[Wii] Virtual Console & WiiWare Games - Doing wonders for illegal emulation since 2007

Ooh, Kid Chameleon. That game has a very nice concept, but it gets a little monotonous after the first 20 levels. Look, if a game if going to have 90+ levels, the least that the developers could do is not re-use level backgrounds to the point of boredom.

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Yeah, when the VC was announced, I thought that Nintendo was going to post nearly their entire ROM set for download/purchase. If they did that, they would be rolling in money I am sure.

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Originally Posted by Hotobu

Regarding the release strategy I believe I understand Nintendo's logic.

#1 They don't want the VC to overshadow Wii software sales. If they roll out all of the A+ titles people will just be content playing their mound of 5 and $10 titles.

#2 Saturation. The way that the current titles are rolled out they're more of an impulse buy. 5-$10 a week doesn't seem like much. If everything were to be posted up from the outlet people would be much more conscious of spending $100 or more in one chunk.

#3 Lastly with Nintendo eeking out the games some of the B and C titles are likely to be purchased. A game like Kung-Fu (don't know if it's an actual title) is more likely to be seen as a novelty pickup for the week. If it were up against all the Marios, Zeldas, Castlevanias etc, it would be easily overlooked.

As a long-term strategy I believe Nintendo is correct.

Yeah, but if Nintendo just released by the truckloads, wouldn't they make more sales? I would think that, even if they did release games that weren't as popular, people would buy those games out of nostalgia. Also, there would be the situation where someone is bored and says, "I wonder what <Insert Game> is like. I'll give $5 for that." There would probably even be a few crazy collectors that would try to buy every VC title.

Anyway, I think that Nintendo should quit this "release a game or two every week" strategy and just flood the market. It would be way more money for Nintendo, and it would make lots of fans happy.

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Originally Posted by Hotobu

I can't claim to have all the answers, but I have to say that a response like that ^ tell me you don't have a good head for business. It's always about the long term. If the fans are really fans they'll buy at least what they would if Nintendo released everything now, but rationing them out has more benefits than a DO IT NOW! strategy.

But then again, who will be buying the VC games? Probably not fans who are casual gamers. I would say that the hardcore gamers would comprise 80% of the VC consumers.

It seems that Nintendo knows that too. How much advertising has been done for the VC games? (Not the VC in general.) I haven't seen one commercial for Mach Rider recently. Furthermore, even if there were advertising for the VC games, how effective would it really be in persuading casual gamers to buy the games?

In this respect, the VC market is a little more specialized, and you can't really compare it to the movie market. With movies, the movie goes to theaters for months before it goes on DVD and hence reduces the consumer market. It would make sense to spread out the DVD release so you can make as much money as possible from the theater phase.

In contrast, there is no "theater phase" for video games. (Unless you count rentals, but that is a little different.) Therefore, after Game X is purchased by a consumer, there is really no more money that can be made from that particular consumer for Game X.

I can see a video game company spreading out releases for development and/or to build up the surprise/interest of a game, but again the VC doesn't have either of these. Instead, I think that the longer that a VC game is available, the more likely that it will be purchased by the average consumer. This would especially apply to more obscure games. After the consumer gets done beating all of his old VC games, he will be searching for more.

I am no business expert either, but I think that the market is a little specialized and needs a few special considerations.

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