or rented out, then the Xbox 360 could very easily rule the renting scene...)

[Hostile Creation]

I think the amount of accessories is being over-analyzed.  They'll have the nunchuck and the shell, but most people (if not everyone) will have both of those.  I doubt others will be much more numerous than stuff like bongos or dance pads.
And some of them will probably be optional, like a gun add-on for more realism in terms of tactility.

[BigJim]

I doubt accessories will take off.  In real life, it won't be as easy as "it's cheap, so just throw it in."  They need to decide who develops it, who pays for the unique packaging, etc. Chances are there are enough hoops to jump through that will largely discourage it, especially with Nintendo's complete control over the process.  So rentals probably aren't going to be a big issue, I'd think. At least not because of accessories.

[ThePerm]

why rent if you can download demos?

[KDR_11k]

Because a rental is the full version and doesn't require an internet connection?

[ShyGuy]

Do they rent Mario Party with a Microphone or Donkey Konga with the Bongos?

[JonLeung]

As I said, microphone, yes, bongoes, no, and that's likely due to size.

[Nephilim]

lucky your in canada
rentals for gamecube games were dropped by movie stores about 1year after launch, only game stores rent them pretty much in australia

[kirby_killer_dedede]

I'm sure it won't be a problem.  I know in the N64 days they rented the mic attachment along with that one Pikachu game.  I'm sure attachments will be sold with the game as well, just like dance pads and bongos.

The real problem is making sure Nintendo bundles the shell with the system.  I know a lot of the mainstream won't know about it unless either Nintendo advertises it like crazy or of course bundles it with the system.  And if not any other attachments, the shell is going to be a must-have for every single Rev owner.

Edit: And at my local Blockbuster they don't rent bongos out with the game but they do rent bongos sepparately.  If the attachment feature of the Rev remote is something that a lot of devs take advantage of, then renting is not going to be a problem.  But then again no Blockbusters in the US rented out FF:CC or TLOZ:FSA because they required the link cable (or thats the story they gave me).  

[eljefe]

Quote
Originally posted by: KDR_11k
Because a rental is the full version and doesn't require an internet connection?

Technically, wouldn't Nintendo be able to have downloadable-rentals of full games that expire after a certain time period?

I don't know the logistics of that..

[KDR_11k]

That would take way too long to download and the Rev can't store it with it's measly 512MB of non-volatile memory.

[Ian Sane]

The "they can just throw in an attachment" idea is unrealistic.  It would never take off.  Third party pack-ins are really rare.  Pack-in accessories aren't that uncommon but they're almost always first party games or games made in collaboration with the first party (like DDR Mario Mix).  It's probably safe to assume that no third party would include an attachment with their game when the Rev is the last place console anyway and if the game could be done on the PS3 or X360 they might as well go there and avoid the hassle.  Nintendo's going to include the shell with every controller or there's just not going to be many games available period and renting will be a moot point.

But considering Blockbuster's lack of interest in the Cube I have a feeling that Rev rentals will be obscure regardless of accessories unless Nintendo gets their market share up.  It's unfortunate but without some big promotional deal with Blockbuster I don't see Rev rentals being something to even think about.

On the Cube I've just accepted that a game is either a purchase or I'm not playing it at all.

[ThePerm]

As far as peripherals go. Nintendo needs to release their own peripherals that compete with say konami's like a dance pad and their own dance games. Konami also has to release a dance pad. This is what builds an availability.

[KDR_11k]

Why?