Topic: Do you think Nintendo should offer free games once a month like PSN+ and XBL Gold does?

I've honestly always thought they were somewhat idiotic not to leverage their vast back catalogue. If i was Nintendo i'd offer one VC rental per month, a couple free games upon purchase, and continue with the Club Nintendo game offers.

Yes. I don't see why they shouldn't do that. more people who checks out your game and likes it is probably going to equal more people who when the sequel comes by will more likely pay full price for it.

There are a ton of games that i would probably never give a try if there wasn't a sale on it to make me curious about and there are a large chunk of people like me in the gaming community, wither you like it or not.

You say Scrooge, I say smart consumer. If sales hurt the company, then Valve/Sony/Microsoft wouldn't be doing it.

It didn't start out as a Pay to play online thing, to be honest. If they just do like it was on the PS3 ("additional/steeper sales" + "Free" rentals), I think it would be fine. Though I doubt they could do it as frequently as the PS3 gets stuff (2 or 3 games a month).

So take this example a movie costs loads more to make than a game. You pay once to see it in a cinema and once again for the blu-ray. Why do they deserve less than someone making a game when they invested more.

@SkywardLink98 Tell that to the small one-shot companies which closed after their first title, not to mention that some developers are losing money through these kinds of sell-under-value deals. The only ones who benefit from that are the platform providers. It's bad practice from both providers and consumers to expect developers to sell their games that far below value, or even below regular pricing.
An example would be Guacamelee! STCE. When this new version came out, people on most boards/forums/sites/etc. were complaining about it being "overpriced", despite the main game being only about a year old and STCE having a good chunk of additional content to offer, not to forget the content of the game in general. But right off the bat, people claimed it would only be worth half the price, which is pretty much insulting the good work of the developers behind Guacamelee. And that's becoming a staple as of late. Bargain hunters openly boycott games until they're on a huge sale, even going so far as to encourage others right along the way.
And, just to elaborate, Valve has the entire PC community behind them, which is an open field for all kinds of games, so a steady supply of fresh dev's to ruin is always around for their first Greenlight. But Sony and Microsoft obviously maximize their profit with these sales. They pay developers a comparably extremely small fee, and in exchange, they get the full revenue from further game sales. Not only do they lure more players into their premium trap, they're also more or less disowning the developer, meaning they can sell the game at any price and immediately benefit from that.

Now you tell me that this is smart customer behaviour, and I'll go right ahead and redefine "smart customer" around the single-digits of IQ. It's the same as buying nothing but discounted meat - you hurt the industry because those who make quality meat go out of business, and soon we're all eating infested trash because only the trash is left.

@Kaze_Memaryu You're overlooking a few things. 1, it's not my job to keep the developers afloat. If they go under, it's on them. If they can't compete in such a competitive market like video games, then they shouldn't be making games. 2, they "discounted meat" is just as high quality as $60 AAA titles. Why would I buy Diablo III at $60 when I'll get the same or more fun out of Torchlight 2 for $20 (or $5 on sale)? Go ahead and tell me how I'm destroying the gaming industry and ruining people's jobs, but in the mean time I'll be playing some of the games I got on the last Humble Bundle.

To be fair, the race to bottom Steam has going is a game of chicken. No one's gonna win if neither side has the sense to hit the breaks. But I'm just gonna enjoy the good times while they last. Lord knows they won't be around for long...

This! I don't think Nintendo really have enough games on current gen consoles to be giving a few away each month, although a Netflix-style $10 a month for full access to the VC would be really nice. What I'd really love is better sales though.

I want to add that i think a large amount of Indie Developer's probably wouldn't have the large amount of popularity or they would have been gone a long time ago if it weren't for sales that promote their game and bring it to a larger audience who otherwise wouldn't bite it. I mean, i am sure you and many others whouldn't have played games you were on the fence about and then turned out to love if it weren't for sales.

Also, one-game companies fail all the time. It is unfortunate, but creating games and publishing them is a risk. and it would have been worse if it wasn't for sales because the "Bargin hunters" and the people on the fence will probably not buy the game and instead op for a safer less risky bet.

Not to mean, but this is roughly 20% off the original price. How is that a bad deal?

It ain't bad, but compared to PSN's sales, they could do better. I got a few PS1 games for .99 once. that is around 4 games 2 generations ahead vs. 1 NES game.

Valve cannot really lose.

But the really good indie stuff doesn't get discounted much for at least a year.

The AAA's I am not that bothered about but they get money from consoles anyway. (And just extra money from Steam).

If they start making PC Exclusives that are as good as they can be then I will consider paying full price for AAA's. (I don't object to doing it on Wii U).

To be fair, the number of sales helps probably helps make up for the discounted prices. I never buy a game on steam unless it's on sale, but I also buy more games that way too.

I'd rather see a real subscription service.

Like one where you pay a monthly fee and get several games a month to select from.

Not a crummy excuse for making people pay for online.

Which will eventually be a problem, because in supply and demand, it's gonna be harder to convince people to buy more games when everyone has a more supply than demand - when everyone has more games than they want to play, don't be surprised if those sales won't be enough to convince a lot of people to buy their games anymore.

Didn't Valve have financial problems? I surely cannot see selling games for dirt cheap a viable way of staying in business...

I rather the free/ discount promotions than the subscription service since it's more out there. Like with Pikmin 3, Mario Kart 8, and the 20% off eshop card (hope they have that again) people can view it as bargain to buy the product and protentally the system as a gift or for themselves if they were waiting for the right deal and likely the right game.

Besides I bet the people who will mostly take advantage of this subscription service is the same ones who take advantage (or knows) about club nintendo and digital download promotion in the sense they know it exist.

@unrandomsam

Every single post you make just gets dumber and dumber... and that does not apply to just this thread.

Only for somebody incapable of reading into anything. (Who needs every last thing stated in a boring dumbed down way).