NFL Network caves to the pressure

[Jain Zar]

Disney used to be a seperate purchased station no less.

But channels would cost more than we pay now.

Hell, just look at console retrogame collections!

The Midway Arcade Treasures sets had about 20 games a disk (in volume 1 and 2.  3 being a racing collection and irrelevant) for 20 bucks with special features and whatnot.

The XBLA games (what few they have released from these sets!) are 5 bucks a pop, and only have XBLA's awful online play.  (And gamer points for the idiotic.)

24 games on the first volume for 20.  Currently 20 on XBLA will get you the 4 titles I believe they put on it.  (Joust, Gauntlet, Robotron, and Smash TV I think.  There may be a few more though.  But at 5 a pop.)
That means you don't get Spy Hunter, Defender, Stargate, Joust 2, Paperboy, Rampage, Bubbles, Roadblasters, Blaster, Rampart, Sinistar, Super Sprint, Marble Madness, 720, Toobin, Klax, Splat, Satan's Hollow, Vindicators, and Tapper.

On volume 2, you get more of the same, though more recent titles.  (Of which Mortal Kombat 3 is the only one I believe is on XBLA.)

Its just as bad if not worse with Namco Museum (either the original PS2 version or the later one with Rolling Thunder on it.)

On a side note, is it any wonder these collections are NOT backwards compatible?  (Im suprised any of these collections are.  Its pretty much the reason I still keep my X Box around.  As an arcade machine to play 7 arcade game collections.  I wised up and took the slightly inferior emulation but will still work on my PS2 releases for other ones.)

TV networks are far greedier and it would be even worse, except they would be slamming you on a monthly basis.

(Then again, with Steam and how many sheep only want to play it and forget it, a subscription ONLY model for games is on its way.  I guess all these DVD sales that pretty much save shows and movies aren't worth some asshole with an MBA's idea that enough people don't care about owning to keep anything just don't figure into their plans.  Like Tom Petty says "All the boys upstairs wanna see is how much you'll pay for what you used to get for free." pretty much.)

[HaemishM]

Collections are really inefficient means of putting things together. They are great for some, the people who like to collect things. For others, who just want the one or two games that are on the disk, they don't mind putting down $5 on a single game. It's the pricing of convenience.

But again, a la carte channels are to me just a stopgap to the eventual streaming of all content via the Internet, most likely on a pay per download basis. The more people who use it, the less the price will need to be.

[Merusk]

The more people who use it, the less the price will need to be.

  Haemish's naive statement for the day.   "Hay, I know we've sold 6million views at $5 a piece, why don't we lower the price now that it's so popular?"

Also, you're correct in everything moving to a subscription model, very soon, jain.   It already happens with corporate softwares, it's only a short bit until it happens to everything else.  For the same price.

Back on the cable price-per-channel, those are what they charge the affiliates.  If you think there wouldn't be an upcharge, or an increased charge for less-watched channels.. well, I'm certainly not going to be able to convince you.

[HaemishM]

The more people who use it, the less the price will need to be.

  Haemish's naive statement for the day.   "Hay, I know we've sold 6million views at $5 a piece, why don't we lower the price now that it's so popular?"

Oh, no, I'm well aware of how corporate jackhobs think about that sort of thing. But really, if they can charge $5 for something that costs them $.60 to make, well, that's more profit and more profit = more shows mostly.

[shiznitz]

A pay per view model is good for the light viewer and bad for the heavy viewer. Vice versa for the subscription model.  What if you could pay for CNN by the hour? Lots of interesting distribution models available that most of the industry has no interest introducing. They make a lot of money with the status quo so why risk it?