Topic: Next Nintendo Direct?

@ShieldHero
If it's out of print media then at that point just don your three cornered had and sail the seas. Afterall it's functionally the same product and you're giving the same amount of money used or pirated

Obviously you can't download a phone and for some media the quality of the media can be vastly superior to the pirated copy. So there are reasons for using the used market for some things. But games? Yeah, I'm not going used. No way. Especially not with the hyperinflated prices retro games go for these days

@skywake, you're right about piracy being an option, and I'm definitely considering using that for out of print/production products, at least to an extent. Thankfully, at least for games, I don't really intend on buying used of those simply because back then, a lot of games were harder, and I'm not all that good at a lot of them (I also don't have the money for the aforementioned hyperinflated prices either). I was more talking about movies, TV shows, and music.

@ShieldHero
Used games are my alternative choice when I don't see something worthy from next gen consoles and physical games are no more so I can focus on building other physical games I don't have yet.

@ShieldHero
Oh, I'm definitely a fan of the used market for other kinds of media. Movies and TV shows in particular because unlike music the streaming options are hugely fragmented so it's very easy to find movies that aren't available anywhere or are on yet another service

I can walk into a second hand store, usually some charity shop, and probably find some BluRays for $2-3AU each. Netflix with ads is $8/mo, so the pricing there is alright. And you get a higher bitrate copy than on streaming and certainly most of the copies that float around on the internets

But with games it's like.... all copies are the same. Digital or physical, legal or not, used or new. There's no such thing as a higher quality version unless you value the plastic which I don't. So it just becomes a question of how much you're paying and who is getting your money. And I'd very much prefer to pay the developers than some retailer or someone speculating on the retro game market. I'd honestly prefer nobody got my money if I can't pay the publisher/developer for their work

@skywake, thanks for the further info. I do love DVD and Blu-Ray, because I can watch them without an internet connection and the shows can't just be removed like streaming. Also, streaming has only gotten more expensive post Pandemic. As of this January, Netflix is now $18 a month (!) without commercials (I refuse to get the cheaper with commercials subscription), so I only get one month of Netflix every few months when a decent amount of new Pokémon Horizons episodes are available. And because of the price increase this year, the last time I renewed Netflix was in December of last year, and my next one month renewal will be at the end of this month since my family has been wanting to watch some stuff on there, and there has been more Pokémon Horizons episodes since my last renewal (By this time of last year, I had already renewed Netflix two times, while this year, I've currently renewed it zero times, Netflix price increase made them lose money from me because I'm a jerk when it comes to money 🤣). Basically, while I do like it to an extent, I'm not the greatest fan of streaming. The Unpopular opinions thread is probably a better place for that sentence, honestly. Once I have my own house when I'm an adult, the basement will be full of shelves with DVDs and Blu-Rays, and I'll probably end up ripping them all to create homemade digital copies that I can access offline.

As for your paying the developers statement, I like supporting the developers/creators of my favorite series as well, so I can't argue with that. 😃

@ShieldHero "Basically, while I do like it to an extent, I'm not the greatest fan of streaming" I don't think this opinion is so wildly unpopular anymore. The increased number of providers fighting for market share and streaming rights, the increased prices, re-introduction of commercials without premium subscription … And while the average quality of shows went up compared to classic cable TV, the quality of peak entertainment has gone down dramatically imo (e.g. fast money through franchises, remakes of remakes of remakes etc.). So few shows and movies to get really excited about these days. Or maybe I'm just getting old and have seen it all already.

@jfp, hopefully, consumers continue realizing that what is happening is this: streaming services, over the past 3-ish years have been combining like crazy and bringing back ads as the norm again. All of this is basically streaming becoming the new cable. Streaming became popular in the 2000s because it wasn't cable, yet here we are.

I don't really buy used anymore as most of my used game purchases were of older games (like buying GCN games in the Wii/Wii U eras) and nowadays I just wait for a Switch port/remaster/remake to happen but I still think the used market is very important.

Every attempt to kill off the used game market has been all about trying to take away ownership of games, the most notable example of course being Don Mattrick's vision of the XB1. If used games disappear, it even affects people who only buy new.

Sadly more people are accepting of not owning their games nowadays but at least the gigantic backlash against Key Cards gives a bit of hope that there's still plenty of people who do care.

