Gaming Forums => Nintendo Gaming => Topic started by: joeamis on July 21, 2004, 11:07:14 AM
Title: Nintendo DS price and game prices
Post by: joeamis on July 21, 2004, 11:07:14 AM
I haven't been on the forum in a while because of vacation but I didn't see anyone post this so here it is for those who may've not seen it yet. The DS is believed to launch on November 11 at a price of $179.99 in the US, and Nov 4 in Japan for $174.78. DS System Price
Also in a completely different article from another source I read that DS games will retail for $35 (and expect big titles to be $40). I forget where I read that it may have been in the August issue of EGM or IGN.com or something else, I'll look into it.
Title: RE:Nintendo DS price and game prices
Post by: Jale on July 21, 2004, 12:12:36 PM
Again Europe is overlooked.
I think that England should be under NOA instead of NOE, it makes more sense, because then we wouldn't have to wait for games to be translated into umpteen different languages.
Title: RE: Nintendo DS price and game prices
Post by: odifiend on July 21, 2004, 01:15:56 PM
Speaking of which, will the DS have regional lock out?
Title: RE:Nintendo DS price and game prices
Post by: Jale on July 21, 2004, 01:36:36 PM
seems likely, as most things do these days
Title: RE: Nintendo DS price and game prices
Post by: Mumei on July 21, 2004, 02:12:17 PM
But Nintendo has never done that with their portables... Hopefully they'll keep up that practice of no regional lock out with portables.
Title: RE: Nintendo DS price and game prices
Post by: Ian Sane on July 21, 2004, 02:31:13 PM
"I think that England should be under NOA instead of NOE, it makes more sense, because then we wouldn't have to wait for games to be translated into umpteen different languages."
I assume you mean just for portables because there's the obvious PAL issue with home consoles.
Personally I wish NOA handled English Canada because here in BC (and virtually every area outside of Quebec) there's zero need for French on our packaging. I hate dual-language packaging. It just looks ugly as f*ck. But realistically I don't expect that to happen because all the French speaking Canadians in Eastern Canada would complain (for no good reason since they would still get their own French packaging) just like how all the non-English Europeans would complain.
Title: RE:Nintendo DS price and game prices
Post by: Jale on July 21, 2004, 02:33:20 PM
I never have got the whole PAL thing. Isn't it just regional lock out? If it is then they should start the switch now and then When the new console comes out put the UK under the same Region as the US.
Title: RE: Nintendo DS price and game prices
Post by: Ian Sane on July 21, 2004, 02:37:56 PM
"I never have got the whole PAL thing. Isn't it just regional lock out?"
It's different TV standards. PAL TVs use different voltages or something. I don't know the exact details but they wouldn't be able to just remove regional lockup and have consoles made for North American TVs work.
Ideally Nintendo should create a new branch that deals exclusively with the UK, Ireland, and Australia since all of those use PAL and all speak English. That way the PAL conversion is all that's needed. The UK doesn't have to wait for translations and Australia doesn't have to wait the fifty billion years it usually has to wait for games. Or at the very least have NOE distribute to Australia since even that would be faster.
Title: RE:Nintendo DS price and game prices
Post by: mouse_clicker on July 21, 2004, 02:46:08 PM
Quote seems likely, as most things do these days
The Gameboy never had a regional lockout, so why should the DS? Especially since it's backwards compatible with the GBA.
Title: RE:Nintendo DS price and game prices
Post by: Pikkcuber on July 21, 2004, 03:19:40 PM
I thought i heard something that said it will not have regional lock out. But back to the price's here. DO you think Wal-Mart will still sell these games for 30 like they do for the GBA, thats the reason i only buy my portable games at wal-mart,unless a special occurs of course.
Title: RE:Nintendo DS price and game prices
Post by: mouse_clicker on July 21, 2004, 03:41:17 PM
Eh, MSRP for just about all GBA games now is $29.99- Wal-Mart's nothing special. Occasionally you'll have some company (like Square-Enix) be a bastard and jack the price up to $34.99, but not usually.
Title: RE: Nintendo DS price and game prices
Post by: Blackknight131 on July 21, 2004, 07:19:53 PM
Wasn't FFTactics published by Nintendo? I also frquently see Fire Emblem for 34.95 MSRP.
Boktai was at first as well...but it has a solar sensor so I guess thats more clearly understandable.
-Blackknight131
Title: RE:Nintendo DS price and game prices
Post by: mouse_clicker on July 21, 2004, 07:25:13 PM
Quote Wasn't FFTactics published by Nintendo?
Yup, I guess you're right- it was Nintendo being the bastard here. The point is, though, most GBA games do retail for $29.99 now.
