Will Nintendo ever get its act together with preserving its gaming history?

[Corrie1960]

Nintendo for years has been sad state of affairs for its virtual console and up to now I've put up with it but now I cannot handle it anymore.

I have been a Nintendo fan since day 1 but just this morning I was thinking about past Nintendo games and how I would love to play them again.

My favorite game of all times is Pokémon Silver I could go on and on how much that games means to me but that's for another thread followed by Paper Mario & The Thousand Year Door.

I'd love to play these game again but there is no way it's possible to do so and Nintendo Switch is its current console and should be available to play, infact it's entire library of games preserving its gaming history.

I'm not saying all at once but once a week release 2-3 games to play. Nintendo are leaving money on the table.

 

[NotLiquid]

Honestly, the only dev that doesnt suck at games preservation is Microsoft.

 

[Forkball]

Pokemon Silver is available to play on the 3DS, a system which got new games this year.

I'm not sure what you mean by preserving gaming history since they have those games. They aren't gone. They can't release their entire catalogue on each new console (although...)

 

[Deleted member 5491]

From what I read in Iwata Asks and whatnot, they preserve everything in their offices. So they are better than most devs out there.
But making it available... yeah they suck at that

 

[Porygon]

They preserve every game submitted to them (Ask Square-Enix), they just don't release everything and not that much

 

[Finale Fireworker]

Pokemon Silver is available to play on the 3DS, a system which got new games this year.

I'm not sure what you mean by preserving gaming history since they have those games. They aren't gone. They can't release their entire catalogue on each new console (although...)

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Preservation is as much about access as retention.

History that cannot be accessed is not particularly valuable as it no longer contributes to culture. Although Nintendo does appear to be an industry-leader for asset retention, especially from the early days of video games where other companies just... deleted everything or threw it out when they were done. Shameful.

Nintendo was good at this during the Wii Era and all the games from all those different devices it brought to the Virtual Console. I remember thinking it was amazing because those games would never be inaccessible again because the Virtual Console would always exist.

Clearly Nintendo and I had a different understanding.

 

[Deleted member 10737]

no publisher as old as them has done a better job at preserving and respecting its history than nintendo. what you mean is making their old games available, which while it's a bit frustrating that they haven't done it on switch very well, these aren't throw away games they can just give away willy nilly, these have value for nintendo unlike how most other publishers treat their decades old games as nothing but "roms". virtual console is dead, i'm sure they're just calculation what the best time would be to bring the next system to NSO subscribers (likely SNES).
but of course, i'm looking at it from their point of view. from my personal view i would love it if i could play all their old games on switch and i would drop everything to replay super metroid or yoshi's island the day they come, but i'm not gonna pretend nintendo are just being dumb about it by not making all of them available or that they need to get their act together.
unlike NES games, SNES games (for example) still hold up extremely well and i have to wonder how it would affect all their new releases and their marketing if they just dropped 10 or 20 SNES games randomly while they're also focussed on getting people to play these new games they've spent a lot of time and money on.

 

[Deleted member 9584]

Part of me feels like Nintendo is saving a full roll out of classic games as a last resort incase they REALLY need it to prop up a new system. If Switch was struggling, I bet we would've gotten a more fleshed out virtual console by now. Heck, I think Wii's virtual console was a way to help give the system some momentum when they knew they were releasing a severely underpowered device compared to the competition. When Nintendo is in a corner they will lean on their back catalogue more.

 

[Excitemike]

Preservation does not mean "available for purchase". Anyone with an emulator has access to their entire library.

 

[Corrie1960]

Other games I'd love to play again would be Mario Party 4

And yes I could play these game again but I'd have to pay a small fortune to a 3rd party and Nintendo wouldn't make any money from the sale.

Since the Wii I don't trade in my console or games I have my Wii U & games also

 

[tsampikos]

Pokemon Silver is available to play on the 3DS, a system which got new games this year.

I'm not sure what you mean by preserving gaming history since they have those games. They aren't gone. They can't release their entire catalogue on each new console (although...)

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Why not.

