Topic: XBox Live Arcade Pricing: $10-$20

[Kairon]

The XBox Live Arcade is Microsoft's answer to Nintendo's retro library. As far as I can figure, it allows players to download for a fee more casual oriented arcade-style games, much like one might find on Flash Websites or on Yahoo, if I'm correct.

But anyways, according to this article from Gamasutra: X360 Live Arcade Pricing

These live arcade games will cost anywhere from $10 to $20 a download!

This begs the question, how expensive will Nintendo's Retro downloads be? Perhaps we'll find ourselves paying as much as $9.99 for NES classics like Duck Hunt, Lolo, and Balloon Fighter.

One point of comparison: Nintendo's E-cards. If you bought the $40 dollar GBA accessory, you could buy simple old NES games on E-cards at about 5-6 dollars a pop.

On the one hand I dream of $4.99 NES downloads. On the other hand, if Microsoft is charging $10-$20 for High Definition Yahoo/Flash games, why wouldn't Nintendo charge as much for honest to goodness classics?

~Carmine M. Red
Kairon@aol.com  

[Artimus]

That is NUTS. MS is making the mistake that I believe Johnny made a huge post (or was it an editorial?) about. They're assuming just because people play the games on their PCs for free means they'll play for slightly better versions. His example was cell-phones and the N-Gage, but I think it's apt here. No one is going to pay $20 for Joust or Checkers. You'd be nuts to.

IMHO the Rev games should cost all less than $10. Maybe $3.99 for NES, $6.99 for SNES and $9.99 for N64. It's not like Nintendo is having to put much money into them. it's almost entirely all profit. Personal I'd IDEALLY see an iTunes like setup with $0.99, $1.99 and $2.99 prices respectively.

[Toruresu]

If we could somehow download them to the DS, then it would be an iTunes thing...download a Snes game for $1.99 download it to your DS, and play till your battery dies or you turn the DS off. When you do, simply download it again from the Revolution's flash memory to the DS again, brilliant.

[Kairon]

More detailed information:

More XBox Live Arcade News

This bit changes the pricing range to $5-$20.

~Carmine M. Red
Kairon@aol.com  

[Nephilim]

Wouldnt suprise me
Esp. the attitude I found online when bungie announced the maps for halo 2, everyone was like "support bungie, buy the maps, dont just get them for free from your friend" when on PC map packs are normally free (were talking about 3 maps, not a whole cd of them)
Xbox fans I reckon will pay silly money for a pool game or a few card games

[Ian Sane]

"This begs the question, how expensive will Nintendo's Retro downloads be? Perhaps we'll find ourselves paying as much as $9.99 for NES classics like Duck Hunt, Lolo, and Balloon Fighter."

Knowing Nintendo I figure intially the games will be way overpriced.  Then one of two things will happen.  Either the service won't do as well as expected and Nintendo will be forced to lower prices or all those idiots who overpaid for the NES classics GBA games will do the same here and Nintendo will laugh all the way to the bank.  Personally I would prefer the first possibility.

Logically the price should be very low.  Some NES games like Pinball or Donkey Kong Jr. Math are worth at most a buck.  They're just weak as hell and not worth any serious change.  If Nintendo has low prices then the downloads become more of an impulse buy and some people might buy every game they're even remotely interested in.  If they charged like $10 then people would only download the games they really wanted.

Nintendo's number one competition regarding the download service is emulation and that's free.  If I want to I can easily download any NES game ever made including Japan-only titles, hacks, games made by defunct companies, and licenced games that would likely not be allowed to be resold.  The Rev won't be able to compete with that flexibility so they better be very user friendly to get people to pay and that means they have to be cheap.  Downloads are almost 100% profit anyway.  There's no R&D for these games if they just go with straight emulation, no physical materials that need to be made, no warehouses to store product and no shipping.

[vudu]

If Nintendo sells classic downloads for too cheap they'll cannabalize their sales for new games.  Nintendo isn't going to make a lot of money selling the Revolution (if any) so they need the revenues from game sales to bring up their bottom line.  If a $50 new game nets Nintendo $10 profit and gives the consumer 20 hours of enjoyment then five old games that each have four hours worth of enjoyment in them better give Nintendo at least $2 profit each.

An even bigger risk involves alienating third parties because consumers stop purchasing their games because they're too busy playing old games.  If I can download FFIII for five bucks, why am I going to pay $30 for the GBA port?

[KDR_11k]

I hope for an Euro or two because I won't be paying much more. A tenner for a NES game? F### off. It's worth it on the GBA because it's portable but on a home console?

[PaLaDiN]

"An even bigger risk involves alienating third parties because consumers stop purchasing their games because they're too busy playing old games. If I can download FFIII for five bucks, why am I going to pay $30 for the GBA port?"

Nintendo's not going to allow games to be downloaded without getting the developers' consent.

Although Square might have new ways to undermine other RPG makers... by releasing FFIII for download on the same day as somebody else releases a new RPG, for example.

[Artimus]

Any games getting portable remakes won't be available. I think that's pretty obvious.

[vudu]

I was just using FFIII as an example.  Let's say Nintendo puts Super Metroid up for download.  A couple months later a brand new 2D Metroid game comes out for GBA/DS.  While I'm sure most on this board would still be interested quite a few gamers might feel that they're not as interested in the new game because they just finished playing Super Metroid which has a very similar play style.  So while Nintendo might have made $5 a game releasing Super Metroid for download, they may have lost $10 a game on lost sales of the new Metroid game.

(Please note, I'm just trying to look at it from a business perspective.  As a gamer I'd love $2 downloads.  But I also don't want this to affect Nintendo's bottom line so much that their business is put in jeopardy.)

