f13.net

Muahah. That's fucking awesome. I never have to buy another Nintendo game again. Just that box. I can only assume it's a roundabout way to make people pay for a Nintendo Online subscription though. MarioNET or whatever gay shit the suits come up with. If it were me, I'd go with MasterBlasterNET. Uhm...anyway, yea, I'm not entirely sure what they're thinking. But hey, if they think they can make money grow on trees, more power to them.

Oh, that was from Joystiq or something-a-rather.

Super Metroid on HiDef Flatscreen with 5.1 surround sound .... *drools*

Yea, it'll be great when the Revolution tries to autocorrect the resolution and it gets more jagged. Monuaural sound coming out of 5 speakers will be sweet also. Really though, I don't plan on hooking my Revolution up a hi-def tv. It's definately going to be the system that is hooked up to a TV outside on the porch. Running cables through walls ftw.

Out of curiosity, how far back does their definition of "Classic" go?  The entire NES library?  The entire NES+SNES+Origional Gameboy libraries?  Only select titles?

As to the online thing, give it 2, maybe 3 weeks tops after the thing comes out before every game "Officially Nintendo Supported"  on it can be retrieved from an FTP / BT / IRC network and safely placed on the Revolutions harddrive without ever needing to subscribe to a Nintendo online service.

Hey don't be hatin'! SM had stereo sound!

I had been under the impression (from where, I'm not sure) that all prior games would be available, all the way up to N64. I haven't been able figure out why all the Mario games aren't on the GBA, or a collector's edition disk for the GC (like the one for Zelda). I know Mario 3 is out on GBA and MArio 64 (the very best of the Mario games, IMO) is on the DS, but I want it all on the same system, bitches!

In addition to the classics, I juicy-drool crave N64 games like COnkers and the Banjo Kazooie series, but I am loathe to re-buy the N64 and squeeze it into my already daisy-chained-as-all-getout gaming system. I actually have a very adult, sophisticated decor in my living room that I don't want muddled with more media than will fit into my Ikea Eksjo TV cabinet, so my gear needs to fit into my geek room (a <150 sq. ft. spare bedroom).

The free idea is king because if I can buy NES games for $5 a pop in the bargain bin at Gamestop why would I want to pay any more than that (besides for the "duh" reason I listed above).

Nice avatar, schild. Is it Pussy FTW Week already?

Ahem, Ikea Eksjo? You just made that up too. I know the names there are insane, but uhm erhmmm munhhh unnffffff, pak chooie unf.

I don't imagine Nintendo could charge much more than $1 a game and $2 for games + online rom-state saving so you could save and go to a friends house and play. If they haven't already figured out that they'd make a fucking killing, they're going to owe me money for that idea.

Like I said, ideas are cheap.

I couldn't find the umlauts key. They don;t have the tv cabinet anymore (I knew you'd call me on it, so I checked!), but here's the coffee table:

(http://www.ikea.com/PIAimages/16849_PE088373_S3.jpg)


The cabinet is like that but with clinical, slightly blue-green frosted glass doors.

THis is the table I truly get wet for:

(http://www.ikea.com/PIAimages/19013_PE104329_S3.jpg)

An Ikea is opening in Portland in 2206. Jealous much?

2006? I have an Ikea less than 6 miles from me. It's like the third biggest in America.

I can spit and hit it.

Edit: And holy fuck did this get derailed fast. But I guess there's not much to say about uh, Tetris 1 or Metroid or uhm....Alleyway that hasn't already been said 50 times.

I am the one who is jealous.

/hang head in shame

River City Ransom! Now it's re-railed.

I don't think they know yet exactly what titles they're looking at making available for download, but it doesn't look like it's going to be all of them since they've said that they haven't determined a list yet (not to mention light gun games and stuff like that probably wouldn't be up for download).  And I'm guessing there won't be any VirtualBoy games either.

Still sounds like a good idea, but if it's just Nintendo-made games there's only a handful of titles I'd have any desire to play again.

When the IKEA opened up here in the bay area, weekend traffic changed. The place rocks, but navigating the 580/80/880/980 interchange area is a nightmare on the weekends.

all the NES games being available is cool I guess, but my modded xbox has really spoiled that for me. Only thing I'm really missing would be to buy a n64 controller or two and some adapters, but that would be pushing it.