 

[Sphinx]

Nintendo getting their act together would mean that they create an all-online calatog for all their games from the NES onwards til WiiU, including most if not all of their 1st party efforts and crucial 3rd party games from every generation.

then they'd release hardware that would be online-only specifically to play all that retro stuff and subscription based, like a Gamepass but with all their games ever.

how much would people pay monthly for a gamepass-styled service with all of nintendo's catalog?

$30? $40? probably more? I repeat, monthly not per year like their shitty online service

they'd be in a constant stream of ridiculous revenue, on top of all their newest games and hardware, if they did that but this is nintendo and they like keeping everything for themselves and unused, probably with the idea "in the future we can make people pay another $40 bucks for Ocarina and other games! let's hold on a bit more and come up with an awesome better plan" (which never materializes).

we'll have to wait

 

[Ehoavash]

Wait for Pokemon silver to release on their online subscription service ..in the year 2022

 

[Garou]

Why not.

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Old games compete for game-time with new games. If old games win out too often against new games some third-parties will see their sales go down, which in a worst-case scenario means third parties stop making games for the system.
In general I believe the success of Indies and mobile-ports on Switch is one of the reasons why Nintendo is hesitant to put old games on the system.

 

[Heromanz]

Nope , that why it up to us to do it

 

[BasilZero]

Only through emulation.

Nintendo wont re-release their games even though they could, its one of those Disney Vault type of situations.

 

[Deleted member 53692]

I want them to get a virtual console service that doesn't need to be restarted from scratch each generation
I think it's kinda a shame we only get 2 NES Games a month. I know it's like a "problem for rich" or something similar, but heh, Nintendo can do better. And I want to play some N64 and NGC games on the go with my Switch.

 

[Moist_Owlet]

They have to preserve their backlog so they can drip feed it to us for switch 2.

 

[D.Lo]

Nintendo has the original design documents of Mario. I am 1000% certain they have all their rom files safely stored for every game they have ever made.

Them being available for purchase at any time irrelevant.

Preservation is as much about access as retention.

Click to shrink...

You are using the word wrong. If something is kept safely by someone somewhere, it is preserved. Access has zero to do with it.

 

[RadicalDreamer]

I still think we will see more legacy content become available as a service later in the Switch's lifecycle, as attention starts to shift towards what comes next as a way to maintain a consistent revenue stream for as long as possible. It may just be a drip-feed of SNES games, much like we have now for NES, but it's something at least.

I understand what you mean though, it certainly is frustrating. There is the option of emulation, but that requires you to already have a disk image or to be able to rip one from a game cartridge, which requires more hardware anyways (not to mention owning that game cartridge!). I'm personally planning, as I'm sure many people are, to use my Switch for emulation after it is replaced by a newer version or console, unless for some reason Nintendo decides to really up the ante on older games being available by then.

 

[Zacmortar]

Nintendo has the original design documents of Mario. I am 1000% certain they have all their rom files safely stored for every game they have ever made.

Them being available for purchase at any time irrelevant.

You are using the word wrong. If something is kept safely by someone somewhere, it is preserved. Access has zero to do with it.

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No, it isn't. Saying that businesses holding assets is "preservation" is like saying Martin Shrkeli holding onto that Wu Tang album is "preserving" it. Preservation doesn't count unless it's either in the hands of the people, or an official archivist/curator, because without actual appreciation and attention, the art loses any meaning.

 

[Liam Allen-Miller]

History being preserved =/= selling a product.

No doubt the vast majority of their output is safe and sound with both Nintendo and a variety of game archival groups.

 

[Finale Fireworker]

You are using the word wrong. If something is kept safely by someone somewhere, it is preserved. Access has zero to do with it.

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Culture and media have value beyond their mere existence. Without the opportunity for consumption it ceases to be culture. This is not preservation. This is asset retention. The spirit of cultural preservation relies on access, even limited access, because without access it doesn't exist.

Media is not an object. Art and culture do not have value if you can't engage with it. There is no value to a book you can't read. There is no value to a movie you can't watch. There is no value to a game you can't play.

This is why museums and libraries and archives exist. Because simply retaining something is pointless if people can't use it.

I don't want to get in a semantic argument over language or word choice but I don't agree with your outlook here at all.