Title: RE: Nintendo DS price and game prices
Post by: Blackknight131 on July 21, 2004, 07:51:49 PM
I kind of have taken it to be the "standard" for portable games prices...I have never bought a portable game for more than 30 bux. I really pray that game prices for this market dont increase to such levels...and I've been encouraged by recent posts that point to the relative proce point deifferences in the japanese market and the american. For instance, I just learned that GBA games in Japan retail at first for the equivalent of 40-50 dollars U.S. A higher cost of living I suppose in Japan. At any rate, Im hoping that DS game prices will scale in the same way they have for the GBA games...if 3800 yen is the price point (direct US equivalent about 35 dollars) in Japan, may we be looking at games sub-30 dollars in the US?
Some people might think thats a pipe dream, but my wallet isnt afraid to dream.
-Blackknight131
Title: RE: Nintendo DS price and game prices
Post by: KDR_11k on July 21, 2004, 09:57:51 PM
It's not even a higher cost of living, in Poland you pay the same for a game as in England. AFAIK they set the prices before the US dollar crashed and back thenthe prices were identcal. They just didn't increase them after the dollar crashed.
I think the no-lockout in the GBA has the reason that you use it when you travel and when you travel you leave your own region, you couldn't buy any games if that lockout existed.
Title: RE:Nintendo DS price and game prices
Post by: joeamis on July 22, 2004, 09:57:21 PM
I wasn't gonna post this but, Nintendo is usually the only company selling gba games for $35 in the US. Mario & Luigi, Mario Vs Donkey Kong, Mario Advance 4, etc... I was upset when I paid $38 for FF Tactics Adv after tax.
Title: RE:Nintendo DS price and game prices
Post by: Mumei on July 22, 2004, 10:49:36 PM
Quote Originally posted by: Ian Sane "I never have got the whole PAL thing. Isn't it just regional lock out?"
It's different TV standards. PAL TVs use different voltages or something. I don't know the exact details but they wouldn't be able to just remove regional lockup and have consoles made for North American TVs work.
Actually, all eletrical outlets in Europe have a higher voltage than the ones in the United States. The reason? When electricity was first "invented", so to speak, they weren't very good at it and couldn't get higher voltages. So the outlets in the United States were a lower voltage. But by the time they made their way over to Europe, they had become significantly better and could get higher voltages. Thus, outlets over there had a higher voltage than the ones here. The only reason that the United States didn't switch over to the higher voltage outlets is because there were already so many people using the lower voltage outlets.
What this means is that if you plugged your NSTC Gamecube into an outlet in Europe, it would be getting so much more voltage than it needs that it would probably short out. That is why you need an adaptor when you travel to Europe for your electronics.
.... I can't believe I just wasted my time doing that >.>
Title: RE:Nintendo DS price and game prices
Post by: joeamis on July 23, 2004, 12:54:09 AM
no waste, that was fun to read. hardy har har I had forgotten Americans had elecricity for some time before everyone else, hardy har har hahahahaha. (currently toxicated and pulling an all nighter) Short Circuit 2! Jonny 5!
The real question though is does PAL just stand as a TV designation or is it for everything, I think it's just for TV format... whats America again NTSC? I can't remember no more... gittttin old
Title: RE:Nintendo DS price and game prices
Post by: Jale on July 23, 2004, 02:28:06 AM
Also probably why we have the earth prong on our plugs.
However, surely thats just a hardware concern. They must still have things on the disks so that they can only be played on the regional consoles.
Title: RE: Nintendo DS price and game prices
Post by: KDR_11k on July 23, 2004, 02:49:40 AM
PAL and NTSC are different resolutions and refresh rates. Though almost every TV sold in Europe can accept both inputs, apparently in the US there are still many NTSC-only TVs. Pal is a slightly higher resoluton at a lower refresh rate (though 100 Hz TVs take care of that, anyway). The regional lockout is probably enforced separately nonetheless. I think it's for price fixing or something. A PAL and NTSC game are different, but I don't think a japanese and a NA game have to differ much. Maybe character support, but they could have put that in without problems and just make one batch for both. For some reason Nintendo hates imports.
Title: RE: Nintendo DS price and game prices
Post by: Draygaia on July 23, 2004, 12:05:31 PM
Thats still cheap to me if it is true. Cheaper than any home console launch price and games cheaper than $50.
Title: RE:Nintendo DS price and game prices
Post by: kirby_killer_dedede on July 23, 2004, 01:11:57 PM
Quote Originally posted by: Jale I never have got the whole PAL thing. Isn't it just regional lock out? If it is then they should start the switch now and then When the new console comes out put the UK under the same Region as the US.
To expand on what Ian said, Nintendo doesn't really have a choice...all the TV's are PAL in Europe. The reason games go straight from Japan to America, is that they both support NTCS (as opposed to PAL), so all that's needed is language. European games usually head to America before Japan for a similar reason.