It's Eksjö people! Oak-Lake.

The announcement that their first party titles would be free made me the Rev my top priority of the next gen consoles. Fuck Alan Wake and Halo 3, bring me some Kid Icarus and Punch-Out. Hopefully Capcom/Konami/Namco/Natsume etc. jump on the wagon and let you download their games ( probably for a couple of bucks but hell, I'd pay ~5 bucks to get my hands on Final Fight again ).

Note that the NES + SNES + N64 library available will probably be just first party titles (so no Conker's Bad Fur Day antics for instance), unless they can make deals with the developers of the third party titles - some of which have gone bust years ago.

Also, the "free" rumor is Famitsu's claim, not Nintendo who apparently haven't decided on pricing yet.

Courtesy of Spong (http://news.spong.com/detail/news.asp?prid=8788).

Yeah, and since Rare is owned by Microsoft now, my favoritest games would be highly unlikely to acquire. Sigh.

What kind of evil zombie magic is afoot over there? Maybe their plan is to reunite the Beatles in undeath for a never-ending concert tour. It would just like the Rolling Stones of today...

I cannot imagine why they wouldn't micro-charge a buck or two for those games. Hell, just the idea that I can download the old Nintendo games made me consider the Revolution, and I'm not even that big a fan of Nintendo. It's just a nice perk.

But free?

/boggle

Same reason that big kid on the playground doesn't charge you for your first bag.

Probably have to be subscribed to Nintendo's online service(monthly or yearly payment) to play any games you've downloaded.  That's my guess for the catch.  I think it would retain subscribers and make more money in the long term than if you were to sell them the individual games.

I was under the impression Nintendo had on multiple occations said there won't be a subscription fee.

This is what I seem to remember... possibly Miyamoto, but I'm sure this was stated no matter who said it.

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/products/games/2005-05-17-revolution_x.htm?POE=TECISVA

Found it.

Hooray hooray!!

Now I can look forward to 9 months from now.

Did you promise your first-born to Nintendo or something?  :-D

Have you played any of the Nintendo emulated games that are already out? They look fine. Talk about reaching for something to complain about. It takes a certain type of person to turn "here are a bunch of free classic games" into something negative.

I mean, look at all the people complaining about how the PS2 was compatible with the PS1, and praising XBox360 for not being backwards compatible. Living in bizzaro world is fun!

http://www.cubed3.com/viewnews.php?storyid=3958

List of games according to Famitsu, some of them are meh, some of them are pure gold. Final Fantasy, Goldeneye, Animal Forest/Crossing and the list goes on... I think I may have to go down to Game and pre-order.

Kid Icarus and Pro Wrestling is enough for me.

Although Bionic Commando would be nice.

This would be really cool, if I didn't already know about emulators.

Still though, good move Nintendo.

Don't think he was complaining so much as pointing out to Daydreamer that Super Metroid on a Hi-Def Flatscreen with 5.1 surround sound would be pointless since the game wasn't designed for that.

Emulators are nice and all, but I'd prefer to play them on my television on the couch without having to move a PC into the family room.

A lot of people pray.  Some pray for true love, some pray for a better world.

Right now, I am praying somebody figures out how to make GoldenEye or PerfectDark online-capable multiplayer through Revolution.

HAving seen the list of games on the link that Rodent posted, I'm not ashamed to admit I squeed my pants. My favoritest most favorific Rare games (except Conker's) are there! Hooray!!!!!!!

I am full of glee and squee.


Me too me too. Wait, can't you just burn shit into it and play it like a regular console? I know, I ask way too many n00b amateur questions. Just remember, though: I know more about gaming than you know about botany. In your face, whoever!

I read a great book a couple years back called "The Botany of Desire".

Michael Pollan is a great author. It's one of my faves, although the apple chapter got a little boring after awhile.

But I REALLY <3 David Attenborough.

I dunno, I found the apple stuff pretty interesting, but then I don't know half the shit about apples you probably do.

And if anyone posts "how bout them apples?" or anything along those lines, you're in for a 3 day time-out.

Hmm.. the Nintendo Revolution might be the only next gen system I buy.  PC Gaming is dying alongside my current bad hardware luck, the XBox 360 has iffy backwards compatibility, the PS3 has typical Sony hardware quality and high prices to look forward to..  seems as if the Big N is gonna keep me playing.