Nintendo, for the Wii generation, provided the best monetized access to legacy software in the console space. They were on to something great. Then they stopped. That sucks.

 

[Principate]

No, it isn't. Saying that businesses holding assets is "preservation" is like saying Martin Shrkeli holding onto that Wu Tang album is "preserving" it. Preservation doesn't count unless it's either in the hands of the people, or an official archivist/curator, because without actual appreciation and attention, the art loses any meaning.

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Are you honestly implying Nintendo doesn't appreciate their decades old work? Nintendo of all video game companies?

 

[D.Lo]

No, it isn't. Saying that businesses holding assets is "preservation" is like saying Martin Shrkeli holding onto that Wu Tang album is "preserving" it. Preservation doesn't count unless it's either in the hands of the people, or an official archivist/curator, because without actual appreciation and attention, the art loses any meaning.

Click to shrink...

You're making up fake definitions.

preserve
/prɪˈzəːv/
verb
past tense: preserved; past participle: preserved

1. 1.
   maintain (something) in its original or existing state.
   "all records of the past were zealously preserved"

If something is not at risk of being lost to the universe, it is preserved. The end.

Culture and media have value beyond their mere existence. Without the opportunity for consumption it ceases to be culture. This is not preservation.

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It is literally the definition.

If you mean something other than that, use different words, because that word includes no requirement for public access.

 

[SPRidley]

Nintendo's preserving history is more akin to the Disney vault than just put everything to the public.
I mean the history of this games and the games themselves are being preserved by them (at least the last few years) but you are not the one going to have all that library.

 

[Heromanz]

Honestly, the only dev that doesnt suck at games preservation is Microsoft.

Click to shrink...

Nintendo has the original design documents of Mario. I am 1000% certain they have all their rom files safely stored for every game they have ever made.

Them being available for purchase at any time irrelevant.

You are using the word wrong. If something is kept safely by someone somewhere, it is preserved. Access has zero to do with it.

Click to shrink...

Without access preservation means nothing especially something like media

 

[D.Lo]

Without access preservation means nothing especially something like media

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Star Fox 2 was not available between development in the 90s and release in 2017.

I guess it wasn't 'preserved' because it wasn't available for 20 years. But then all of a sudden it was 'preserved' again when it was released.

To all of you using the word wrong: if you mean 'accessible' then just use the word accessible.

 

[Heromanz]

Star Fox 2 was not available between development in the 90s and release in 2017.

I guess it wasn't 'preserved' because it wasn't available for 20 years. But then all of a sudden it was 'preserved' again when it was released.

To all of you using the word wrong: if you mean 'accessible' then just use the word accessible.

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But you know we mean right. And even star fox 2 weird example because a lot of us played that game way before that . Sure it wasn't the complete game it was basically all of it.

 

[Nairume]

Without access preservation means nothing especially something like

Click to shrink...

As someone who worked as an archivist for a while and is now on the historical research side of things, access is a finicky beast. You can preserve materials til the cows come home, but you can't just easily make things openly available to the public for a laundry list of reasons. Sometimes "public access" itself means a whole bunch of different things. It sucks, but it is what it is.

 

[kc44135]

I don't understand why people still have this line of thinking that Nintendo doesn't want release old games on Switch because it might interfere with new game sales. I remember when I made a thread on this very topic, only to be met with this reasoning again and again. It makes no sense to me, and has no basis in anything. There is not even a single correlation in the history of game between the availability of an older game and the sales of a new game, nor any real proof that old games being available on a new platform means new games won't sell. I'm just bewildered to see this same line of thinking constantly crop up when it doesn't seem to have any real basis in anything.

On topic, Nintendo is awful about preserving their history. Just because they have the ROMs stored somewhere doesn't mean they have it preserved either, lol. Preservation also means accessibility of great works, and Nintendo has the greatest works in the history of this medium. That they refuse to make them available on their current platform is both frustrating and disappointing.

 

[kc44135]

As someone who worked as an archivist for a while and is now on the historical research side of things, access is a finicky beast. You can preserve materials til the cows come home, but you can't just easily make things openly available to the public for a laundry list of reasons. Sometimes "public access" itself means a whole bunch of different things. It sucks, but it is what it is.

