Sheikah

If Nintendo flooded shops with new copies to the point that supply outstripped demand, I doubt we would see the games retain such value. It's not the first time I've heard that Nintendo carefully manage stock for certain games - and I've no reason to believe someone working at one of the major chains would lie about it. Right, but here's the thing, it may be no more bullshit than some other things, but bullshit is deserving of criticism nonetheless. I know your posting on these forums and you're often very vocal about lazy remasters, ports, and emulation, so a bit surprised you haven't touched on this colleciton. And you're very often chiding gaming companies and praising Jimquisition episodes that call bad practices to light. To me this limited availability of very, very well regarded games is on a level unseen from Nintendo before, to the point that this is indefensible.

For the purpose of making more money, because FOMO does that. There are games where microtransactions are centred around FOMO with seasonal content, and they generate millions. Tell me, if not for the reasons I'm giving, what purpose is there of making this time limited, from a business point of view? If they are going to lose money like you said, why would they do it? Either they believe doing this will make more money overall, or they want to make a lot of money quick (in the COVID setting and meeting quarterly targets that makes sense), or they will sell them individually afterwards and capitalise on this twice...or they are adopting a Disney vault approach to make their products seem scarce or higher value, so they will sell well again when they bring these games back into circulation. All of those possibilities are rather shady in that they work against the customer's interest - choose your poison. Just to clarify, you're saying the scenario where Nintendo continue to sell the 3 Mario games to the public after March next year is the doomsday scenario?

For the purpose of encouraging more people to buy it in a short space of time than they otherwise would have if it wasn't time limited. In fact, maybe more will buy it than they ever would have if it wasn't time limited. FOMO is power. Or even worse, as I suggested might happen, maybe they will be sold individually afterwards. So they get the boost to sales now due to the effect of FOMO, then more later on when they're sold again separately. Answer me this - if someone buys a Switch in April next year but finds out they can't buy this game, even digitally, is that a pro-consumer move or anti-consumer one? A shady tactic or an angelic one?

Had to read this a few times to check if you're joking. Nintendo are downright using FOMO tactics here with the limited time availability. So yeah, maybe they don't "need" to employ shady tactics, but they sure as hell are.

It's funny you should say no chance because I've seen others believe absolutely the opposite. The truth is we have no idea. This is an absolutely anti-consumer move if they completely remove all games from the digital store after that date so you can see why people believe they'll be available separately. On the other hand we have a precedent for this kind of behaviour with companies like Disney. But truthfully, there's no completely like-for-like previous example that can look at from Nintendo to know exactly what they'll do. He worked for Target so I'm sure he knows whether they were eligible to receive many copies or not. Nintendo have proven here that they want to control the supply so there's no reason to disbelieve this guy's report whatsoever. I'd say games like Pokémon aren't going to be scarce, but for other games it's probably a different story. Either way, what are your thoughts on the limited time availability of these 3 Mario games? I can't help but feel that if this was another developer you'd have been up in their grill by this point.

They've pretty much always restricted the number of copies they sell to stores as well to create artificial scarcity. In Jim Sterling's latest video he mentions how his video editor Justin worked for Target and they would only be able to source a few copies of their games on many occasions. They want to control the perceived value of their games and scarcity is one way of doing it. One thing I've noticed as well is that many people (myself included) first thought that these 3 games would be available separately after the bundle stops being sold. But the more I think about it, the more I wouldn't be surprised if these games would be completely unavailable after March. Much like Disney do with their films by putting them away in the "Disney vault".

To be honest unless we have a parallel universe where they released this collection but without the time limitation on its sale, we will never know where it would have charted. I imagine it would still have done well, which makes it a shame that Nintendo felt the need to go in hard with the FOMO tactics.

Speaking of FFIX, has anyone seen the Moguri mod for the Steam version? The work that has gone into redrawing the backgrounds in HD is sublime. FFIX was my first Final Fantasy game and it's nice to see it get this update from fans. If I had the Steam version and a reasonable PC setup I'd be all over this.

Yvonne??

Is Mario is missing missing? Because it looks to me that Mario is missing is missing.

Why not get a different company to handle the re-releases? Like with Wind Waker HD they outsourced the updated textures to a third party.

Add to this they aren't even really putting any effort into graphically updating Mario 64, Sunshine, and Galaxy. You have to wonder what they have been doing.

