Explain to me...

I just want to know a bit more information on Nintendo's Revolution. Not on the system itself but on this whole pay to play old games concept. From what I understand you pay to access some sort of gaming database with all the games from the previous consoles by Nintendo (N64, SNES, NES etc).

So how does it work? Do they add new games to download? Or can you just play them?
How does the fee work? I mean it would be nice if you could pay a yearly fee and get unlimited access to these games or some sort of monthly fee which is lower and get access for a certain library or something like that.

How does it work? Can someone who has read up on it more explain to me this concept. It makes Revolution #1 on my list of consoles to get as long as it's done properly.

Nothing has really been revealed about this feature. They've been incredibly vague about it.

So be vague to me. Tell me what you know.

www.nintendo.com

There's nothing to say about it. Only rumors have gone around saying that you'd be able to play old games; Nintendo hasn't made any announcements. No one knows which systems, let alone which games will be available, or what the service is even going to be like. Not even a price is known.

E3 is my guess on when everything will be let out.

Sweet. Well at least I didn't miss nothing.

I can just imagine paying like some kind of yearly fee and getting access to all the old games. Just think about how many great games you would be able to relive - legally.

We've done that. For months. Dem was good times.

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Originally Posted by jonas

So be vague to me. Tell me what you know.

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The Revolution is supposed to ship with an option to access multiple webcams located in Shigeru Miyamoto's home so you can watch his daily activities on your television, 24 hours a day. Of special interest is the "toilet cam," which is mounted in the bowl pointing straight up.

Playing all the old games is a fantastic idea, I'm just hoping Nintendo doesnt gouge everyone with the prices for this. $20 for one classic NES game on GBA is bullshit, so I cant imagine what they plan to charge for a N64 game to download.

No more than $10 for ANY game. Even $5 for a NES game would be insane.

That sounds like something Jeremy would review with thumbs up.

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Originally Posted by Rumpy

There's nothing to say about it. Only rumors have gone around saying that you'd be able to play old games; Nintendo hasn't made any announcements. No one knows which systems, let alone which games will be available, or what the service is even going to be like.

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I'm pretty sure they said everything. Now, there'll be some exceptions - I doubt Virtual Boy will make it; maybe there'll be a Game & Watch section (even if only stocked with the GB ports).

I'm also willing to bet Gamecube isn't a part of the deal - Rev is GC backwards compatible, likely not powerful enough to emulate GC, but most of all I believe it only has 512 MB of embedded memory to save stuff on, not enough to fit Gamecube games.

DS is also a no go because of the display, and because even if you could simulate that stuff with the revcon, they can't afford to take away from DS system sales while it's in a death struggle with PSP (despite Nintendo's claims to the contrary).

So: N64, most probably. SNES, definitely. NES, yeah, of course, it'll be the centrepiece of the whole deal. Gameboy, GBC, GBA? I'd guess yes - last chance to make money off GB software, and GBA is winding down and has sold more than enough units, so no worries there.

Arcade section? Will they do rare releases like NES Mother? Can't say.

The BIG question for me is, will 3rd parties be onboard, and if so, who? You gotta figure Konami & definitely Capcom will play along, but will they get Square? I wouldn't mind seeing Dragon Warrior 4 (never got to play it)...

If theres only a few 3rd party games the whole thing would be pretty lame. If I can chose a list of a thousand games, that would be the shit.

I doubt it would be 3rd party only.

If they do this right, it's going to be so damn awesome. I can't wait to replay Wrestlemania for NES. That one with Big Bossman, Warrior, Andre etc or Chrono Trigger. mm.

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Originally Posted by StriderKyo

I'm pretty sure they said everything. Now, there'll be some exceptions - I doubt Virtual Boy will make it; maybe there'll be a Game & Watch section (even if only stocked with the GB ports).

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Saying "everything" really doesn't mean much. I mean it's Nintendo we're talking about. They'll keep everything to themselves until they have everything nailed down. Not seeing Virtual Boy games is a given, as is NES and SNES games is a given. What we don't know and what's important is what other games besides Nintendo products will be available, how we'll get it and what kind of priice structure will be in place (pay per game or a pack of games? monthly sub fee? a yearly free?). It's all just a generalization at this point, "You'll be able to play older games".

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Originally Posted by Rumpy

What we don't know and what's important is what other games besides Nintendo products will be available, how we'll get it and what kind of priice structure will be in place (pay per game or a pack of games? monthly sub fee? a yearly free?). It's all just a generalization at this point, "You'll be able to play older games".

