Star Fox 64 (AKA Lylat Wars)! Great game. Came to Wii U Virtual Console last year. Here’s some free advice if you didn’t pick it up then: Don’t buy it.
As you may have heard, on March 3 Nintendo will release their next console, the Switch. As you may have also heard, Nintendo still hasn’t laid out their plans for the Switch’s catalogue of classic games. We don’t know if the Switch will have its own Virtual Console (other than those monthly NES/SNES games). We don’t know which games will be available. We don’t know how much it will all cost.
Most importantly, we don’t know whether those classic Nintendo games we keep buying on 3DS and Wii U will transfer to Switch or whether, in true Nintendo style, the company will expect us to buy them all again. (Maybe if we’re lucky we’ll get a $1-2 discount.)
One might hope that Nintendo, realising that classic games would help bolster the Switch’s launch and that they could earn a great deal of goodwill with fans by making things more convenient, might find a way to let 3DS and Wii U owners get free Switch versions of any classic games they already own. But with Nintendo, you never know. So consider this a public service announcement. Don’t buy more Virtual Console games until you know whether or not you’ll have to buy them again when you decide to upgrade to Nintendo’s next hardware.
Comments
22 responses to “Don’t Buy Any More Virtual Console Games”
Thanks for the reminder, I forgot about that catch. I only bought the games I was really liking again while the others are still in my Wii profile on my Wii U.
Great advice. Sony has never given discounts though to owners of digital PS3 titles when the PS3 to PS4 ported (or ‘remastered’) titles have come out on the PS4. It comes down to the publisher, Activation (for Destiny) offered subsidised upgrades for PS3 owners to buy the PS4 versions.
It’s going to be interesting to see how Microsoft handles the Xbox library when Scorpio gets released, and Sony with the ‘PS5’. Future compatibility of a person’s digital library in particular is a sleeping giant of potential consumer rage (or loyalty).
Scorpio is just a revision, not an entirely new console. Both it and the original Xbone will have exactly the same games, just the Scorpio will run them a bit better.
I’m sure it will be, but you can never predict what’s going to happen with future compatibility. Do Xbox 360 titles that appear to run slowly on Xbox One be impacted by the change of specs of the Scorpio? How far into the future will your digital games travel with you? There’s still a lot of unanswered questions.
JIm Sterling’s vid from the other week was a laugh.
If he said it once, he said it five or six times ‘Nintendo’s shit at this because they’re just roms’ and then has the audacity to whine when Nintendo issues a copyright strike against him and says ‘well it’s obvious they don’t recognise my hard work and the effort I put in to this content.
Isn’t Paul McCartney taking on Sony because of copyright issues? What’s the big deal, they’re just old songs! Who is this Paul bloke anyway.
Isn’t he that guy that Kanye West made famous? I think I saw a meme of that a while back haha.
‘Who is Paul McCartney? He boutta blow up thanks to Kanyer!!!’
Jim’s a lovely boy. His idea of copyright claim deadlock is a stroke of genius (for non-monetized youtube vids).
is that where he puts in multiple copyright infringements in the same vid so all the owners just fight each other and the vid is left untouched?
Yeah, but he can only do it because he doesn’t monetize his videos. If one party claims monetization then ads would appear on his vids, but when two or more parties claim then all monetization is blocked, which doesn’t affect Jim. Not sure if it works against DMCA take downs though.
I stopped giving a fuck when Sony essentially middle fingered us with PS2 classics bought on PS3 not working on PS4. Considering PCSX2 runs most of these games better, at higher resolutions and with better AA\AF\etc, I’m done. And I’ve taken the same approach to Nintendo after they shafted us with VC between Wii\Wii U\3DS.
While I get the argument about backwards compatibility, and have bought on that basis myself over the years (I paid well for a fully backwards compatible second hand PS3), I’m no longer convinced its all its cracked up to be anyway.
What I’ve found is that I simply dont play those old games any more. Despite having that PS3 that could play both PS1 and PS2 games, I think I loaded up a PS2 game twice. And even though I wanted to, and went looking for classic PS1 games to look at (I was always curious how the original Gran Turismo matched up to GT5, and see how FF7 looked) I just never bothered.
Backwards compatibility is nice, but if you’re so keen on them simply keep that old console. Having said that, if you buy those retro games on the VC, then yeah, better off holding off until you decide if you’re upgrading or not.
Heh, I’m the complete opposite – most new games don’t interest me that much, and play much more of my back library.
I want to play new games (and sometimes do) but my pile of shame generally keeps me on the straight and narrow.
Oh, I still play the older games on occasion (my pile of shame on all platforms is massive), but I just find I end up concentrating on the most recent thing first, and rarely go back to the older games.
I put a truckload of time into GT5 for example, but since GT6, I havent loaded GT5 once. My PS3 is in the bedroom as much as a media centre as anything, and even there it doesnt get any use – same tele acts as my PC monitor, and it has all the media I stream, and a blu ray drive.
I play the odd PS1 game on my Vita but tend to avoid playing them on PS3 because they tend to look bloody awful when blown up onto a big HDTV.
Thats what I wanted to see 🙂 I loved the original Gran Turismo back on the PS1, and was always curious how it would look on modern tech. I just couldnt find my old discs, so never got around to it. Similarly, I have fond memories of FF7, and was curious how it would look with modern reso’s. That 640×480 reso of the PS1 would do some funky things to those old games.
But this is part of what I mean – improvements in tech dont translate backwards much of the time, and that reduction in detail means you might be curious a few times, then never again.
Even PS3 on PS4 would look bad, given the PS3 was mostly 720p.
Overall it just seems to me that people might want that reverse compatibility, but when its been an option it has been underused by all but a niche of players. So why bother?
I’ve got an arcade machine was mostly for nostalgia and one of those always said I was going to. But outside of a handful of 2 player games it almost never gets touched. 320×240 doesn’t translate to a 24″ screen the best either.
Well good for you but just last night i played TF2 and Bad Company 2 on my xbone and enjoyed having the option
So.. they’re just talking to the people that are going to buy a Switch, right?
I, a lone Wii U user, can still buy Virtual Console if I have any desire to?
http://i.imgur.com/L69ABQn.png
No you must not or else Jason may just come to your house and be angry at you!
Nintendo is dumb when it comes to Virtual Console. I mean some games you think hey yeah they will release that on 3DS because of the low intensity of graphics and what not, then bam nah sorry Wii U only go buy one if you want this game. Anyway I am but one voice in a sea of unheard voices.
Last we heard from Nintendo regarding Virtual Console games transferring to the Switch, Reggie told us to “stay tuned”. There’s only 6 weeks left till launch, so I’d say we’ll hear something about it fairly soon.
http://www.vooks.net/reggie-says-stay-tuned-information-carrying-purchase-switch/
In other news The Binding Of Isaac: Afterbirth+ has just been confirmed as a launch title. Which will include Rebirth, Afterbirth and Afterbirth+. Which brings the number of launch titles up to 6.
http://www.gamespot.com/articles/nintendo-switch-gets-another-launch-title/1100-6447068/
Then there’s this