Topic: Something that could really help the Switch take off

[Miyamoto]

One of Nintendo's greatest strengths is its IP and back catalogue. so far this has been underutilised. With the Switch Nintendo need to do two important things with the Virtual Console. Firstly, they need to have a huge library. I'm talking everything first party and as much third party content they can lay their hands on, and it needs to be ready day one, not drip-fed over years, day one over a thousand games. Secondly, they need to be very aggressive with the pricing. Considering Nintendo has already seen financial return on these games, there's no reason for them not to offer excellent value for money, especially considering what their competitors are currently offering. I would suggest for game pricing: GB 1$, NES 2$, SNES 3$, GBA 4$, N64 5$, GC 7$, Wii 9$, Wii U 12$. Nintendo will never have third party support like the other two home consoles, first party will always be their USP. There's just one obstacle stopping Nintendo from carrying this out. Greed. They would sooner sell 10 copies at a premium price than a thousand at a fair one. And it's that greed that will sink the Switch. They're sitting on an abundance of content that will draw millions of gamers, but their greed will keep it locked behind a paywall which is too high for most.

[Kairon]

I'd rather they use their Virtual Console catalog to try to launch a subscription all-access/growing-access model of some sort. Personally I'd prefer to buy things outright, but subscription models provide much more business stability and also opportunity for Nintendo, would strengthen their customer retention efforts, and for them to implement it they'd need to enact some sort of robust account system and that's something I think everyone would like to see.

[rygar]

Would a subscription model allow you to download X number of games at a time for offline play? Marvel Comics has this for their back catalog. I'd be very interested in that. For me, it would have to be priced very low if it required an online connection.

[Miyamoto]

I also think the subscription model is a good one to adopt. My only fear is that Nintendo would go with a premium price for a minimal number of subscribers rather than an aggressively competitive price that would see millions of users as well positive reinforcement for the Switch.

[supermario2k]

The only way I would pay for a Virtual Console subscription, after giving it years of consideration, would be if they found a way to use some legal loophole that says they have a right to redistribute ANY piece of software that was released on their old consoles. That way they can go for 100 percent of the licensed stuff. If there is no way to do that forget it. I can get the ROMS for free.

What I like about the Virtual Console is I get to pick and choose which games I pay for and download. A Subscription service might have games on a rotating basis like Netflix, or it might be a situation where you can only play a certain number of games each  month offline or otherwise, and that sucks.

I look at the entire Wii and Wii U virtual Console, hell I can throw 3DS in there too, its sort of a mess but value wise its not worth paying monthly for. I mean what happens when the month rolls around where your limited to Clu Clu Land, Wrecking Crew and Excite Bike as your NES offerings, and you can't even play NES Remix to get your Mario/Zelda fix because its locked to the Wii U/3DS?

I used to be a champion of this sort of service until I realized all the legal entanglements they would have to unwind and all the money they would have to fork over, there is no way to do it cheaply.

As it stands, even if I could get the entire Virtual Console library, that means Wii, Wii U and 3DS I wouldn't pay more than $5 a month for that. I checked how many games I owned and how much I paid for them, many, many of the games I downloaded only because they were freebies from one of those trade in virtual points for games promotions or those really rare buy games and earn bonus double points they did when I bought my Wii U. I added it up I have over 120 games for the Virtual Console, and I paid a little over $600 total over the course of ten years. That comes out to $60 a year, average. That is taking into account all the games I got for free. That comes out to $5 a month. They sure as hell are not going to offer a service worth paying for at that price. If not for freebies that would have been just over $2300, yeah I really took advantage of that point system and all the freebies I could get.

Of course I didn't count as free the games that were gifted to me because someone paid for those. Usually Kairon because he is a giver and a true fan.

[Kairon]

Would a subscription model allow you to download X number of games at a time for offline play? Marvel Comics has this for their back catalog. I'd be very interested in that. For me, it would have to be priced very low if it required an online connection.

I haven't looked hard at existing successful models, but I was wondering about whether it was possible to have a subscription model that also "paid out" in actual games. That is, say it's X dollars to play any game in the Virtual Console Library when online, but every month you'd earn a credit for a free NES/SMS/MX VC title. If you didn't spend it, next month you'd have saved up two credits and that would be enough for a TGFX16/Genesis/SNES title. The more monthly credits you built up, the higher up the system generations you could go. Numbers all inexact, but the basic idea is that by being a subscriber you build up access to an offline catalog as well. If you want to stop your subscription, then you'd still have your offline games that you'd unlocked.

Of course, I don't think a Nintendo Subscription service should JUST be VC games. I think it'd have to bundle together a lot of different benefits to make sense. My understanding is that PSPlus sort of has a collection of benefits and is not just a single sort of thing being sold? Amazon Prime for that matter too.

Of course I didn't count as free the games that were gifted to me because someone paid for those. Usually Kairon because he is a giver and a true fan.

It enrages me that I cannot gift games anymore. PURE. RAGE.

[nickmitch]

While I would like the subscription model, I think I already own a lot of the games I would play and don't play a lot of the games I own.

I'd almost rather see them do more HD GC ports to fill out the lineup.  Hopefully to include some games that never made it out west.

[KeyBilly]

Whether subscription or just prices more in line with what people were expecting before the Wii VC prices were revealed, I agree that they need to have every possible game available from the beginning.  They could also give away games as promotions for upcoming sequels, holiday sales, etc.

Their refusal to do this may not be just greed, but fear that it will devalue games in general.  As we've seen in the mobile space, customers can get in the habit of free or $1 games that they play for a few minutes and never again.  Still, the same could be said of Steam sales and Humble Bundles, neither of which have killed the PC gaming market.