Will the video game industry ever properly rerelease their back catalog?

[Baloo]

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Baloo
Baloo
The Gentleman Thief

Join Date: Mar 2009 Posts: 5961
#1
Will the video game industry ever properly release its back catalog?
Today, 12:54 AM
The year is 2025, and the Titans of the video game industry have yet to figure out how to release their back catalog of games in any meaningful way, and frankly at this point in my life it is a major frustration. In what appears to be emblematic of recent industry trends, last December, Sega delisted most of its classic games from its Genesis and Mega Drive collection and other consoles such as Crazy Taxi, Jet Set Radio, Nights Into Dreams and Space Channel 5 in preparation of some new streaming services that has yet to come to fruition. Nintendo shuttered their 3DS eshop entirely, leaving a large number of Game Boy, Color, Game Gear, NES and SNES games completely unavailable to purchase

When I first started selling off major portions of my collection, in the early 2010s, I thought digital rereleases and emulation were the future of retro gaming, and frankly that no one would even want most of the physical copies of games running on old hardware using wired controllers and yet another hookup. And we were coming off what now appears to have been the golden age of rereleases through digital platforms of Wii Virtual Console, the PlayStation Network and Xbox 360.

Today? Delistings of games are incredibly common, and games from every major publisher have basically been sitting in IP graveyards for the last 30 years. Anything involving a licensed IP is basically dead in the water, and some of my favorite games growing up I've resigned to them never seeing a competent rerelease, including:

Outrun 2
After Burner Climax
Castle of Illusion
McDonald's Treasureland Adventure
Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance
Mario Kart: Double Dash
Star Wars Rogue Squadron II: Rogue Leader
Panzer Dragoon Orta
Panzer Dragoon Saga
Jet Set Radio Future
Crazy Taxi
Ms. Pac-Man
Pokemon Firered/Leafgreen
Pokemon HeartGold/SoulSilver
Donkey Kong (the arcade perfect version)
Knuckles Chaotix
Tecmo Super Bowl
NFL Blitz
NHL '94
NBA Jam
Super Mario 64 DS
Tetris DS
Magical Tetris Challenge
Sonic the Hedgehog 3 & Knuckles

In admittance, there are a few games on this list that have gotten rereleases that I didn't expect, including Ghost Trick, GoldenEye for N64 and the Marvel fighting games from Capcom. But it took effectively massive petitioning from youtubers to get the C-Suite executives to the table to cut a deal. ​​
Other rereleases have found themselves to be half-baked poorly-coded trash that leaves features out rather than pay rightsholders, like Sonic Origins and the Star Wars Battlefront collection. And yet, at the very same time, the industry feels intent on making sure we have the privilege of paying $60 for a new remaster of a classic game. The Nintendo Switch has been absolutely littered with remakes of Paper Mario, Super Mario RPG, Donkey Kong Country Returns, Metroid Prime, Mario Party Superstars, Luigi's Mansion 2, and many others to varying degrees of success. And yet many companies still cannot figure out a way to give us what we want: A playable copy of the same game we bought ten, twenty, and thirty years ago to share with our kids that we can play with a wireless controller.
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What has made the video game industry susceptible to being completely inept at rereleasing its own greatest hits? Right now, I can sign up for any music streaming service and stream practically any album from any artist from the last 70 years. Sure there are exceptions to the rule, but these are few and far between and usually extend to music released in foreign markets or extremely quirky artists who want nothing to do with the internet or streaming, and theyre still making sure that you can at least buy their albums on CD or via some other platform for a reasonable cost?

Movies and TV is a much more checkered landscape with a dozen failed streaming services trying to squeeze $10+ out of everyone in the country, but again I would say about 75% of the time there is at least one streaming service that holds the movie or TV show that you might want to watch. Certain TV shows with enormous amounts of episodes have gotten the shaft, but streaming has provided an HD release for a lot of movies and TV shows that never even made the jump from DVD to Blu Ray. My taste in movies and TV skews older so most of what I watch is generally found via direct rental on Amazon/Apple/Google for a mere $3.99. I don't subscribe to any monthly streaming services but it is rare for me to find a movie that hasn't at least gotten a blu ray release, though it is certainly more common to see rights issues than the music industry. But it is nothing like the retro video game industry fiasco. Anime is a much more difficult area in this regard.