I'm wondering if this is a new generation thing, because that bolded bit couldn't be further from my opinion. In fact to me that seems crazy. The original FFVII is a timeless classic. It's also the whole story in one game instead of a few hours of content spaced out over a game like the first remake is. Thinking about it, the music, characters, story, and the amount of content is just much better in the original game; if you were to compare the games graphically side by side then the remake would technically win but there is something nice about the prerendered backdrops in the original. Also for its time, the original FFVII was a much bigger deal in terms of visuals than the remake is now. They're also trying to serialise the remake from the look of it - it feels like it's going the way of Kingdom Hearts, which would be a very bad thing. I appreciate they're trying to do something different with the story but I can already see it becoming overly complex.

Regardless of the price point, the graphical upgrades in those other re-releases has been really good, so this is disappointing for me regardless.

Exactly. They know Nintendo fans will pay 50 quid, and in their defence they are good games. Just disappointing level of work gone in for the 50 quid when you consider recent efforts by other companies. The FOMO aspect of the limited time availability on the eShop is also very weird. Presumably available separately afterwards?

Yes, yes... let your hatred fuel your power.

Or the real reason - it's 50 quid because Nintendo fans will pay anything. You say it's a quality product but there is no quality to this remaster, graphically speaking they have done the bare minimum for that 50 quid. Obviously they are stellar games but when you look at what others have done with their re-releases, this is disappointing.

They're bundled and available for a limited time...that's FOMO tactics to get you to shell out 50 quid. I am disappointed in the price to be honest, it looks like they're doing the bare minimum graphically speaking but charging full whack. When you compare this to other trilogies that have had actual graphical remaster work (w.g. Crash, Spyro), they were 35 quid at release. We don't even get the DS remake of Mario 64 which had extra detail to the character models and additional characters.

Yeah, that's how I'd define it too. Otherwise the games are just ports and you're buying them again. One thing I always thought was that Switch surely could have had backwards compatibility with SNES/NES/gameboy/GBA digital games. We bought them on Wii/Wii U and now you can't access them at all. These are the sorts of low fidelity games that are really easy to emulate, so it's a bit of a shame to see them as part of an incentive to subscribe to access now on Switch.

But then you're going much further back, and putting in effort testing individual games on these emulators when the overwhelming majority of people won't even play them. As I say, in the past the vast majority of backwards compatibility has always been just to let you play the previous generation, which is what they're doing here.

Yeah, good observation. I do feel in the case of today's posts that there wasn't anything to ever really complain about in the first place. It feels reasonable that the PS5 only has backwards compatibility with PS4 - in fact I'm pretty sure that's what everyone was expecting given the complex architecture of PS3. This is how backwards compatibility usually works as well (i.e. only the previous generation is supported) - and has been the case with consoles like the PS2, Xbox One, Wii, Wii U, DS, and 3DS.

It's definitely a "nice to have" feature but it surely must take up time and resources to develop. I can't help but feel that if Microsoft put as much effort into developing games as they did their BC that their new console would be all the better for it.

Apologies up front for the shit show that this is becoming. Well I asked for proof purely because you stated it so resolutely. But really, I was getting you to rethink in light of the evidence that stock will likely be low (which you agree on). If stock is going to be low, this scheme will mean that fans have a chance of getting hold of one; and not scalpers. This for me validates the existence of such a scheme. If stock will be low then they'll sell all their consoles anyway. So why do they need a scheme to increase the chances of selling their consoles through FOMO tactics? See, your general argument does not seem logically sound. Yes it does - you said that you objected to Sony's marketing being good. Their marketing has been good so far and can be measured against their competitor by a bunch of different metrics. If it will sell out anyway why bother with this scheme, if it existed purely to drum up marketing to lead to console sales?

I gave you 3 good reasons that suggest stock will probably be low - whereas your opinion is based on nothing other than you unfettered hatred of Sony. That bolded bit is just not true though, is it? You make it sound as though people are handing over their credit card details up front and committing to a payment without knowing the price. By the time they will be offered the chance to pay they'll know the price. If they don't want to pay whatever Sony ask for it then they don't have to. You only have to compare the views and social media metrics of Sony's announcements compared to Microsoft's to see who is handling marketing better. Sony have also nailed their games showings; in contrast, this has been a bit of a disaster for Microsoft, who embarrassingly have had to delay Halo Infinite next year and stand to launch their system with no exclusive software. Then you've just proven that in some regions this console will probably sell out, based on past experience. The basis of "low stock" as a means for launching this scheme therefore has substance. In fact, even if Sony's motives for launching this scheme are not honest, the fact remains that this scheme is ultimately "good" if it means fans have a better chance of getting a console if stock ends up being low.

Can I also just point out that you are proving my point for me, so thanks. As you've shown, their console can sell out (seemingly region-specific, but still). As such, the basis that this scheme is to combat low stock (and scalpers therefore cashing in) has substance.