I can imagine how disruptive a successful Steam entry into the console space could be once people realize they are tired of "renting" $60 games from ad-hoc console e-shops.

They re-released childhood favorites like Zelda Ocarina of Times and Super Mario 64 on the 3DS and I actually bought the 3DS (in a special Zelda variant no less) just for that and Majora's Mask. I had a blast.

In comparison Steam and PC in general was late to the party of remastering old games or even just keeping them playable. Getting old Win 98 or even some XP titles running is often a challenge and sometimes borderline impossible.

People who purchased games on the original Wii Virtual Console had to pay per-game fees to upgrade to native Wii U versions. As if that wasn't cheeky enough the Wii U NES emulation was terrible. Bad colors and serious input lag. Instead of fixing it for those customers who already paid (sometimes twice) for those games, Nintendo released the NES Classic which had a much better emulator… but only if you paid again.

(There also wasn't cross-buy/play between Virtual Console 3DS and Wii U, as opposed to e.g. Sony's PS3 and Vita's PS1 support.)

Then came the Switch with Nintendo Switch Online. Putting aside subscription vs. purchasing, the experience is great. But all those Virtual Console games you have? Can't play them. Pay again.

Remaster are cool but the way Nintendo approaches them is another example of how early adopters get the short end, with Wii U games getting re-releases on Switch (great) with additional content like Bowser's Fury (also great) but without making that content available as DLC to people who already paid full price for the original versions.

(By the way, those NSO N64 games aren't part of the basic subscription)

I'm definitely not going to defend how bad the Wii U emulators were, but asking users to pay for a new emulator doesn't seem so unreasonable to me. Developing an emulator takes work. If you don't want to use the new emulator, play the game in Wii mode.

Yes, paying for the emulator on a per-game basis is weird, but any other model would be prohibitively difficult for consumers to understand.

> Remaster are cool but the way Nintendo approaches them is another example of how early adopters get the short end, with Wii U games getting re-releases on Switch (great) with additional content like Bowser's Fury (also great) but without making that content available as DLC to people who already paid full price for the original versions.

But again, Nintendo had to port the game to the Switch, so I think it's reasonable to charge for that. And while they certainly could have instituted some sort of upgrade pricing model, it would have quickly become prohibitively complicated, particularly when you start considering retail versions of the game.

My feeling is, I paid $60 for Mario 3D World in 2013 because it was worth (more than) $60. I already played it and got my money's worth. The Switch version doesn't have enough new content for me to justify paying another $60, but for anyone who never owned a Wii U, it's a great deal and I'm happy for them.

Games (particularly non-Nintendo games) often become much cheaper if you don't mind waiting a few years, if not less.

They are hard work, but fans working for free have consistently done a better job than Nintendo themselves at writing emulators in all respects: added features, performance, input latency, accuracy, and compatibility.

I will also say that within a constrained console environment, I do think Nintendo's VC emulators are more reliable than Homebrew ones.

Nonsense, it's just an excuse to nickle-and-dime customers. Compare this to the effort Microsoft has gone through to make old Xbox games work on modern consoles, or how all digital PSP games just worked on your PS Vita.

The Wii U upgrade wasn't even that big of a deal compared to the Switch now. They've brought NES, SNES and N64 emulators to the Switch but none of those games you already paid for (twice) carry over.

It's not just about having to pay a bit, it's about what it means to digitally purchase anything from Nintendo.

> The Switch version doesn't have enough new content for me to justify paying another $60, but for anyone who never owned a Wii U, it's a great deal and I'm happy for them.

This was my point though - if you already paid that $60 and got that great game, there's no way to play the new content without playing it again.

Most of the titles also ran better and had lower input latency than what's available on the Switch.

The service was completely discontinued in 2019 with no way of transferring the titles over to the Switch or having the proof of purchase even linked to your account. In terms of preserving their old titles Nintendo is awful, they'd rather continually rerelease the popular ones and have you pay yet again for the (temporary) access.

The closest they got was Super Mario 3D All-Stars that included emulation of a GameCube (Mario Sunshine) and a Wii (Mario Galaxy) game, but Nintendo being Nintendo, it was on the e-shop for a limited time and a limited manufacturing run for physical release. Two console generations after the Wii, the most Nintendo can muster is bringing back Nintendo 64 games to their current console, 5 years after the console's release. It's pathetic.

For nintendo NES/SNES is if you have the basic subscription, n64 and genesis is an upcharge.

https://www.nintendo.com/whatsnew/detail/2021/what-you-need-...

I don’t think it’s fair to say valve is late to the party, if anything they are first. There is a distinct difference between consoles games and pc games, the steam deck focuses on bringing pc games to a portable format, that opens the door to an almost endless supply of cheap indie games, as well as the potential for large AAA titles like Assassins Creed. The best part? Unlike Nintendo or PlayStation you don’t have to buy the game again if it’s already in your steam library, outside of Xbox play anywhere it’s the first time players don’t have to repurchase a game in order to play it on a portable device.

I agree that's a nice perk and I also regularly pay more to have my games in Steam rather than somewhere else, because it usually just works and keeps on working with Steam era games. My issues were mostly with pre-online era games where I still owned the actual CD.

It would've been nice if I could just play my old N64 games for free, but I also didn't feel cheated that I had to pay for the ported versions again.

If whole generations of gamers will buy them regardless, why should they change it?

Even after shitting hard on their customers, gamers are still voting Nintendo with their wallets.

Edit: I looked it up, it requires the subscription and updated my comment accordingly.

I'm sure there are some people out there that are passionate about this but I can't imagine it being anything more than a small minority of video game buyers. There are certainly other ways the Steam Deck could be disruptive though.

And in fact it’s actually worse given that many titles are available digital only.

But I am probably still going to buy breath of the wild 2, so I still need a switch...

The quality requirements of the Nintendo's storefront are ridiculously low. I've seen footage of the Switch WWE game and frankly it should never have been allowed into any store front, let alone the one people expect to be better.

There are plenty of platformers out there, but only one company can use Mario. The games on the Switch are pricey, but the console is affordable, making it excellent for multiplayer gaming.

I don't think it has a lower price and better games in practice. They did manage to corner the portable gaming space with their 3DS and Switch, which all major competitors abandoned. Now they're at risk of losing that too.

Sure, a three year-old Pokemon game might still cost $40, but you have a cartridge you can resell and get almost all of that money back (or even more, if you're happy to wait a few years). With Steam, every dollar you spend is gone forever.

What annoys me more are cartridges that (literally) require an additional online download. But even then, game covers are pretty clear about the requirement. I avoid those games.

I think their complaint is actually valid in these instances. You're paying top dollar and only getting a digital code. Pretty raw deal, if you ask me.

Not that Steam is a bastion of quality (or necessarily has a better ratio of decent:shovelware titles), but by the numbers, it definitely takes the crown for quantity of decent titles (if for no other reason than it having been around much longer).

Doesn't even look that bad to me compared to what Sony accepts, ranging from "life of black tiger" to Cyberpunk 2077's PS4 release.

Lower price, yes, but better games? Different games, sure but I wouldn't call them better given that it can run almost everything a windows PC can.

I have a switch mainly for Nintendo titles.