Click to shrink...

I think you might be misunderstanding what some of us mean. No one here is asking for Nintendo to make their back catalogue available for free on Public Domain or anything like that, lol. We just want their greatest games available on their current platform. I know I'd gladly pay for the privilege of playing their classics on Switch. I only want the option to do so.

 

[Zacmortar]

Are you honestly implying Nintendo doesn't appreciate their decades old work? Nintendo of all video game companies?

Click to shrink...

Companies arent your friends, and if Nintendo never rereleases or acknowledges the majority of their back catalogue again, then yeah. For each popular old game acknowledged, theres another dozen left to be forgotten.

You're making up fake definitions.

preserve
/prɪˈzəːv/
verb
past tense: preserved; past participle: preserved

1. 1.
   maintain (something) in its original or existing state.
   "all records of the past were zealously preserved"

If something is not at risk of being lost to the universe, it is preserved. The end.


It is literally the definition.

If you mean something other than that, use different words, because that word includes no requirement for public access.

Click to shrink...

Definitions dont mean shit in discussions like this where the entire premise is built on sentimentality for both a product and art piece, and you're arguing in bad faith over a stupid "Um, actually :)" technicality.

Words have different meanings in different contexts, you aint smart for pulling out a dictionary.

 

[Rogue Agent]

Sadly, no. If they do, I'll believe it when I see it.

 

[D.Lo]

But you know we mean right. And even star fox 2 weird example because a lot of us played that game way before that . Sure it wasn't the complete game it was basically all of it.

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People deliberately misuse the word 'preservation' to try and imply Nintendo (and other companies) games may be 'lost' unless there is easy access to them. It allows the demand of everything to be available for cheap (or free) to have a veneer of 'altruism' to it as if you're 'helping collect history'.

The fact you've spoken about outright piracy of Star Fox 2 before its official release is demonstrative. The game was never lost as demonstrated by Nintendo releasing a final version in 2017.

Words have different meanings in different contexts

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There is a perfectly good word that means 'available': available. Explain to me why you need to use a completely different word to mean 'available'?

 

[Heromanz]

People deliberately misuse the word 'preservation' to try and imply Nintendo (and other companies) games may be 'lost' unless there is easy access to them. It allows the demand of everything to be available for cheap (or free) to have a veneer of 'altruism' to it as if you're 'helping collect history'.

The fact you've spoken about outright piracy of Star Fox 2 before its official release is demonstrative. The game was never lost as demonstrated by Nintendo releasing a final version in 2017.

Click to shrink...

But it is unknown or known whether or not these games will ever be released. Or even if they still have the code or ROMs. I'm no time traveler is pretty unreasonable to expect people to wait 20 plus years to see whether or not a game they played in their childhood will get released or not. preservation without the ability to play a game is useless.

 

[Crashman]

I kind of have mixed feelings about how NIntendo's been handling things with the Switch. On the one hand, there's a bunch of SNES, N64, GBA, and GCN game's I'd love to see portable, but on the other, I think there are benefits of not flooding the market place with old games since I'm inclined to be more adventurous when the old stand by games aren't there. When I went full in on the Wii's VC and EShop, it was mostly VC games I had there, rather than Eshop, because I knew DKC2 and SF64 were good. But....I still want a bunch of portable Gamecube games. We would be getting Super Monkey Ball 1 & 2 rather than Banana Blitz I bet....but that's not on Nintendo.

 

[Camwi]

It's weird, you'd think that it would be easy money to either bring back the virtual console (maybe even put it on mobile) and sell games individually again, or make the whole library available as a subscription service. Either way, it feels like there's hundreds of millions of dollars to make with their enormous catalog of games, and instead they do almost nothing on the Switch.

 

[Valcrist]

The gaming industry has failed until I see Terranigma available in North America.

 

[Hero]

My guess is that they want to start making NSO a digital haven for their older games. Yep, releasing only NES games and only 2-3 games per month really sucks and is mind-boggling, but I believe SNES is right around the corner. Would love to see them more aggressive on this and add 2 titles per system every month. I feel NES/SNES/GB(C)/GBA/N64 should be fairly feasible.

