Wiiware developer says "XBLA is full of shit".

[diskoboy]

Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight......

http://www.joystiq.com/2008/03/17/wiiware-dev-xbla-is-full-of-sh-t

Lets talk about "friend codes" or overpriced retro games, shall we?

[Vectorman0]

"According to the anonymous developer, the sheer glut of retro titles on XBLA makes it difficult for new properties to stand out"

As if the Wii isn't worse? LOL

[Dangerboy]

"...Lets talk about "friend codes"....
He doesn't seem to refer to the actual player identification issues / communications, however, there's no argument from me on friend codes; they need to go.

"....or overpriced retro games, shall we?...
One of the magazines (or a web-site) actually added up the costs of the VC games vs real games, and the VC games came cheaper.

Not only that, and perhaps I'm a special case, I'll take $9 VC Neo-Geo games over the $25 MVS to $40 to 200 AES carts any day.

[noname11]

"...Lets talk about "friend codes"....
Not only that, and perhaps I'm a special case, I'll take $9 VC Neo-Geo games over the $25 MVS to $40 to 200 AES carts any day.


dont forget the storage costs involved with old games. Having recently moved into my apartment, those damn games cost me a lot to move and gave me a workout!

[Bojay1997]

"...Lets talk about "friend codes"....
He doesn't seem to refer to the actual player identification issues / communications, however, there's no argument from me on friend codes; they need to go.

"....or overpriced retro games, shall we?...
One of the magazines (or a web-site) actually added up the costs of the VC games vs real games, and the VC games came cheaper.

Not only that, and perhaps I'm a special case, I'll take $9 VC Neo-Geo games over the $25 MVS to $40 to 200 AES carts any day.

You're right, you only have to pay $9 for a rom running on a mediocre emulator as opposed to $25 (or less) for something you can own, resell and will play in the actual way it was supposed to play. That article you're talking about was a joke. It did nothing to factor in the financial value of actually owning something and being able to resell it as opposed to paying a lot for what you can download for free on most ROM sites.

[emceelokey]

Would the Wii be any better in selling non established, "generic" than the XBLA? I know Nintendo makes a killing throwing out a bunch of games a week but those are mostly established, money making properities. Unless Nintendo intends to really market these original Wii ware games, I doubt they will do much better. Think about it though. How many people are going to pay $5 to play some unknown game calles Space Giraffe when they can pay $5 and get a game that they know and may have fond memories of such as Double Dragon?

[ProgrammingAce]

Some developers are just pissed off that microsoft limits the number of XBLA titles they release per week. If your game isn't up to snuff, you don't get to put it on XBLA.

Some of the same companies are also pretty upset that the certification process is brutal for XBLA titles. To which i say, make better games or die.

[udisi]

if xbla is selective, I'd hate to see what non-selective is. There's some loads of garbage that made on there.

[ProgrammingAce]

I said they limited releases, i didn't say they limited them to quality titles...

How much do you think Yaris paid to have their game on XBLA?

[Melf]

You're right, you only have to pay $9 for a rom running on a mediocre emulator as opposed to $25 (or less) for something you can own, resell and will play in the actual way it was supposed to play. That article you're talking about was a joke. It did nothing to factor in the financial value of actually owning something and being able to resell it as opposed to paying a lot for what you can download for free on most ROM sites.

IIRC, it also doesn't take into account how you'd store and access all those VC games. It's not like you can actually play them off an SD card, right? Or has that changed?

[Dangerboy]

Uh...the emulator runs fine. Having owned the AES carts, and currently own the MVS versions, Art of Fighting, World Heroes, and Fatal Fury are fine. Between $9 and a couple of Wii blocks, or $25 and having to drag out my Neo AES and Phantom, I'm all Wii.

But then again, each his own.

[Half Japanese]

It should be noted that one of the folks mentioned in the original article had a proper beef with the slashed royalty rates, which is probably going to have a negative impact on the number of quality titles on XBLA. On the other hand, Mr. "full of shit" only mentions 'retro remakes' and comes off sounding like the dumbass he probably is.

Also, why even bring up Jeff Minter? Space Giraffe is pretty widely regarded as an epic failure, whereas I've gladly paid the points for Smash TV, Contra and Time Pilot: you just can't compare shit with champagne.