[Pale]

As I've said before, I think the games will be seemingly overpriced, but will then be used as pre-order and game registraion incentives.

Pre-order Prime 3, get Super Metroid...

Register Prime 3 on Nintendo.com, get 20 Nintenbucks to spend on downloads (which may only amount to 1 or 2).  

[Ian Sane]

"While I'm sure most on this board would still be interested quite a few gamers might feel that they're not as interested in the new game because they just finished playing Super Metroid which has a very similar play style. So while Nintendo might have made $5 a game releasing Super Metroid for download, they may have lost $10 a game on lost sales of the new Metroid game."

That makes no sense.  If anything after playing Super Metriod and loving it they'll be in an even bigger mood to buy the new Metroid game.  If the downloads would eat into sales so would all sequels or player's choice titles or really old used games.  I can buy Super Mario Bros for the NES for like a buck.  But I'm still buying Mario games.  No gamer would deny themselves a new game just because they could get an entirely different game in the same series for cheap.  I own every Zelda game and every Metroid game because they kick ass.  Don't think of it as Super Metroid for $2 vs. Metroid V for $30.  Think of it as two Metroid games for $32 because that's how people are going to see it.

[vudu]

I argued this with Bill in another thread, but are you familiar with the law of diminishing returns?  After playing the same game (or type of game) for a long period of time, most people will get bored and seek out something new.  That doesn't mean you're through with Metroid indefinitely, but you need a change of pace for a while.

Try this:  go play Super Metroid.  Then play Metroid Fusion.  Immediately after that, play Zero Mission.  Your enjoyment of Zero Mission will almost certainly be less than if you had just went straight to Zero Mission.

[Avinash_Tyagi]

I expect the games will be anywhere from $5-$10

Anything more would be too much and anything less would lack excellent profit margins.

[Arbok]

Random side note, but does anyone know when more details might be allotted for the Revolution's download service, or how a third party might go about adding their games to Nintendo's library? I have a company that left the industry which I wish to talk about this (not going to name them, although I assume most of their content won't interest the bulk here anyway), but I have no details to discuss in regards to this (an idea of profit would be the greatest tool).

[Avinash_Tyagi]

Probably no major details until next year...my recommendation try contacting NoA

[Kairon]

Personally, I've guessed at exhorbitant prices up to $25 for an N64 game.

But I think the real sweet spot here is below $5 for NES games, below $9 for SNES games and below $14 for N64 games.

These games need to be priced at impulse buy level, especially for casual gamers shopping online: it needs to be painless to buy Balloon Fighter or Lolo!

Although I agree with Pale, the promotion possibilities are interesting.

Pre-order Metroid Prime 4 and get to DL the NES original for free while waiting?

Buy a "Game Card" for $20 and get 4 free downloads of your choice?

Subscribe to NP and get a free DL of your choice?

DL F-Zero X and get a $5 off your purchase of F-Zero REV?

Buy FF:CC REV and save $3 off your DL of FFVI?

Register your Revolution with Nintendo and get a free "Donkey Kong" Download?

Download $30 worth of old games and you can get in the mail a free sneak peak demo pack for new and coming games?

and perhaps the most striking possibility of all:

Download Kid Icarus for the NES and you can also DL a sneak peak demo video for the resurrection of the series on the REV?

~Carmine M. Red
Kairon@aol.com

[TMW]

How will it undermine profits?  NIntendo isn't paying for the bandwidth, and it costs them nothing to put a 10 year old game for download.  

Honestly, would it be a subscription service?  It would be a nice way to pay for the costs of having a "Free" network, and you have unlimited downloads.  

Not everyone would have to subscribe, but $10 or $20 a month for Unlimited Retro Games isn't a bad price, I think.  

[nickmitch]

Yeah, but Nintendo would make more money buy selling them individually, unless there was a release system.

[wandering]

hmm- expensive, but not outrageous. I remember I once blew over $20 on a 25 cent Donkey Kong Jr. machine, so asking for upwards of $20 for arcade games isn't that bad.

Oh, and Xbox Arcade will have Atari games, too, right? That'll be the clincher. I'd honestly be tempted to buy a 360 just for games like Pitfall, Space Command and COMBAT....if I didn't already own an Atari 2600.  

[KDR_11k]

NIntendo isn't paying for the bandwidth, and it costs them nothing to put a 10 year old game for download.

Why isn't Nintendo paying for the bandwidth? What gives you that idea?

[Nephilim]

I dont see why people go overboard with bandwith
Only need a few 1000Mbit/sec servers, each one could serve 1000 people at once, each download takes up to 5mins
Thats like 1,000-5,000 a month server costs (im guessing the price baised of 100Mbit costs 100usa a month prices)
500 downloads at 5bucks, easly pay for that geez, let alone 100,000+

[KDR_11k]

How many gigabytes of 100MBaud cost 100$ a month? I don't believe there are any unlimited bandwidth business-level connections available at that speed because they can produce terabytes of traffic and those cost. Because there is a limit to the bandwidth each node in the internet can handle and the node costs money to maintain traffic costs money. Since the service provider can't get that raffic for free, I doubt their business customers can. Consumers are a different affair, they don't cause nearly as much traffic as a business.

Never mind that Nintendo (at least NoE) can't get a website to work with high load, what will they do with the download servers?

[stevey]

Quote
Originally posted by: wandering
Oh, and Xbox Arcade will have Atari games, too, right? That'll be the clincher. I'd honestly be tempted to buy a 360 just for games like Pitfall, Space Command and COMBAT....if I didn't already own an Atari 2600.

well there are other thing that let you buy & play atari game(old) and sega game(old and new) on the pc so there no need to buy 360 I wont say it name because it try to copy nintendo idea