@ShieldHero Yeah, let's hope. Not too optimistic though. But I , like you, flatout refuse paying for a streaming service AND being forced to watch ads. That was the whole point of it to begin with and I'm not going back. Maybe I should invest in a blu-ray player too and frequent the public library more often …

@jfp, I'm not going back either. Well, actually, I was born in 2009 during the early days of streaming, so I was never alive during the "back", so... I guess I don't want things from my childhood to change? About ads, I also agree that if I'm paying for anything, ads are a no-no. If it's free entertainment, like YouTube, then whatever. But if it's Netflix, $8 a month with commercials, heck no. Agreed about the library, the library in my area that I actually haven't visited in ages has the option to order holds from other libraries in my state, including physical Switch games, so perhaps I should check that out again in the future since there are more games I've been interested in trying before buying.

@ShieldHero In 2009, still going to university, I was regularly borrowing DVDs and TV-Show Box-Sets from the library. Maybe life goes in circles. But now they also got Switch games too. I just hope streaming will never fully take hold in gaming, at least not if Gamepass serves as a role model.

@jfp, if video games completely went the streaming route, I would just go retro, I'm not even kidding. It pains me to say that that will probably happen eventually, even if it's 50 years in the future. I'm steeling myself for it by buying up a ton of good games now. Also, if you were at university in 2009, then you're probably twice my age! 🤣 However, I've noticed that my overall personality is mostly that of a person from the pre-Pandemic era, probably a mix of 2000s-2010s personality, with a touch of being a person who likes saving money and ownership. However, I can get along with modern things and people to an amazing extent as well, so... I guess I'm kind of a bridge between the pre-Pandemic and post Pandemic eras in terms of lifestyle? I'm not entirely sure, but I'm definitely not a common Joe. I know that I'm a weirdo and a slowly dying breed, and that's okay. I think that's how I get along with the other weirdos on the site who also like physical ownership! 😃 (I don't mean weirdo in a bad way, I mean the cool kind of weirdo)

I really dislike the “You will own nothing and be happy” route especially with classic Nintendo games. I was a very big supporter of the virtual console back in the day, spending thousands on the games, pretty much downloading at least one game each week to the extent my SD card maxed out on the Wii. On top of that I bought the same VC game on multiple systems (Wii, Wii U and 3DS (Paid full price on 3DS)) and every version of the VC Pokemon for Gen 1 and 2. My friend even joked asking me it’s not what games I have downloaded but the question is what haven’t I downloaded? I was very disappointed that Nintendo killed the option to buy classic games starting with the Switch when Sony allowed gamers to download classic games on current consoles even without a subscription (Even Capcom caved in and eventually allowed purchase of Dino Crisis and Resident Evil). It bothers me that at least with Nintendo it seems like now we only have a few years to buy a game before it goes out of print then gets expensive with very selective re-releases. I would have bought a ton of classic Nintendo games under NSO if Nintendo gave us that option.

@Don, seconded. I would pay money for access to the first 3 gens of Pokémon (HOME compatibility and save data cloud would be lovely as well). A man can dream... 😩

@ShieldHero You can buy a remake of one of them for $60...

@ShieldHero
There’s a chance they will re-release the original games for purchase on eshop perhaps for 30th anniversary like they did for the 20th anniversary back in 2016.

@FishyS, good point! My family actually has a physical copy of Let's Go Pikachu, but I generally prefer to get the second version, so perhaps I'll purchase and play Let's Go Eevee someday when I'm not busy with other games. @Don, I've been thinking the same thing for a while, that would make sense. The "a man cam dream" thing was more about the save data cloud, which all the mainline Pokémon games are still lacking.

If games went the streaming route I'd still buy games outright because streaming of games is a dead end solution. When we had hardware that was slow enough that it made sense we didn't have the bandwidth for it. Now we have the bandwidth for it but the hardware is good enough. And nothing you can do will get around the latency issues. It'll always be inferior

But a subscription service for games? I could get behind that, for the right price. Though the problem is I don't play a different game every day like I do a movie, TV show or album. I usually get one game I specifically want and play it for a couple of months or more. A subscription service doesn't really fit with that

With that said, NSO is good as a retro-filler service. Because I shuffle through those games like I would a demo. Sometimes I stick with a game but, it's more about the trying something new there. And that works fine. Especially for the price

@skywake I 100% do the same with NSO. Some of them are great, some I hate, but because of the way it is designed, I can sample all of them.

I don't mind the NES Nintendo Classics and the other classic console collections in the slightest, as a matter of fact I like them a lot, I'm just patiently waiting for the day that I can _legally play Zelda Ocarina of Time on Switch 1 or 2 without paying for the Expansion Pack.