Title: RE:Nintendo DS price and game prices
Post by: Jale on July 23, 2004, 01:34:29 PM
Yes but if it is easy to just change the language then surely it is easy just to change the regional lockout that makes games NTCS compatable or PAL compatable. Its a CD for crying out loud. I can understand consoles taking longer but not games!
Title: RE:Nintendo DS price and game prices
Post by: joeamis on July 23, 2004, 04:12:32 PM
what does Australia have NTSC or PAL?
Title: RE: Nintendo DS price and game prices
Post by: KDR_11k on July 23, 2004, 10:25:06 PM
Australia uses PAL and is included in the Europe region, at least when it comes to market research or the GC's lockout.
Making the games both NTSC and PAL compatible would screw them up. Either they'd have a black border or the HUDs and stuff would look ugly since it's not meant for that resolution (and I'd trust bad third parties to not test their games under PAL)
Title: RE: Nintendo DS price and game prices
Post by: Uncle Rich AiAi on July 24, 2004, 12:08:49 AM
To add more to KDR's post about the difference b/w PAL and NTSC:
PAL has 625 horizontal lines at 25fps NTSC has 525 horizontal lines at 29.97fps
Title: RE:Nintendo DS price and game prices
Post by: Jale on July 24, 2004, 01:34:38 AM
How hard is it to change the resolutions?
Title: RE: Nintendo DS price and game prices
Post by: KDR_11k on July 24, 2004, 05:00:39 AM
Well, if you have GUI elements that are adjusted to certain screen positions, quite hard. What if suddently the pixels no longer match up? That's ugly. You'd have to redo them or at least squash them a bit. That's not as easy as it sounds since buttons, gauges and texts have to be repositoned.
Title: RE:Nintendo DS price and game prices
Post by: Jale on July 24, 2004, 09:17:58 AM
It stil really doesn't accunt for the large amount of tme that it takes a game to cross the pond. Some games are developed in the UK for crying out loud and they are released on both formats at the same time. I think its just the developers being lazy and selfish.
Title: RE: Nintendo DS price and game prices
Post by: KDR_11k on July 24, 2004, 11:04:13 AM
Keep in mind that the PAL version also includes additional languages. You might say "then why not release an English-only PAL version first?" but that would A. undermine their import block, they'd have to make GCs that only play english or other language PAL games to prevent people from importing from the UK to continental Europe and B. it's more expensive to produce multiple versions of the same game. They have one manufacturing plant for all of Europe, they'd need to produce two versions of every game and thus reduce the output per game. Also, the games couldn't be shipped between regions (e.g. a game sells badly in the UK but is in high demand in Spain, you'd have to scrap a whole lot of copies and produce new ones for Spain). I think the reduced manufacturing cost is also why Australia gets the same discs and Cubes as Europe.
Title: RE:Nintendo DS price and game prices
Post by: joeamis on July 24, 2004, 11:24:13 AM
Is it easier to convert from PAL to NTSC or from NTSC to PAL?
Title: RE:Nintendo DS price and game prices
Post by: Jale on July 24, 2004, 01:20:55 PM
I think they would solve it all if they made a detatchment of NOA that was devoted to converting the games for us and the ozzies. It wouldn't even have to be a big group. That Anglo-Spanish scenario is one of the problems with the system! It's not cheap to move copies from the UK to the continent. If they covered us with another group then if the game didnt do well it wouldn't do well, just like in America.
Title: RE: Nintendo DS price and game prices
Post by: KDR_11k on July 24, 2004, 08:27:27 PM
joe: Doesn't make a difference.
Jale: It would be even worse if they had to ship them from the US to the UK. I think the current system is the cheapest thing they could set up. I'm not sure how the other manufacturers handle this, though (but I think I heard similar complaints on the XBox). Also I'm not sure whether the UK and the rest of Europe are individually large enough markets to warrant two subsidiaries for covering them.
Title: RE:Nintendo DS price and game prices
Post by: Jale on July 25, 2004, 02:32:44 AM
Im not asking for one for just the Uk it should also cover Australiasia.
THat is a large number of people that are already buying games but getting pissed off that we have to wait MONTHS for games. ToS Is only just being ADVERTISED here!
Title: RE: Nintendo DS price and game prices
Post by: KDR_11k on July 25, 2004, 03:57:48 AM
... They already advertise ToS?
Title: RE: Nintendo DS price and game prices
Post by: odifiend on July 25, 2004, 04:19:32 AM
More like they advertise ToS at all? In America the game has been out for about 2 weeks and I have yet to see any ads.
Title: RE:Nintendo DS price and game prices
Post by: Jale on July 25, 2004, 06:02:41 AM
Yeh but the game isnt even available for preorder from GAME yet.
