Topic: A Discussion about Pricing

OK hear me out. Unless Nintendo decides to allow downloadable games to be assigned to an account rather than a system, it seems like alot of the games out now are overpriced. Basically, you are kinda paying for a long rental until your Wii goes out. THEN, with alot of hassle you might get your games back. WTF? In that case I'd rather have a hard copy of my games. All of my old SNES games work great, and I hope to keep them for years to come... but are our Wiiware games going to be able to have a similar lifespan? It doesn't seem like it. Another point to make is that there are NO supplies costs for Nintendo to put these games out. They aren't paying for the box, instruction manual, the disc, or anything else. So can you really justify so many games costing $10? In my opinion, more games should be selling between 500-800 pts...with just a few games selling for 1000. I think the Art Style series is on to something with the 600 pts price. That seems fair to me for the vast majority of Wiiware games. Does a $2-$4 price cut make that much of a difference??? Well, to me it does. Psychologically, when I look at a game priced 800 pts, I am not thinking expensive. However, by just adding $2 to the total, my initial impression of the deal changes considerably.

ok

They aren't paying for the box, instruction manual, the disc, or anything else. So can you really justify so many games costing $10?

If the same game was sold at retail identical to how it appeared on WiiWare, it would cost much more than it costs on WiiWare. However, unlike WiiWare games, retail games do go down in price so eventually they would cost for less than a WiiWare games. Several retail games from over a year old now cost between the equivalent of 1000 - 1500 points and offer a lot more content.

i agree blackdragon...thanks for adding to the discussion

When you buy a retail game, isn't it a long rental until it stops working?

i've never had a retail game stop working for any system. So no, it wouldn't be a long rental. If you are talking about the system going out itself....well....you don't have to ship your new system to Nintendo to make it able to play your retail games.

So you're saying just because none of your games have stopped working it isn't considered a long rental?

If it is it's still much longer than the system's rental

It takes a lot for discs to just stop working while systems can suffer a number of problems.

If anyone bothered to listen to the topic creator for a second, he's outlining a problem others have hinted at. If for any reason your Wii stops working, you could lose everything (for some, hundreds of dollars).

So yes I also believe downloadable games should be tied to accounts instead of Wiis. I don't know if they could really lower the price though, most games are already cheap and developers need to turn a profit.

How would accounts work though? If it's controlled with a password system somebody could easily transfer their games to another person's Wii, which would be piracy. If it isn't, then we'll just have the same problem. You'd also have to pay for a new Wii if you want the games again.

Well you'd have to pay for a new Wii and your games right now

I'm not sure how it'd work but it's still a problem, similar to the storage problem a while ago.

Maybe have them tied to friend codes. That way once you send your Wii in they can tell what games you had on that code. And they wouldn't be playable on other systems because of their unique code.

I'm sure Nintendo could come up with something much better, they've just made a habit of making key business decisions without contemplating the consequences. So now they have to hurry to come up with something, or there'll be hell to pay when millions of people want their games on the Wii 2 or 3DS.

It'd be easier to "bother to listen to the topic creator" if he would use handy dandy paragraphs. All I see is a jumble of text entitled a Discussion of Pricing. I'm not even sure what this has to do with pricing. The prices seem fine.

The ability to tie purchases to an account is another topic. They already are retrievable if you send in your Wii. It would certainly suck not to be able to transfer games, but like the SD card update, there is a simple solution to a stupid problem, and they may well realize this before Wii 2 comes out.

And in the mean time, if you just want it transferred to a new Wii, they'll do that if you send in the broken one or make a special case for a non-broken one (as someone on the forum has claimed to have done, I believe, with regards to changing to a black Wii).

Just sayin', I never bother reading a huge block of text. It's too easy to get lost and it's a chore to read. No thanks!

Oh come on it's like six sentences

Anyway I'm guessing you haven't heard how painstakingly difficult it is for you to get Nintendo to transfer your games over. Everyone I've talked to has said either they just sent them back a blank Wii and said there was nothing they could do, or transferred SOME of their games and acted as if the customer should be grateful.

It's not merely calling Nintendo up and asking 'Hey can you do this for me'

In relation to prices, developers don't have to pay for shipping, manuals, packaging, discs, yet you're still paying a decent price for a game that might only last until the end of your Wii. (which isn't always that long).

16 sentences, actually. In one paragraph.

How would you know if you refuse to read it?

Anyway, for the ones with the delicate eyes, since two spaces just makes all the difference...

I can count punctuation marks without reading the words between them. I'm very proud of that skill - I hear it's exclusive to people with eyes.

Even cooler is the ability to read the sentences while counting.

At least there's a handful of us that could coherently respond to your topic, Luke. Don't be disappointed, that may be above average for this site.

Yikes, could you guys be any pickier please? There have been many worse crafted and incomprehensible topics than this that actually get legit discussions...

Anyway, Luke raises a very valid point, people are making huge investments (over the purchase of multiple games, of course) when buying WiiWare and Virtual Console games. A title off the shelf breaks, it sucks, but you can replace it without giving an arm and a leg. Your Wii breaks? You MAY get SOME of your games back, but who knows. I know numerous people who've invested over $500 in these types of services, which is much more than a Wii itself costs! I think Club Nintendo might be the ideal solution, since it keeps track of the games you have purchased and doesn't need a Wii to access this info. Maybe take a page from Apple/Sony and let games be downloaded to X number of consoles?

Regarding prices, it would be nice if third parties could set their own, but I suppose Nintendo has probably stopped a handful of otherwise overprices games from appearing. Like on PSN and XBLA, some limited time sales occur. XBLA has "Deal of the Week," which is a pretty nifty thing for someone who's constantly shelling out for points. I believe Sega even had a sale on Virtual Console games or something (correct me if I'm wrong)?

not a problem; one of the many fabulous services i bring to the table is responding to rants in a clear and concise manner

How to prevent issues with Wii downloadable games:
Register your Wii via Club Nintendo.
Wii breaks.
Call Service. Will cost you, yes, but they'll fix it.
Ta-Da.

And as rentals nowadays cost 9 bucks a pop, yeah, most cost LESS than a rental.
The BIG problem is not even here yet. What happens when the next console comes out? Is it going to allow transfers? What if Nintendo stops supporting WiiWare downloads, then? What happens?

Of course, that's the problem with downloadable games IN GENREAL.

...am I on topic or no?