OPINION: Nintendo Needs to Stop Drip Feeding Legacy Titles and Make Them All Available

I've never understood why Nintendo does this. With the Wii, they were drip fed. Same with the Wii U and now here we are again, waiting who knows how long for whatever games Nintendo decides to release on the Switch. But now, we can't even buy them again if we wanted. We have to subscribe yearly just to keep access to them. In the age where streaming content is the way to go for movie and TV watching, video games are slowly catching up, and what keeps people subbing is an endless supply of content. But if you're a hardcore retro gamer, you'd be hardpressed to say you're getting your money's worth with Switch Online if all you care about is the old school games.

This is why I think it would behoove Nintendo to stop drip feeding us games and get their entire catalog up ASAP. I know there's a lot of people on the fence about whether or not they want to subscribe to Switch Online, and I think having a pool of hundreds of older games to pick from would be the clincher.

What do you think?

This has long been a complaint among Nintendo players, and it still doesn't look like changing. Sadly, Nintendo's gonna Nintendo: one step forward, two steps back.

While I would like to see more games come out a bit sooner as well as make them available just to purchase I don’t think that just dumping them all at once is a particularly good idea or even reasonable. I’m sure that there is some kind of work that they do to make sure the games run well on the system plus I think that there is some value to releasing them periodically.

Why would they change when they know you guys will jump through any hoop they put in front of you?

I understand the allure of subscription models (massive libraries, relatively low cost, convenience) but I don't understand the willingness to have so many hooks (Netflix, Hulu, prime, Spotify, HBO, stadia, ps now, gamepads, etc) stuck in your mouth. Too many times have I seen the exact thing I want to watch, play or listen to be taken from the service; where if you owned it (physically) you could use it whenever you want... assuming you've taken care of it and it's not some online thing that's out of your control.

I doubt I will ever agree with trading control for convenience.

I've always wanted a proper Virtual Console. Also, I'll always champion physical copies. I'd gladly spend 200 dollars on buying digital old school games than pay 10 years of sub fees just to keep access only to the ones I want to play, but I've finally accepted the fact that Virtual Console will never happen. Since Switch Online is how Nintendo wants to do things... all I can do is hope they at least vastly improve their catalog soon.

They don't "need", it's a deliberate move to make dumbos think they are getting a stream of "new content", when they're just sitting on it.

It gets idiots to anticipate and buy so why change strategy if it works.

This.

@JustPlainLucas: But if you don't support their "only" option, they will be forced to create a new option.

SHTU THE HELL UP!

IM SICK OF PPL SAYING NINTENDO DRIP FEEDS

PC and nintendo is the perfect matcfh u get nintendo exclusives and indies on the go, PC is the best place to play games tho

Inb4 Nintendo fans say they actually like it and how dare you say anything bad about Nintendo. Whoops, too late.

I agree. I do not get why they axed the Virtual Console when that was by far the most respectable thing Nintendo has done in terms of their online structure.

It’s part of the Nintendo Tax. Nintendo loves to dangle the carrot of “great games” in front of their fan base but NEVER actually gives them great games.

The fanbase is so delusional that they will defend these bad games.

It’s the same with the service.

Nintendo promises all these amazing games....and they never come.

Or if they ever do come, they are always gimped somehow or your put through more hoops to pay more for them.

It’s this never ending greed and their fanbase can’t stop giving Nintendo their money no matter what.

Nintendo is like that abusive husband who keeps beating his wife, but the wife/fanbase loves him to death anyway.

It’s sad.

Your blatant hate against Nintendo is sad

man... what the ****?

What they should do, unless they hate money, is sell their legacy games. They can't possibly earn as much by letting all of us play those games for a measly sum per year, as they would selling their legacy games for 5 bucks each or something. I just don't understand the business model. If they made a VC again, put all their legacy games on there, they would earn billions over night. Sure, they might get a few "why do I have to buy Super Metroid a 3rd time" complaints, but it's what most fans wants, and are willing to do. But let's not.. Let's earn way less and frustrate our fans with the selection instead.