I'm waiting for more info before I decide.   But I'm really intrigued by the 360's games from Bioware and Mistwalker.  I guess we shall see.

What is all the hate for Sony Hardware?  I have owned both a PS1 and a PS2, and never had problems with either of them.

Ditto.  However, I didn't buy either unit until they'd been out for a few years.  I recall that the first year's worth of both units had some big hardware/ cooling problems that cause them or their CD drives to burn-out early.   The 'first gen' of Sony hardware just seems to mean you'll either have to put-up with some eccentricities (PSP's square button is the current example.) or accept that if/ when it burns out you'll be buying another unit. (Unless you go with the Best Buy "no questions" warranty system.)

While this does sound nice, I wouldn't take anything to heart until Iwata makes an official announcement. The fact that he hasn't said a word about this makes something seem out of place (he came right out and said the online service will be free, for instance).

Personally, I don't think they will charge for this or the online service. What I imagine they will do, and this would be the "catch", is offer a service similar to My Nintendo. Currently, if you register Nintendo products on their website, you can unlock certain features, have access to exclusive offers, etc. I could easily see them carrying this over to the Revolution. Just to throw an idea out there: each Revolution title you register (and therefore purchase) would give you points, which you can use to unlock these classic games. The more Revolution titles you register, the more games you can download. (Something along those lines...)

I think this would be a fair way to go about it (for both parties), and it's probably not too far-fetched. Afterall, I'd imagine they'd want to get something out of this.

They do get somethign out of it.  Quite a lot really.  Greatly increased console sales for giving away something they have already made massive profits off of for one.  Also, if more people own your console then obviously the market for your games is larger and a larger market means developers are more likely to develop for your platform to reach that market even if most purchasers only originally bought it for the free back catalog.

I wasn't considering buying a revolution before this news, but I am now (if it holds true).

It hasn't.  1Up.com has reported Nintendo WILL be charging for games.
Anything over 5 bucks a game and they can go fuck themselves and enjoy getting their asses handed to them by Sony and Microsoft 2 console generations in a row.  3 if you count just Sony vs Nintendo in the 32 bit war.

Sony seems to have a problem with popping out batches of lemons on their first production runs. 1st Gen PSXs and PS2's had various problems. I have an early gen PSX and PS2 and have been pretty lucky so far.

Linkage? Granted I only looked through their News section but I couldn't find it ( may have something to do with me being dead tired and sick ).

Meanwhile, why would I belive 1up when the VP of NoA is qouted in many places that first party titles will be free.

http://gamesradar.msn.co.uk/news/default.asp?pagetypeid=2&articleid=36071&subsectionid=1587

Well, according Gaming Age, Iwata just announced that the games will not be available for free. But at the same time, there's no mention that they will charge for them either. Here's the translation they provided from Famitsu (http://www.famitsu.com/game/news/2005/06/07/103,1118136884,40065,0,0.html):

Iwata says, "Though the baseless rumor flows in the internet that the virtual console download service is free, it is not scheduled to deliver it in free.
maybe download it (old games) as a privilege when consumers buy a new game,
maybe download it by consistent of the campaign at limited time,
variety methods will be used.
Using the properties in the past, I want to take shape that the profit is paid to Nintendo to the end."

That list of games is just super, and made me realize that my wife will want a Revolution simply for the downloadable games like Mario Kart.

But an idea occurred to me in the shower. Offering these games is going to be a key selling point of the Revolution (or it goddamn well should be). The Nintendo marketers should be wetting themselves with the anticipation of using that as a selling point. Instant game library of quality games. But another reason I could see this being added is legal. Perhaps Nintendo is attempting to ensure that the copyright on older games is maintained. Part of the whole emulator scene not being a legal target is that they are trading games which aren't being sold anymore. Nintendo isn't making any money off of Donkey Kong the original game, so suing someone for trading a ROM of it is just silly. No one loses any money currently. But if Nintendo is selling a system, one of the benefits of which is these games, they have legal justification to smack down the emulator scene. Not to mention they can refresh the copyrights on some of the older games that they haven't been supporting (Duck Hunt).

Deviously ingenious, IMO. Now, the Big N may not see any problem with the emulator scene, but who knows?

Nintendo has been pretty agressively anti-emulator in the past.

