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.
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.