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Post by mattb on Mar 30, 2023 5:43:04 GMT
Nintendo certainly care about making money, but keeping the eShops going was almost certainly losing a lot of it for them.
For what it's worth, the security on the eShops was compromised as early as 2018. You can run a program on your PC that connects to Nintendo's update servers, spoofs that you've purchased the software, downloads and decrypts it. They eventually patched out the vulnerability that allowed this on the 3DS, albeit not before all the software had been dumped, but the Wii U was never fixed. They've just been serving everyone free software for it for the the past five years.
As such, we've got the software preservation angle covered well and truly. There will already be so many backed up copies out there that no game that was ever sold on either platform will be truly lost.
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Post by megamixer on Mar 31, 2023 17:18:43 GMT
Should add that by "preservation" I meant the games being available to purchase at all times. I have no doubt that Nintendo and the relevant third-parties have backup data and source code for all the stuff that was on the eshop (and other defunct systems) unlike in the old days where the likes of Sega and Squaresoft allegedly lost source code left, right, and centre, or the 80's where Japanese computer game developers just binned everything in skips as there was no thought that people would actually care about this stuff in the future.
So I 100% believe everything is preserved officially, but they don't care about it being available unless it's making them money. The stuff on the eshop probably wasn't making that much money anymore when the focus is on the Switch these days, especially once you subtract costs for maintenance of old servers and the security risks, as mattb says, which I assume is why you couldn't pay for funds directly through the 3DS/Wii-U anymore.
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Post by AlexH on Apr 1, 2023 9:56:51 GMT
There is plenty of stuff on the Switch that doesn't fit Nintendo's reputation though. Yeah of course Nintendo have had mature content on their systems, I'm thinking more content that is illegal or very bad taste. It depends what you think of very bad taste. megamixer mentioned one, and there are a wealth of Switch games where the aim is to strip teenage girls naked by various means. I googled for examples and another game has levelling up based on the size of the character's breasts and apparently "other attributes such as perkiness, height, cleavage and softness."
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Post by pratty on Apr 2, 2023 11:37:31 GMT
Yeah of course Nintendo have had mature content on their systems, I'm thinking more content that is illegal or very bad taste. It depends what you think of very bad taste. Exactly it's a subjective matter of opinion, and it's worth bearing mind Nintendo are based in Japan where those sorts of games seem to be tolerated. Though the fact that Nintendo doesn't make them themselves or sexualise their own characters to anything like that degree, should tell us it's a genre they're not particularly keen on. I would imagine Nintendo are aware of those games and monitor whether they cross the line that those games appear to be skirting. They have removed games already showing they are willing to do so. Notice in the reporting of these games that it's never the developers of these games getting the criticism, it's Nintendo for the games simply being available on their platform. That supports my point that if they get this criticism as things are, they're even less likely to leave their hardware open for third parties to upload whatever software they want. Nintendo could explain until they're blue in the face that in such a scenario it has nothing to do with them and it's the developer/publisher that's responsible, and it will only fall on deaf ears.
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Post by AlexH on Apr 2, 2023 12:36:30 GMT
It depends what you think of very bad taste. Exactly it's a subjective matter of opinion, and it's worth bearing mind Nintendo are based in Japan where those sorts of games seem to be tolerated. Though the fact that Nintendo doesn't make them themselves or sexualise their own characters to anything like that degree, should tell us it's a genre they're not particularly keen on. I would imagine Nintendo are aware of those games and monitor whether they cross the line that those games appear to be skirting. They have removed games already showing they are willing to do so. Notice in the reporting of these games that it's never the developers of these games getting the criticism, it's Nintendo for the games simply being available on their platform. That supports my point that if they get this criticism as things are, they're even less likely to leave their hardware open for third parties to upload whatever software they want. Nintendo could explain until they're blue in the face that in such a scenario it has nothing to do with them and it's the developer/publisher that's responsible, and it will only fall on deaf ears. Japan is a very backwards country in its attitude to girls and women, so I wonder if that's why these games are tolerated. That makes me respect the likes of Hayao Miyazaki even more for his strong female characters in the likes of Nausicaa, Princess Mononoke, and Sprited Away. Anyway, I don't remember how this thread went so off-topic!
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Post by AlexH on Apr 2, 2023 12:40:55 GMT
Back on topic, the Nintendo Life review of Dredge made me add it to my wishlist, but when I saw it's available physically, I bought it. I'm looking forward to playing it, whereas if it was only a digital release I might not have got around to even buying it. The physical edition has some nice bonuses too, like a poster and (digital!) soundtrack download.
The Tears of the Kingdom limited edition extras doesn't make me think it's worth buying.