As far as the games distribution, my guess is initially it will be something like the package deals they've had on the GC. Buy a new Zelda get an old one, buy Metroid get the original Metroid, etc. That's my guess, but hopefully they won't do that. Just charge $5-$10 depending on age

About a week before E3 I participated in a study at a local market research firm. We were never told what company was performing ths study, but it was on 3 methods for distributing/selling video games online for a major next-gen system. Method 1 was "a la carte" - you would be able to purchase titles from the last generation, and 6 months + old titles for the current generation, for anywhere from $5-$20 each. Method 2 was a Phantom-esque subscription service - download as many games as you want (again, last gen or 6 months + old from the current gen) for a monthly fee of $20-$25 or so. Games would be stored on a hard drive, but disc copies could be purchased at a greatly reduced price if desired. Method 3 was distributing games via P2P services. Gamers would download from a P2P source, burn to disc, and would need to pay for an unlock code to be able to actually play the games. Likely fee of $3-ish per title.

Everybody there for the study thought it was either Sony or MS doing the research, but less than a week after doing it I started getting emails from Nintendo. So, unless one of the other 2 is trying to be strangely tricksy, and give a competitor some free advertising at the same time, it's a safe bet that it was Nintendo doing the research.

At any rate, you'll notice that they were looking for opinions with regards to fairly recent titles - they never said a word about old, classic NES or SNES or anything like that. I'd guess that when the Revolution hits you'll see either Method 1 or Method 2 available for the fairly recent older titles (the 2 methods were pretty evenly popular with my focus group). As to the way older stuff - looks like they're not too sure about that. I would guess free or very close to it.

Kid Icarus, Earthbound, the TMNT series, and many others, for free or very cheap?


YES PLEASE

I would be very willing and able to pay a few bucks a month, or a small chunk of change a year, to have access to these old gems.

You know how they could achieve a Super++ Win? Strike a deal with Sega to get access to Their old library also. If that happened, I'm pretty sure I would make a mess in my boxer briefs.

Oh yeah, and drop a down payment on a Revolution. The new games might be good too, you never know...

If you ignore the GBA title in the "classic" line, that is.

Which didn't have the brick level, damn them.

Damn, was really hoping it would be free. I really hope they let you buy'em atleast. I'd hate to miss out on Earthbound because I didn't want to buy Pokémon Channel or because my router went haywire they week it was part of a limited campaign. But still, if the 221 list proves true Nintendo has the best launch title line-up ever.

I'd take Dead or Alive 4 over all 221 of those titles. You see, I've got all the ones I want as original cartridges. Neh.

While impressive, you must admit it would be much easier to have'em on the Rev then to dig out your old NES/SNES/N64 whenever you feel like alittle Nintendo nostalgia.

Looking forward to Dead or Alive 4 aswell... Age 99 may make me feel like a dirty old man, but in a good way.

Bewbies.

Ya know, Nintendo isn't the first console to have emulation. They are, however, the first console to...ahem...charge for it. I say they bite the bullet and give the 300k-3MB downloads from SNES and NES for free. That would be a great incentive to ya know, buy shit that's bigger than a floppy disk.

I'd take Kid Icarus over DOA 4 straight up - I really would.

You do realize that that list of 221 games isn't actually a confirmed list of games, right? It is just a list of games that Nintendo can offer without brokering deals with anyone. The chances that all of them will be available at launch are vanishingly slim.

In any case, charging for the games probably isn't a great plan. Can you imagine a better hook than offering Nintendo's NES/SNES/N64 for free? I imagine an awful lot of people would buy the system for that, setting themselves up to buy Revolution/Gamecube software. I know that I would. But without the free games, it's just another next-gen system, and I have no interest in buying one.

Nintendo is not going to come back from number 3 in the US market this way.

When asked about Kid Icarus on the Rev, Miyamoto got all coy.  Either he meant the downloading or a new game.  Second option is pretty unlikely, I think.

Naysayer!

It's pretty obvious to me that this is the way to go, but I'm just talking out of my ass since I don't have a degree in marketing from Tokyo U.

Well, when I had Activision Anthology on the PS2, that sure looked like an emulator I had paid for. Same goes for Intellivision Lives! and possibly the Midway Arcade Treasures 1 & 2. Dunno about the Atari retro collection since I never bought that.