Okay, I haven't given this much thought but something crossed my mind a little bit ago. Here goes.
Now, we all know Nintendo likes to remake their games on newer platforms. This isn't always a bad thing but...you get the picture. They overdo it. While they have done some awesome remakes that went above and beyond the expectations of the original games (Super Mario All-Stars) and ported games to smarter and more efficient mediums (Virtual Console), they have also made some ports and remakes that really probably didn't need to be made. (NES Classics on GBA, Metroid Prime Trilogy)
Their latest focus is this Wii-Make thing, porting Gamecube games to the Wii with wii-remote controls, to take advantage of their new form of play control and introduce new gamers to games they may have missed out on 5 years ago. Regardless of how you feel about these Wii-Makes, they do change the way you play the games, so technically you could argue that they aren't a complete port. But could Nintendo find a way to release all of these games....yet again?
Allow me to segway into another, I can assure you, related topic. So a week or two ago we learned about Miyamoto's latest legacy, the game help menu thingy. You can pause the game and bring up a menu that displays the game in sections with titles, which you can select to skip to a later part of the game and instantly commence play from, not unlike a DVD. It is meant to help new gamers get used to stuff, and experience the whole game even if they get stuck somewhere. Regardless of how you feel.....it is the new standard in a Nintendo-published game.
Now. Obviously, this Help Skip feature is going to be in every new Wii game, and probably in every game Nintendo makes from now on. I am almost willing to guarentee you, a few years or even months from the release of New Super Mario Bros. Wii, Shiguru Miyamoto or some other wunderkind at Nintendo, is going to make this announcement. "We have seen that Nintendo fans really like this feature. It helps them do what they otherwise couldn't. Casual gamers may still shy away from games they feel are too hardcore or difficult for them - your Zeldas and Fire Emblems. What we wanna do is make it so that it, erm, isn't hard for them to enjoy these games."
That's right, Oh no he did-n't! He did. Folks, it's pretty apparent what's going on here. Nintendo is going to go back through a bunch of these games, and re-release them yet again with the addition of this help menu. What does this mean to you? Well...maybe not a lot right now. But what about when Nintendo finally acknowledges that the Wii Virtual Console has become the official library for all of the games in Nintendo's history, and that they intend to makethe featurea mainstay on all future Nintendo systems? There has been this burning question from fans ever since the Wii came out - "Will I be able to transfer my purchases." Maybe. Maybe not. If they were to 'enhance' these virtual console games and add this help menu to most of them, they could easily charge us again for those titles since they now include a new feature. They could give it to us for free, but they don't have to. While it is impossible to make this help menu for EVERY game (Pong help menu? I think not...), I am sure they would find a way to add one for pretty much everything else. I can see Nintendo putting in the time and effort to do something like this, they thrive off of nostalgia.
So...what do you think? Am I just being overly paranoid for no reason, or do I pose a good point? Could Nintendo re-release all of their old games yet again, and could they charge us for virtual console games we bought again? And, this isn't really off-topic, but also what do you think of this help skip feature, and what benefits/problems do you think it could cause for the future of gaming? Thanks.
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