Topic: With M2 handling the GBA VC games, World-e on Super Mario Advance 4 is more likely to happen

Two reasons why it's $10 instead of $8.

First, dare I say it, it's a rare download.
Second, the extra cost most likely came from the extra licensing fees that prevented its release for many years prior. (Dali's Clock, anyone?)

I'd say earthbound's increased price is only there because:

1) It is about as niche as niche games can be, only true fans will even consider it.

2) Said true fans will literally pay anything for it (including paying over 400 dollars for a cartridge)

3) By increasing the price, but keeping it still cheap, buyers will feel more confident in that they are paying extra for "premium" content.

Nintendo used it as "trump card" of sorts.

Rate downloads are digital games that cost an arm and a leg physically, like Earthbound.

Sure, simply asking $10 for a game like that caused most people who bought to not question it, since it wasn't available on the Wii, but I still say that, at least, some of the extra cost came from extra licensing fees. Earthbound was never rereleased because it was "a legal nightmare", and I still can't believe they resolved all the issues preventing its rerelease.

You're looking into the name too much, and no, it's not a Nintendo term. "Rare download" is a rare physical game made downloadable with it being shortened to "rare download" for the sake of brevity.

Only reason the term was coined was because some people on here believe that "rare downloads" should be charged an egregious amount of money on the eShop. Like paying $100 for Earthbound instead of $10.

I thought the term Rare Download was simply created by NintendoLifean Ogo in his popular joke thread. And you were just referencing that.

https://www.nintendolife.com/forums/wii_u_virtual_console/nint...

A thread talking about "rare downloads",

Earthbound costs more because they included a digital strategy guide. There were no legal roadblocks to releasing the game to begin with, I don't care what starmen.net said.

A digital strategy guide where you must suspend the game and view it in a browser or on your computer? No that's not why.

And with the legal roadblocks, explain why Earthbound was absent from the Wii Virtual Console.

Because Nintendo is clueless and did not think there was any demand for it. The fact of the matter is, Nintendo has never said one way or another as to why the game took so long to be re-released, so whatever we believe is really just speculation. Personally, I think if K.K. Slider from Animal Crossing can play songs like Johnny B. Goode without any lawsuits, I don't believe Earthbound was ever in any legal danger.

These are the three reasons why Earthbound couldn't be released.

The Sky Runner song needed to be changed
The Chuck Berry battle song needed to be changed
The Dali’s Clock enemy name needed to be changed

Now, we all know that everything, including these three things remained the same in the Wii U VC version. So what happened?

Well, let's look at lawsuits. The issue here is that when Nintendo gets used, whether win or lose, they still lose. They have to pay a lot of money either way. So, Nintendo isn't worried about losing lawsuits, they're trying to avoid lawsuits. And that's where the issue came in.

Nintendo's legal team wanted either one of two things. First, to change everything in the game that could lead to a lawsuit, or second, not release the game at all. NoJ didn't want any changes to be made to the game, understandably, so the game was never released.

Fast forward to 2013, where the game was announced and released. Apparently, Earthbound wasn't quite enough to draw legal ire, at least according to Nintendo's legal team.

So as for it being $10, who knows? Maybe to capitalize on its absence or to help ease potential court costs.

EDIT: So, I admit, I was wrong, but Starman.net was only repeating what Nintendo told them.

Nintendo works in mysterious ways

A valid criticism, but unless you can provide something to counter this, then this discussion is over.

I've never played the SNES version of Yoshi's Island, but I think the GBA VC version looks amazing on the gamepad and very nice on my HDTV. I love that the GBA games are cropped at a larger size than the SNES VC games (looks better than my SNES VC version of Super Mario World that is 4:3) and the smoothing option is beautiful. Like I said I never played the SNES version but I can't imagine it looks any better than this game using the smoothing effect. Also is nice to have the virtual manual with these GBA games.

And call me crazy, but I love Yoshi's sound effects during his flutter jumps. It gives Yoshi his charm and I distinctly remember it being odd not having his grunts in one of the NSMB games. If that was added in from the SNES version that's a plus for me.

Overall I'm really happy with the GBA version of Yoshi's Island especially with the bonus levels added to this version.

It was mostly speculation with no hard evidence aside from similar songs. The fact that these songs remain made the point moot

I think pop music similarities in the day's games are much more common than some people realize.

Sorry to be a stickler, but there's no such things as "NoJ," by which I'm sure you mean "Nintendo of Japan." Japan is the home of Nintendo's headquarters, so they go by NCL, which stands for Nintendo Company Limited. "NoA" is called Nintendo of America because it's a division of Nintendo.

@8BitSamurai Excellent point.

NoJ = Nintendo of Japan. It does exist!

I don't even know why I bother...