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I'd guess it won't be a credit card-only system - they'll go with "revolution points" or something, based off cards you can buy in a store, and which may be offered as pack-in incentives in other games. (I'd wager they take the opportunity to cross-market from their portable line with this type of offer).

Cross promote like a mother fucker.

I want to see how hey handle games that were only released in Japan. Will they be translated or just not an option?

I'd be willing to bet non-translated games simply won't be an option.

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Originally Posted by jonas

I mean it would be nice if you could pay a yearly fee and get unlimited access to these games or some sort of monthly fee which is lower and get access for a certain library or something like that.

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You would really expect this from a company that repackaged a solitary game from 1983 and sold millions of it this year at $30 each?

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Originally Posted by jonas

I doubt it would be 3rd party only.

If they do this right, it's going to be so damn awesome. I can't wait to replay Wrestlemania for NES. That one with Big Bossman, Warrior, Andre etc

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I wouldn't expect many, if any, liscenced games as a) the rights have probably lapsed for the original makers of the game and passed onto someone else, or b) Nintendo would have to pay royalty fees if it hadn't. Plus, LJN isn't even around anymore, so that probably takes that game out of the running outright.

As far as pricing, I really can't imagine it being too much. Packaging, marketing, shipping, and material costs are completely out the window, which is most of what the price of games goes towards.

Yep. I'm guessing it won't be more than $10 in Nintendo fun points or whatever, on average. You may see a sliding scale - a little more for N64 games, a little less for NES. You just won't get people to pay more than that if they're not recieving any kind of physical object. But if you price it like a long-term rental, you can do well. Not to mention, the psychological hit of grabbing a $5 game is so low you're likely to buy more and spend a higher amount on them than you would if they were more costly.

Have they said it will be priced on a per-game basis, rather than say $10/month?

I would think it will have N64, SNES and NES games, with possibly some Gameboy thrown in. I'm not sure it would be a good idea to have GBA games on it given that it's the current handheld favorite.

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Originally Posted by jonas

That sounds like something Jeremy would review with thumbs up.

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:tu:

If Super Bomberman somehow makes it onto this system of games downloadable Nintendo will have found a way to get me to buy another of their systems after I've sworn off em....again.

arent there already Revolution threads to have put this in?

You'd logically think so.

You would have thought, but here we are.

They've already said that the games will be stored on your system's internal memory (with the option to use an SD card for more capacity), so this to me implies that you'll pay per game - it'd be pretty silly to use a subscription model when they're giving us the files themselves, not just access to them on a server. Also, they pretty much confirmed the option of store-bought point cards for kids and others without credit cards.

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Originally Posted by LordPerrin

They've already said that the games will be stored on your system's internal memory (with the option to use an SD card for more capacity), so this to me implies that you'll pay per game - it'd be pretty silly to use a subscription model when they're giving us the files themselves, not just access to them on a server. Also, they pretty much confirmed the option of store-bought point cards for kids and others without credit cards.

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I don't think they've confirmed that the games would be saved entirely onto your system. I think it's more logical that with that little memory, you'd be downloading a small file that says "yeah, I bought this" that would connect to them and let you play it. I see a monthly fee plan with unreasonable, GBA-rehash prices to permanently buy it.

kinda like above, if nintendo is smart they'll probably let you buy a DRM'd rom file for the game that says "this game belongs to joe nintendo on console model # NRV0000001" and won't play on anybody elses machine.

It would be cool if Sega Channel-esque.

The games aren't very large though, only going more than a few meg with N64 titles, so I think it's more logical that they're downloaded instead of having to connect to them for each play. They'd probably have to be loaded all into memory to play them anyway just as other emulators do it. You probably will have an account that keeps track of the games you've bought, so you can clear them out of memory and download them again if you need the space without having to pay up a second time.

Or is it too much too expect logic from Nintendo?

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Originally Posted by Dolemite

The Revolution is supposed to ship with an option to access multiple webcams located in Shigeru Miyamoto's home so you can watch his daily activities on your television, 24 hours a day. Of special interest is the "toilet cam," which is mounted in the bowl pointing straight up.

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I wonder if he squeezes out pieces of shit that look like Tetris blocks?

Maybe Alexei Pajitnov does.

I bet Miyamoto poops yoshi cookies.

PS - Is that the right Russian guy? I could be wrong.

It's easy to tell Dolemite made up that news. Miyamoto drops his load down a giant green tube, not a toilet.