 

[Weiss]

Nintendo doesn't want to remind you of its back catalogue, it wants to sell you its shiny new toy.

 

[Heromanz]

As someone who worked as an archivist for a while and is now on the historical research side of things, access is a finicky beast. You can preserve materials til the cows come home, but you can't just easily make things openly available to the public for a laundry list of reasons. Sometimes "public access" itself means a whole bunch of different things. It sucks, but it is what it is.

Click to shrink...

Why not you tell me?

 

[Nairume]

I think you might be misunderstanding what some of us mean. No one here is asking for Nintendo to make their back catalogue available for free on Public Domain or anything like that, lol. We just want their greatest games available on their current platform. I know I'd gladly pay for the privilege of playing their classics on Switch. I only want the option to do so.

Click to shrink...

No, I get that. The issue is that even that has issues that keeps them from totally being able to do that. They famously had to pull GB Tetris from the virtual console due to licensing issues that suddenly cropped up.

 

[blueredandgold]

I too am leaving money on the table by not preserving what I produced after my last beef vindaloo.

Who would like to pay me for it.

Seriously though, so much of this discussion comes from a place not borne out of good faith, it's why I can't stomach the more well-renowned preservation initiatives in gaming because their figureheads want to take the low road and make a funny tweet about Nintendo being a corporation etc.

It sucks that the topic is mired in such 'well it's easy to do it, and we're sick of dancing around it in 2019' tripe.The mask has fallen etc etc.

 

[Dyle]

It's clear that they have excellent internal records but they could do better on access. The idea that they'll open the floodgates and release everything is a little unreasonable but the tiny amount of stuff they offer for sale now isn't really defensible

However it's clear that Virtual Console did not make the kind of huge revenue that people like to believe it did, if it was financially successful they would have continued to invest in it rather than going in a different direction

 

[Principate]

Companies arent your friends, and if Nintendo never rereleases or acknowledges the majority of their back catalogue again, then yeah. For each popular old game acknowledged, theres another dozen left to be forgotten.

Definitions dont mean shit in discussions like this where the entire premise is built on sentimentality for both a product and art piece, and you're arguing in bad faith over a stupid "Um, actually :)" technicality.

Words have different meanings in different contexts, you aint smart for pulling out a dictionary.

Click to shrink...

Why are you even mentioning that? Nothing I said remotely implies that. It's basic understanding of their business model that company like Nintendo that monetizes it's history extensively has great respect for it's back uncatalogued and wants the consumer to greatly respect it too hence why they continue to charge a premium for it. Most others don't do that and for good reason too as it's generally not economical outside of certain exceptions.

That's been their MO for 20 years now.

 

[lunarworks]

My favorite game of all times is Pokémon Silver I could go on and on how much that games means to me but that's for another thread followed by Paper Mario & The Thousand Year Door.

I'd love to play these game again but there is no way it's possible to do so...

Click to shrink...

Not to take away from your desire to play it on modern hardware, but there's millions of copies of the game floating around out there and a Gameboy Color isn't that difficult to get.

 

[jobrro]

Hopefully at some point, though at this stage I feel it will be more like a Game Pass situation than the VC we knew.

So weird thinking back to the Wii days. Felt like they mostly had this stuff down. Then the Wii U came and they had small upgrade fees for previously owned titles and they started the drip-feed again (think the Wii U VC did have more features, but still). Now we are two and a half years in on the Switch and we have NES games for a subscription.

 

[Governergrimm]

I don't think they care about their legacy unless they can monetize it. They can generally resell their classics each gen and people will buy it for nostalgia. I sit here with a switch, SNES classic, and an NES classic and I know if they made second version of those classic consoles I'd buy them. They simply don't need to.

 

[Benzychenz]

If the Virtual Console was super profitable they would have continued in that direction. I think them abandoning it tells all you need to know.
I'm sure the big names sold well enough, but everything else probably barely made back the licensing, porting and testing costs.
So then if they want to focus on the big names, do they make more money dropping Wind Waker on the eShop for $20, or putting time into remastering it and selling it for $60 at retail?