Before I get into my replies, I want to say one thing. Taking a look in the WiiWare thread, which is in its infancy, there are a moderate number of people (who I'm guessing are either rich or just the most enthusiastic of enthusiasts anywhere on GAF) stating that they'd have paid $30 or even retail price for LostWinds. That's three times as much money as LostWinds actually costs--and this is a game that's over in less than two and a half hours and has no replay value in the least.
But here, in this 438-page thread, you might search through the entire thing and only find a slightly greater number of people claiming that VC is by and large a fantastic deal. (And I'm pretty sure you won't find anybody saying they'd pay three times the price--which
would be ridiculous.) Even the people who buy up dozens of games or say that VC is one of their top five favorite things about Wii generally just tolerate the pricing rather than openly defend it. Count me on the defense side for the pricing, despite how much flak I give to NOA for every other way they've mismanaged VC so far, but I do think this difference is pretty strange.
Metal Gear?! said:
As you note, the price is good for the best games available. However they are a bit high for the average/mediocre games and honestly crap like Bad Street Brawler or Tennis should never have cost anyone anything in the first place.
Which is how things operate with any pricing system, retail games or otherwise. Zack & Wiki and Geometry Wars Galaxies were seen as good deals at $40, while Carnival Games is seen as a ripoff for the same price. (At least on GAF. I'm fully aware of the depressing sales figures.) Metroid Prime 3 was seen as a solid value at $50; Sega Superstars Tennis not so much. But there's no outcry that Z&W, Geometry Wars, and Metroid are too expensive just because they carry the same price point as other games that aren't so well received. And likewise I don't take issue with the fact that some VC games aren't worth five cents to me while others are well worth eight dollars.
Furthermore the pricing per system is indeed a low value proposition ("too high") compared to the downloads offered on competitor systems. For example, Streets of Rage 2 and Sonic are $5 on XBLA and even offer additional effort like achievements and online play (which works very poorly but at least there was an attempt). And original Playstation games are $6 (sometimes $8) on PSN, the same price Nintendo charges for TurboGraphix-16 games and less than they charge for Genesis and SNES games.
I haven't played SoR2 and Sonic on XBLA, but even assuming the emulation is perfect and they play equally as well on 360 as on Wii (and EphemeralDream was just suggesting that at the very least Sonic doesn't), they're still outliers that don't build up any significant case. A large majority of games that a person can buy on VC aren't available on XBLA or PSN for a cheaper price, so there's no real basis for comparison.
As for PS1 games being a better value proposition than Genesis and SNES games: all three systems are frequently seen as ranking among the best that the gaming industry has ever had. So I'll concede that point, or at least half-concede it. I can understand (won't say "agree with") how someone could see the PS1 games on PSN as a superior value, but at the same time SNES and Genesis were so beloved that many others would say they still hold up as the superior value on VC despite costing more in raw dollars.
Finally they have now started to pull crap like charging an extra $2 for Sin and Punishment even though it was translated nearly a decade ago or an extra dollar for Do Re Mi Fantasy despite it not being translated at all.
No defense on this one either, but as with Streets and Sonic, this criticism applies to a really, really limited number of games and doesn't reflect much on VC as a whole.
Incidentally, I do want to reiterate something I said earlier: I can see how those looking primarily at the amount of effort on the publishing and development ends would think VC is overpriced. (The level of publisher/developer effort matters nothing to me, though, but not begrudging those who think otherwise.) They can complain all day every day; they're at least consistent, and I don't particularly question that line of reasoning. I'm mostly baffled by those who know they would get $20 of fun out of a good SNES game, or $15 of fun out of a good TG16 game, etc., but nonetheless criticize VC pricing in a blanket fashion.
charlequin said:
Because the current pricing structure encourages selecting a few specific titles that you're pretty certain you'll want to play and buying those, rather than experimenting with more uncertain titles. In almost all circumstances, I'd buy two fairly interesting SNES games for $5 where I'd buy one for $8; that'd be more cash for Nintendo and more games for me, so it seems to me that everyone would win.
(Nintendo's stance is probably that those who buy VC titles are either "I just want Mario" dabblers or crazy people like you who buy everything, neither of whom would be likely to buy more games if prices were lowered. Maybe!)
This is actually an interesting point that I hadn't considered until you mentioned it, and I do like the idea of encouraging experimentation. (Which is just one reason I'd frequently rather buy seven games on VC than one Wii disc at retail.)
Even so, I don't think we could have a hypothetical situation where the prices were lower while everything else would remain the same. If individual games carried lower prices, there would be less incentive for third-party publishers to get their games' emulation working; there's nothing to say that VC would still have as many offerings as it does. Retro games available on PSN or XBLA may be cheaper individually than most VC titles, but there's no comparison in the least between the size of the game libraries on those services and that of VC. (As much as I lambast Nintendo for the slowed schedule, it's still a step up from that of their competitors--and that's true even though a significant number of games have already been put out.) That gives me cause to wonder how much of the reason behind why can be attributed to the differing amount of returns a publisher would get per sale.
And, as with Metal Gear's arguments, what you're saying could apply to most pricing systems. I might buy two "fairly interesting" Wii discs for $30 where I'd buy zero for $50, but I wouldn't suggest that all retail games should be $30 just because the prices are prohibitive to experimentation. For that matter, some Wii games actually
have been $30, like Resident Evil 4, Endless Ocean, and Pinball Hall of Fame--or Mercury Meltdown Revolution, which undercut even those and released for $20. But I still wouldn't say that consequently all retail games should be $30 or less.