Makes no sense. What are they gonna do with the next console? Remove the option to play their legacy games again and start over adding the same games again in an equally slow rate? I'd take another VC, buy Super Metroid a 3rd time, being able to buy Super Mario 64, or maybe even GameCube games over the crap they have going on now, any day.

With a subscription, you gotta give a reason to stay subscribed. So dripfeeding is the way to go.

Not sure what kind of service people are paying for anyway. Nintendo's online isn't server based anyway, and the P2P is so laggy it reminds me of a connection like this:

Even if Nintendo sold these instead of requiring the online service, I would not support it after my experiences with Wii, Wii U, 3DS, and lack of rights retention for same VC games to be shared between my systems.

Yeah I'm sure they got a copy of all the Nintendo roms from those roms sites before they sued them into oblivion.

Oh most definitely. Luckily they probably wont have another console for a very long time.

Yup, the Nintendo online service is laughably bad. The only reason people are paying for it, is because Nintendo gets away with charging for it. They haven't improved the service in any way, just made us pay. The defense: "It's cheap".

While I would prefer having a complete library from the get-go, none of the big 3 are offering such a thing so it baffles me as to why anyone here is bitching about Nintendo not doing it.

It was pretty terrible on WiiU, but I used it anyway, because it was free.

Seems like it's no better on Switch, it just comes with a pricetag.

While what they're doing now is wrong, releasing them all at once is a terrible idea because the only way to do that is with a completely generic emulator, which means that many games would be broken.

They also love re-releasing old games on new systems, not allowing people who already own them to transfer them over, and aggressively going after people who use emulators to play games they already own. Oh, and shutting down fan projects and let's plays. I love Nintendo games, but I honestly think the company hates its fanbase.

When is Nintendo going to release a new DS and not just another DS with a gimmicky 3D screen?

That sounds like a nice fantasy on paper. But as we know, nice fantasies don't always play out well in practice. Front loading the service with too much stuff at once may cause everything to get lost in the shuffle. By starting off with a good 20 or so games, then expanding it with steady releases overtime, you can convince people to keep checking back in for something new, and keep subscribing to the service.

I think Nintendo's current release pace with NES/SNES games is too slow, but it's not hard to see why they do staggered releases instead of front-loading.

They aren't even selling these games. They are included in their online service.

I agree 100%. I am so sick of them announcing Super Mario Kart like its a great reveal... same with all these games that have been released and given away over the previous consoles.

Holding a direct to tell people super mario kart... pssshhh

I'm not sure if you're being serious....

Remember when they said it would play GameCube games?

It could be the fact that every generation, Nintendo resets their catalog. Some of us are just tired of it. Nearly 14 years have passed since they started doing Virtual Console with the Wii, and the Switch's NES and SNES games are a mere fraction of what the Wii has. Nintendo should have handled their legacy catalog so much better than this; it should have been huge by now.

I'm with you, like I said I would prefer a completed library from the get-go. But is anybody else doing what you want Nintendo to do in the console space? Does Sony have all PS1/PS2 games on their service? Does Microsoft offer all Xbox/360 games?

I want them to all do, but criticizing only Nintendo about this makes no damn sense.

But do Sony and MS keep resetting their catalogs every generation? That's what I'm taking issue with. That's why I'm not bringing the other two up. This thread is focused on Nintendo for a reason. I also love Nintendo more than I do MS and Sony, so I expect more from them as a result. In my eyes, Sony and MS are doing better in this area than Nintendo, so hence why I'm not criticizing them.

All at once. No thanks. Drip feed is fine.

There's already too many and no time to play any of them.

If you were in charge of the back catalogue at Nintendo, what would you release and when?

Obviously, releasing everything all at once means there's nothing to look forward to and keep subscribers interested.

Obviously, releasing nothing makes the subscription undesirable.

What schedule satisfies the demand without taking attention away from new games?