Meanwhile, the cost of retro video games continues to far outpace whatever I expected any of them to cost. Games I would pick up for less than five dollars at a yard sale now command 20-30 times that online. Anything released for the Nintendo GameCube, Sega Saturn is now worth its weight in gold. It feels like the industry would rather direct you to archive.org than actually figure out a way to legitimately have you pay for their game. And emulation? Good luck trying to get that wireless controller to bind to your PC. I spent 2 hours figuring out how to pair my Switch N64 controller to Linux to play a few games, only to forget exactly how to pair the thing the next time I wanted to use it. Plug and play has totally gone out the window.

The one outfit I really give credit for releasing proper restorations is Capcom and Digital Eclipse. They've put out a fair number of solid collections in the last few years, particularly of their fighting games which seemed doom to never leave the sixth generation of consoles, particularly with the Marvel vs. Capcom collection. Konami also deserves credit with releases like its Ninja Turtles collection, but in other places it has totally dropped the ball like with its Metal Gear Solid collect.
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What do you all think? Is the video game industry just incompetent, or are they deliberately delisting their games and holding them back because there isn't enough money to be made in retro games? Either way, you won't see me buy any of the next round of consoles. The video game industry seems more intent on making sure the customer is never right than actually attempting to rerelease and restore video games that people actually want to play.

[Gametrek]

You sold off stuff like me, okay. Now you just DLC it or ask somebody who has DLC it already. There are also people starting virtual ( like glasses ) systems where you can play games online without DLCing it.

Maybe you should invest in crypto, stocks, bonds, small business ( like a need or want ), and shuffle your cards. Keep trying. The money is out there.

I might as well be a day trader and lift weights all day long while keeping my head wet; while "grass-sit".

.........

You know I wrote more trying not to rant.

I am saying this to you. My brain is stuck on the flat fact that 2001 should have not happen among other things. I say "How hard is it to eliminate one person?" We have tons of people in suicide-lines ( AKA escalator to no where ) that have the ability to blah blah you get the picture. One person ( like Christ ) could save millions of lives of people.....you get the picture.

There are tons of films from the 1800's ( when film was invented ) that has been lost for many reasons. Like how in WWII the german-museum lost many art-works including the "Glass-man", and historical acheivements as with the Museum in Iraq, ( asides all the theft ).

For me ( and you ) there are tons of great films from the 1930's ( like the original "Little Shop of Horrors" ) or the films shown in "A boy and his dog" ( which is edited on youtube of course ), that is lost to time.
"Rocky 3" removed the robot for it's Blue-Ray release. But thankfully I could edit that scence back in and bump up the resolution a bit ( thanks to offline A.I. tools.... one frame at a time ), and enjoy it for what it is. Even films like ( which I will not mention ) have edited out a boob or two, to even intercourse. It is like if I purchase something on Blu-ray (or even a pay to DLC ) I am getting an edited version....for modern LGBT audience.........

That is what is happening to our videogames. Videogames which have been mocked so much by people. It is like that movie "Carbine High" ( A parody of Columbine ) and the treatment of the "goth kids"
is so barren. It is like more attention is put on vajay jay rubbish. Then self-defense and protecting yourself from a violent offender.

I will admit I cracked some of those discs by accident but lets be fair. You could just

A. Save your money, invest, and purchase the game/arcade etc until you have the space.

B. Or just DLC it.

We do not need SEGA or any company for anything to be ported to anything at all. If you want that. Why not start a petittion. Mail some letters to these offices in JP ( or wherever they are located ). Be polite
and not demanding. Start a pateron ( by paypal donations if you do not want to pay the fee and your not lying through your teeth ) and show SEGA the amount of money you collected to harvesters.

Start your own company. Get the rights to publish a game ( like what the "Snatcher" on Dreamcast was going to be ) and just do that instead. Get some illustrators, 3d people, programmed ( of course ), and maybe even be lazy and pay the giant Unity fee ( as with Sonic Orion ). Then get people to fund the game.

There are so many original games that is sitting there like gold-mines to be published. But you would rahther be like "SEGA-Sammy stop being so mean and republish your works you bad bad publisher you"

The day is saved...problem solved.....

[Osirus]

Just emulate. The solution has been right in front of us for decades now.

[Gametrek]

Just emulate. The solution has been right in front of us for decades now.

The problem with "emulation" your not getting the full experience. (The way the game was meant to be played ). We went over this already.

Japan is a nationalist nation. They enjoy outsiders buying games rather then making anything. More so not best being apart of there culture. Beyond that is the rest of the world and there whatever.

I will always have a _______ system ready for the real thing when I need so. The somebody wanted an arcade perfect donkey Kong go buy the actual machine unit. Outside of that play the GB > 3ds > switch games or even the SNES homebrew game somebody made and you can dlc it. Or even make your own.

Not the same experience but as Bowser said " I have bigger fish to fry "