I hate the idea of paying vast amounts of money for these games. 5 dollars for a SNES and NES game is far, far too much money. They should structure it like an iTunes. 99 cents a game and you can play it as many times as you'd like so long as you have a Revolution. Anything more than that and I'm not buying in. $5 to play Excite Bike does not excite me, seeing as though I'd only probably play it for a day or so before getting bored. 99c a game is smart because consumers are already more accustomed to that pricing structure because of iTunes and music download services. Remember when this was going to be a free pack-in with the Revolution? Oh that was a glorious two days.

They should also offer special deals. 10 for 5 deals where you can get 10 NES or SNES games for 5 bucks as an incentive for people to buy more.

I also don't see Nintendo actually letting you download the game to their system's memory. People would be able to bootleg and rip the games from their hardware eventually. Nintendo's more controlling than that, so I fully expect you to connect to their servers in order to access the game of your pleasure.

Another question: given the Revolution's retro catalog and XBox Live Arcade, what will Sony do to match?

true hd gaming :chick:

Didn't Sega have some sort of online program with the Dreamcast that let you play Genesis and TG16 games? How'd that work? Was the emulation decent?

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Originally Posted by Zerodash

Another question: given the Revolution's retro catalog and XBox Live Arcade, what will Sony do to match?

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Backwards compatibility with every Playstation game.

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Originally Posted by Zerodash

Another question: given the Revolution's retro catalog and XBox Live Arcade, what will Sony do to match?

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Sony will still have the largest game library. Besides, won't the PS3 play all previous generations of Playstation games?

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Originally Posted by StriderKyo

I'd guess it won't be a credit card-only system - they'll go with "revolution points" or something, based off cards you can buy in a store, and which may be offered as pack-in incentives in other games. (I'd wager they take the opportunity to cross-market from their portable line with this type of offer).

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This sounds reasonable. I'm sure they could use promotional cards as well. Buy a DS game, get $5 in Rev. points. Buy a Rev. game and get $10 in points.

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Originally Posted by omfgninjas in iraq

I don't think they've confirmed that the games would be saved entirely onto your system. I think it's more logical that with that little memory, you'd be downloading a small file that says "yeah, I bought this" that would connect to them and let you play it. I see a monthly fee plan with unreasonable, GBA-rehash prices to permanently buy it.

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512 Mega Bytes isn't that small. Something like Street Fighter II: CE on the Genesis was 16 Mega Bits. That's like 2 Mega Bytes of data.

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Originally Posted by Dolemite

The Revolution is supposed to ship with an option to access multiple webcams located in Shigeru Miyamoto's home so you can watch his daily activities on your television, 24 hours a day. Of special interest is the "toilet cam," which is mounted in the bowl pointing straight up.

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The Miyamoto Show?

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Originally Posted by JefmcC

Sony will still have the largest game library. Besides, won't the PS3 play all previous generations of Playstation games?

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Ah yes, but will there be the convienience of downloading a game to play rather than hunt down old discs at flea markets?

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Originally Posted by Zerodash

Ah yes, but will there be the convienience of downloading a game to play rather than hunt down old discs at flea markets?

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Nope.

But you can download most old Nintendo games RIGHT NOW and play them.
I just don't see the whole download and play old games as a very big deal to me. I can do it now, and I don't because I want new stuff to play.

Don't get me wrong, I think it's pretty cool Nintendo is building emulation into the system. I just know I won't use it at all.

Yeah, but that's you. And me, for that matter. Thing is, there's a huge world of people who don't know about emulation and would love to have access to the old games. I still get people asking not only after NES games, but those stupid pirate 17,000 games in one!!!! things they used to sell in a cart in the mall.

To everyone here, the emulation is pure redundancy. To everyone else, it's going to be something new. Whether Nintendo sets it up so people will want a Revolution because of it is something else entirely, of course.

Personally, I'd love to see Square translate some of the old SNES games they never released here, like Dragon Quest 5 and 6.

James

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Originally Posted by Andrew

I also don't see Nintendo actually letting you download the game to their system's memory. People would be able to bootleg and rip the games from their hardware eventually. Nintendo's more controlling than that, so I fully expect you to connect to their servers in order to access the game of your pleasure.

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Why would anyone go to the trouble of hacking the system just to copy some ROMs that are readily available on the internet already?

I think the benefit of hacking the system would be enabling me to copy ROM's I may have already downloaded, and playing them on the revolution, not the other way around.