[Gabriel]

Added another WiiWare developer, who also didn't want to be named: "Frankly, we're not looking at making games for Xbox Live Arcade because the service is full of shit," he said, pointing towards the service's number of retro remakes.

XBox Live Arcade is full of shit? That's news to me. I think a very high percentage of the games available on the service are not just good, but great. And that percentage is much, much better than the percentage of even passably decent stuff on the Wii Virtual console or the Playstation store.

As for "retro remakes," I wonder what is being complained about. Yes, there are games like Joust and Frogger on XBox Live Arcade, but they're far from the majority of games. I suppose he may be complaining about games like Jetpak Refueled or Triggerheart Excelica, but if he is, he can shove it. How he justifies complaining about "retro remakes" while praising WiiWare is interesting, as Nintendo's downloadable offerings are absolutely packed with 15 year old console titles, most of which weren't even any good when they were new.

Maybe he's ignoring the Virtual Console. That seems like an odd line to draw. I don't see as Wii owners are going to make much of a distinction between Virtual Console games and Wiiware games any more than he makes the distinction between Live Arcade and XBox Classics or PS3 Store and PS1 Classics. When you look at it that way, which is the way any reasonable human being would, then the Wii is the console crowded with retro remakes.
Or maybe he really likes Donkey Kong Jr Math, Urban Champion, Vegas Stakes, and Vigilante.

[Poofta!]

if xbla is selective, I'd hate to see what non-selective is. There's some loads of garbage that made on there.

QFT

a lot of the remakes are pretty terrible. but then you do get some amazing gems (mostly new content).

space giraffe was shoddy anyway, the guy who made it is just bitter nobody (or few people anyway) share his view of self proclaimed brilliance.

[Half Japanese]

XBox Live Arcade is full of shit? That's news to me. I think a very high percentage of the games available on the service are not just good, but great. And that percentage is much, much better than the percentage of even passably decent stuff on the Wii Virtual console or the Playstation store.

I think the reason the Playstation Store gets a free pass from so many people is the fact that there just aren't a lot of games available on it and the ratio of hit to shit is better based on that alone. Then again, Everyday Shooter and Pixeljunk Monsters are better than most of what's come out over XBLA in the past 6 months.

[kedawa]

I think there's more raw shit in the Wii retail libraray than there is on xbla, to be perfectly honest.

[Bojay1997]

Uh...the emulator runs fine. Having owned the AES carts, and currently own the MVS versions, Art of Fighting, World Heroes, and Fatal Fury are fine. Between $9 and a couple of Wii blocks, or $25 and having to drag out my Neo AES and Phantom, I'm all Wii.

But then again, each his own.

Well, if you're going to go the emulation route, why pay Nintendo's inflated prices? Why not just buy the various SNK collections for those games which go for $10 at Best Buy (ok, World Heroes is $15 since it just came out). That's $5 a game on average as opposed to $9, plus you have a physical disc with resale value.

[s1lence]

If the Wiiware is anything like the Wii Retail releases its going to be shovelware in downloadable form. Yes, XBLA has crap games, so does every system. I like how he is anonymous as well. At least Jeff Minter had the balls to actually use his name.

[rbudrick]

Damn. Developer fanboys. Who would have guessed.

Both suck, both rock. End of story.

-Rob

[DJ Daishi]

Damn. Developer fanboys. Who would have guessed.

Both suck, both rock. End of story.

-Rob

took the words right outta my mouth!

[Dangerboy]

"Well, if you're going to go the emulation route, why pay Nintendo's inflated prices?"
$9. Compared to $25 to $30.

Look up "inflation".

Why not just buy the various SNK collections for those games which go for $10 That's $5 a game on average
Wait...you're complaining about emulation...and you're recommending...the PS2 versions?

You've...played an MVS unit before, right?

plus you have a physical disc with resale value
I'd rather have it not take up space, and I usually, you know, keep the games I want to play for years. Besides, there's no guarantee that a game goes up in value.

You know, like how the $40 Metal Slug Anthology behind me now sells for...$19.99.

/me shrugs

[Gabriel]

It's the matter of if you like more than one game as to whether the Virtual Console makes economic sense.

For the sake of argument, let's say the entire World Heroes franchise were on the Virtual Console. You could pay $9 for each of 4 games, totaling $36. Or you could buy World Heroes Anthology for the PS2 for $15.

