I guess by cutting off supply of the old stuff, though, they can do re-releases and re-masters charging somewhat similar to the price of a new game, or get people to pay a monthly subscription fee for access.

That said, I 100% believe this is just a way for them to make sure you can't mod second hand 3DS consoles in five years time when they bring 3DS re-releases to the Switch.

There is tons of licensing issues in the gaming industry under the surface that causes problems all over the place. An extreme example would be Sega's mistakes with Sonic.

Sonic 3, despite not having him in the credits, contains some works by Michael Jackson. That has complicated things tremendously in re-releases, so much so, that Sega has re-released that game far less than Sonic 1, 2, and CD. Sonic Origins, the latest re-release, contains redone music from prototypes rather than solve the licensing quagmire.

But that's not the only licensing quagmire. Guess why the Sonic movies don't have almost any soundtracks or sound effects from the game? According to the Directors, it wasn't a thematic choice, but a legal one. Sonic CD's re-release on smartphones had a similar issue with the opening scene having the vocals removed, because they were from an obscure band that went through a series of legal changes, acquisitions, member changes... This is actually a big problem with re-releases in general. Hunting down who actually owns the rights to a series can be a mess when acquisitions are involved; and you'd better hope the new owners at the end of the road are reasonable and not eager for a quick buck.

And to top it all off, just look up the Kenneth W. Penders story, which single-handedly took advantage of Sega's lax copyright protectionism to "steal" almost 200 characters right from under Sega's feet. Nintendo is no doubt looking at that, and the Sonic music issues, and thinking... man, this is why we protect.

Wouldn't this be a work of the federal government and in the public domain? Thinking of all the war movies that used old military footage....

Not necessarily

Others still treat a game like a moderatly long one time performance.

If they ARE using licensed things that are non-perpetual, they should arrange for some way to remove them, if possible.

And it sometimes is impossible, the "Poker Night at the Inventory" games are no longer available because the character licenses expired, and they'd be nothing without them.

Why is this a thing? I've heard of game studios having a movie studio make a movie, but then not allow them to use certain elements from the game. It ruins the movie, IMO, and I've never understood why game studios knee-cap movie adaptations like that.

Second, AFAIK they are running those servers right now with no revenue. They blocked new purchases, but you can still re-download existing purchases. I googled around and it seems like that's still the case. I do not know how long they will maintain that.

There is also the staffing element. Maybe the engineers or product people are interested in resourcing a product with no career growth.

There is a hefty on-going maintenance cost for these stores.

I bet they make more from re-releasing ports of “vault” titles than they would keeping them for sale forever.

Believe me; movie studios and game companies have re-releases down to a science. Disney (arguably) perfected it first with their "Disney Vault" scheme. It increases the value to buyers when it's available for sale; and it also helps the company if there is little new content to offer for the year.

I'm surprised so few people put together that Super Mario 3D All-Stars is actually Nintendo perfectly following the Disney Vault script.

I think they would have. those games are all available on the 2nd hand market easily. I don't mind paying for remasters of games I already own for older hardware, anyway, because remasters are not a big expense for me and by buying remasters I send my vote that I want remasters.

I mean, it's Nintendo's IP. they can do what they want. I think the way they do things is very short-sighted, though.

I don't need it to be perfect.

I think a new port requiring a new purchase seems fair, and there's a target market in that one for those who missed those prior generation of games, or who want it on the switch hardware.

I would GLADLY pay Nintendo for every ROM I want but do not have, if they would only take my money and sell it.

they choose not to sell. so I feel it is, at a minimum, borderline ok to pirate things that aren't sold anymore. I would give my money, but these companies will not take it.

this is where music downloads were in 2002 or so. maybe a bit later. people were pirating like crazy and record companies would not give users what they wanted: the ability to listen to what they wanted where they wanted.

most pirates (those who don't consider piracy itself a hobby, anyway) don't really want to pirate; they want to play a game, or hear a song, or watch a TV show or movie when they want. They want on-demand access to the things they enjoy. they will gladly pay if only the copyright owners would accept the money, but often they won't.

so the users take things into their own hands. I'm ok with it. but I'm no one and no media company will ever listen to me so whatever.

Yarrr matey, no it aint. It has only begone.

flips eyepatch

Having a hard time believing a deluge of generative AI content will keep Mickey Mouse worth anything; even if the AI content cannot be copyrighted why would users pay for Mickey Mouse?