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Post by pratty on Apr 2, 2023 17:39:59 GMT
Back on topic, the Nintendo Life review of Dredge made me add it to my wishlist, but when I saw it's available physically, I bought it. I'm looking forward to playing it, whereas if it was only a digital release I might not have got around to even buying it. The physical edition has some nice bonuses too, like a poster and (digital!) soundtrack download. The Tears of the Kingdom limited edition extras doesn't make me think it's worth buying. I very rarely go for limited editions. I think the last one I bought was the one for Skyward Sword on the Wii to get the gold Wiimote Plus to play it with. But I do appreciate the little bits and bobs that sometimes come with regular versions and pre orders. If we do have an all digital future will we still get physical releases consisting of physical merch with a code for the digital game? Or will the extras all be digital too?
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Post by mattb on Apr 3, 2023 22:16:47 GMT
I like the look of the art book with TOTK. The rest of it not so much.
To be honest, my perfect special edition would have the game, a soundtrack, an art book, and nothing else. All the badges, posters, stickers, figurines and such are rarely going to even come out of the box.
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Post by pratty on Apr 4, 2023 15:34:04 GMT
Art books and soundtracks have never appealed to me. I'd probably only flip through an art book once and I wouldn't listen to a game soundtrack in isolation.
I'm more interested in things I can play or use, such as an extra game or a controller bundled with the main game. I thought the golden Wii controller with the Goldeneye remake was a nice touch.
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Post by megamixer on Apr 4, 2023 19:53:42 GMT
I do like artbooks and soundtracks in general but they aren't selling points for me anymore. Both tend to just be samples in LE games and the full fat versions with all the content are sold separately anyway (usually in Japan).
Even then, I have ripped all of my soundtrack CDs and sold them all by now (just kept Final Fantasy VIII CD boxset as it's my favourite game).
Artbooks tend to only cover a small portion of the whole range of concept art. I've owned many and sold many by this point. I still have a bunch though: various large Darkstalkers books (Official Complete Works, Graphic File, and Darkstalkers Tribute), Capcom Official Design Works, Marvel Vs Capcom Complete Works (was selling for over £100 on ebay last time I checked!!!), and individual (massive) books for the first three Valkyria Chronicles games. I do look at these from time.
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Post by mattb on Apr 5, 2023 0:45:13 GMT
Extra controllers are nice, but only up to a point. With the Switch being six years old now, most people probably have several by now. Selling them separately makes more sense than as a part of the special edition.
Skyward Sword was an outlier, because it needed Motion Plus, which very few people already had. If it had only used a regular Wii-mote, I doubt they'd have bundled it that way.
So far as Soundtracks go, yes, you're not going to get full AAA game ones on a single disc but it can work for a lot of indie games. Or they can give you a DRM free download code; seeing as I rarely listen to actual CDs, that works for me.
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Post by shadowman on Apr 6, 2023 17:24:51 GMT
Special editions take up way too much room for me these days... Id probably get a couple of the nicer looking ones but I barely have space for my normal games, the SE's are just out of the question. Part of me wants the Street Fighter VI SE, but then I glance at the doorstop that is SFIV's SE and Im reminded to never make that mistake again... I would like the steelbook for SFVI though...
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Post by megamixer on Apr 6, 2023 19:42:13 GMT
Special editions take up way too much room for me these days... Id probably get a couple of the nicer looking ones but I barely have space for my normal games, the SE's are just out of the question. Part of me wants the Street Fighter VI SE, but then I glance at the doorstop that is SFIV's SE and Im reminded to never make that mistake again... I would like the steelbook for SFVI though... Yeah, that's another good point. I've seen some gamers dedicate whole rooms, or at least the wall of a room, to SEs and I just couldn't do that. It's too much "stuff" for me these days. I used to have them stored away in crates etc. before I realised how ironic it was - that I wasn't even looking at them and was just owning them for the sake of having the "best" physical/retail edition. Don't even get me started on the massive boxes to accomodate really average quality statues that will never be on display...
Some of the last SEs I bought that really underwhelmed were Driver San Franciso (price of it crashed post-release as they were practically being given away and the car model wasn't all that great) and Street Fighter X Tekken (some crappy arcade machine model thing from memory and - of course - bonus gems for the naff in-game system(s)).
The only ones I think I still have are the Odin Sphere Lefithrasir "Storybook Edition" and the Last Story boxset on Wii.
I even sold my Yakuza 6 After Hours Edition recently (the one with the whisky glasses) because the box was just taking up too much room.
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Post by AlexH on Apr 6, 2023 21:36:05 GMT
I think the only special editions I have are The Last Story and Pandora's Tower, both on Wii.
I can't be bothered with stuff that takes up space for no reason, like statues. Game boxes themselves are oversized, and I can understand why so many people throw them away.
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Post by mattb on Apr 7, 2023 21:03:32 GMT
I think the only special editions I have are The Last Story and Pandora's Tower, both on Wii. I can't be bothered with stuff that takes up space for no reason, like statues. Game boxes themselves are oversized, and I can understand why so many people throw them away. The answer seems simple, buy your games as downloads. 😀 Seriously, that's what I mostly do these days. It's much easier to find the space for a special edition when you're only getting a handful of absolute keepers a year that way.
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