Perhaps you're after more than one franchise. Let's say I like Fatal Fury and World Heroes. I can buy each on the Virtual Console for a total of $18. I'll only have the first installment of each series. Or, I could buy the PS2 compilations for a total of $30. The difference is the PS2 compilations have the later games of both series on them. If I'm interested in more than the first game of each franchise, its generally a better idea to grab the compilation discs, because I'll get 5 other games for my $30.

In a couple of months the SNK arcade collection will come out. It will have Art of Fighting, Fatal Fury, World Heroes, and Samurai Showdown on it. Those four games total $36 on the Virtual Console, but are all on the compilation disc along with several other games for $15. Once again, if you're interested in two or more, it's a better idea to just get the compilation disc.

Basically the emulation isn't an issue. The question is whether the convenience of having them on the Wii's flash drive is worth the price. For me, it really isn't. It's been worth it on a few other games, but not these.

[bangtango]

This is a story?

Must have been a slow news day at Joystiq.com

Wonder if Jeff Minter will post a new blog entry saying "I just got a new plug for Space Giraffe on Joystiq.com!!!!!!!!!!!!"

[Bojay1997]

"Well, if you're going to go the emulation route, why pay Nintendo's inflated prices?"
$9. Compared to $25 to $30.

Look up "inflation".

Why not just buy the various SNK collections for those games which go for $10 That's $5 a game on average
Wait...you're complaining about emulation...and you're recommending...the PS2 versions?

You've...played an MVS unit before, right?

plus you have a physical disc with resale value
I'd rather have it not take up space, and I usually, you know, keep the games I want to play for years. Besides, there's no guarantee that a game goes up in value.

You know, like how the $40 Metal Slug Anthology behind me now sells for...$19.99.

/me shrugs

Why would I need to look up "inflation"? Inflated prices have nothing to do with the economic principle of inflation. It's an adjective, look it up.

I'm not complaining about emulation, other than the fact that I own an AES and an MVS and prefer the originals to emulated roms. Having said that, I understand that not everyone cares enough or wants to spend the money for the real thing. As such, there is a very inexpensive alternative for the PS2. You can get a collection of three games for around $10 in most cases. The Wii VC versions are $9 per game which works out to $27 for the three which is extremely overpriced when compared to these collections considering you don't even get a case, disc or insert. Assuming you only wanted one of the games, is it really fair to charge you $1 less for 2/3 less content, no disc, insert or case, considering it literally costs them nothing to provide you with the download?

If you had paid $9 for each Slug game on the Virtual Console, you would be out $54. At least your Slug collection can be resold for $10 or so used and years from now you can still play it which is more than Nintendo is willing to guarantee when you buy a VC title.

This argument about space is absurd. Unless you live in a studio apartment in New York City, you can't convince me that you don't have space for a PS2 game case.

[thedeityofhardcore]

I wonder how much Nintendo paid him to say that

[ProgrammingAce]

Why do people assume that you can't resell VC games? If you sell the console, the VC games go with it... While an extreme solution, it's certainly possible.

[Bojay1997]

Why do people assume that you can't resell VC games? If you sell the console, the VC games go with it... While an extreme solution, it's certainly possible.

Do you think anyone is going to pay you extra for a few downloads when you sell a system? What if you just want to sell the downloads? Right, you can't. I'm all for downloadable content and I have a pretty good size library on my 360, a couple on my PS3 and a couple on my Wii (Alien Soldier and Sin & Punishment), but I don't think the VC is a fair deal compared to what most things go for on the competing systems.

[Vectorman0]

Why do people assume that you can't resell VC games? If you sell the console, the VC games go with it... While an extreme solution, it's certainly possible.

I believe the license agreement you agree to when downloading the Wii VC games forbids you from it, claiming it to be illegal. I could be mistaken. Also, I am pretty sure I remember reading you are supposed to reset the system before resale for this reason.

[rbudrick]

I believe the license agreement you agree to when downloading the Wii VC games forbids you from it, claiming it to be illegal. I could be mistaken. Also, I am pretty sure I remember reading you are supposed to reset the system before resale for this reason.

I would estimate that aproximately negative 3 resold Wiis have had this done.

-Rob