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Nintendo Wants Us To Download More And Move On From Discs
- Thread starter Megalith
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Not all USB drives require the same amount of power.
KazeoHin
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Yeah, I believe he was speaking of the 2.5 HDD enclosures, which require a great deal more power than ANY Flash disk.
years back I was hoping for small optical block kind of media (no spinning, scratchy discs).. I am sure it will not happen anytime soon, physical media is not really appreciated enough I guess, digital downloads probably more profitable anyway, plus you don't get to 'keep' anything (that you could use in a proper machine anyway).
Which is not recommended by Nintendo.
What External Storage Devices Can Be Used With Wii U? | Nintendo Support
The point being, Nintendo wants to sell digital games and their recommended storage for those games is to hang an external usb hard drive off the back that has its own power source. Microsoft took a lot of flack for doing the same thing and at least the Xbox One can power a 2.5" usb enclosure.
Normally I'd agree, but there are several issues with Physical media that could potentially reduce its accessible lifetime compared to its digital version.
A console physical copy requires at least 2 things in order for you to be able to 'access' the game, the disc itself and its original console. Depending the game you may also need its DRM server intact.
The disc itself is subject to disc rot, which occurs because the recording layer is usually made of organic material (not sure if Blu-ray media they use are also organic, but the multi-layered BR's certainly are not), so without storing them properly they may be inaccessible later down the line. An option would be backing up the discs, but you can do that with digital anyway.
The consoles themselves would also need to be in working order, especially with older generation consoles (for example PS1); as the backwards compatibility of newer gen consoles are spotty at best, especially with older consoles. Digital downloads have a better chance of being compatible with newer consoles (digital requires only serverside code change) than physical copies (newer consolves may not even be able to read the discs), so the worst case scenario is that for physical copies must also require working native console.
Putting the two together, you end up with physical copies may not give you longer 'accessible' lifetime (meaning the amount of time you have access to the game),
Aesthetics, yes, physical copies are much better in that regard than digital, especially when it comes to showing off your collection. Otherwise there are plenty of advantages of digital downloads that physical media cannot match.
For PC's, physical media makes more sense as they generally have much better backwards compatibility, or at least more tools are available (such as virtual machines) for that purpose
Ocellaris
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In the context of this conversation, Nintendo won't even let you access your digital games if you buy another of the exact same console. Also purchased eShop virtual NES/SNES/Gameboy games don't transfer between different console generations. Currently the only way to "keep" a Nintendo game right now is to buy it on disc/game cart, Nintendo hasn't shown any indication that they can be trusted with digital games.
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Totally true, I lost original box cd media pc games to there not being drm server... Probably could have chased down a crack of some sort wasn't in the mood to get viruses from researching shady websites, so I tossed them. Its also true that in a world of constanly updated consoles, thing will propably not work at all in few years. I know its naive, but I guess i hoped for consoles to remain like an atari, nes, snes, but you know way more advanced... Properly cared electronics should last decades.
defaultluser
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I'm not surprised Niontendo wants us to abondon discs
The disc itself is pressed and should last decades
There are some exceptions with batches of poorly made discs, but not usually.
So the real issue here is having a drive to read the damn things. And since burners have become cheap on PC, console designers have gone out of their way to create incompatible formats.
Typically the way you read disc images anymore is on the console itself using a home brew OS. Or if you get lucky you can read it using a raw mode supported by maybe two PC disc drives on planet earth.
So if your platform isn't very popular and there are no hacks, the chance of being able to download an illegal image of your favorite game is very small. These games will be lost as soon as Nintendo decides they're not worth a virtual console re-release!
The disc itself is pressed and should last decades
There are some exceptions with batches of poorly made discs, but not usually.
So the real issue here is having a drive to read the damn things. And since burners have become cheap on PC, console designers have gone out of their way to create incompatible formats.
Typically the way you read disc images anymore is on the console itself using a home brew OS. Or if you get lucky you can read it using a raw mode supported by maybe two PC disc drives on planet earth.
So if your platform isn't very popular and there are no hacks, the chance of being able to download an illegal image of your favorite game is very small. These games will be lost as soon as Nintendo decides they're not worth a virtual console re-release!
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madFive
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Dear Nintendo,
Hi.
Welcome to 2004.
Sincerely,
Gamers in 2016
Hi.
Welcome to 2004.
Sincerely,
Gamers in 2016
You're several years too late on that front. That ship has sailed. Even Steam sales are getting less steep less quickly and games are hitting their regular (non-sale) price floors at higher levels.
nvgrim
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While i am in favor of physical media one argument i have is who here still has their ps1 and library and still plays it regularly? I bet that number is really low, yeah physical media is nice to have, but in 10 years you wont even want to play that game anymore and now you have a box and disc sitting there wasting space. I dont even own any of my old ps1/n64 games anymore or the systems themselves. I think there should still be the option between physical media and digital downloads, but downloads need to be $5-$10 cheaper than their physical counter parts because part of that $60 you are paying when you buy the physical game is the cost of the disc and case. There is no reason why digital downloads cost the same when you are essentially getting less for your money.
That I find absurd. While I believe Japanese firms make better and more reliable hardware than anyone else on the planet (at least better QC), hardware failures do happen. I can now see why people do prefer disc versions on Nin, I would too...
I think Nin either should detach accounts from their machines, or have a way to transfer a machine's credentials (via S/N or something similar) before they can expect people to move over to digital. Their model needs changing.
I'm not surprised Niontendo wants us to abondon discs
The disc itself is pressed and should last decades
There are some exceptions with batches of poorly made discs, but not usually.
So the real issue here is having a drive to read the damn things. And since burners have become cheap on PC, console designers have gone out of their way to create incompatible formats.
Typically the way you read disc images anymore is on the console itself using a home brew OS. Or if you get lucky you can read it using a raw mode supported by maybe two PC disc drives on planet earth.
So if your platform isn't very popular and there are no hacks, the chance of being able to download an illegal image of your favorite game is very small. These games will be lost as soon as Nintendo decides they're not worth a virtual console re-release!
I won't argue against that, I have NES and SNES systems that still work after all these years, so I know how long hardware can last.
The case I was arguing against was that for Consoles, access to a well kept disc is a machine that can read and play the disc, which increases the chances of the physical disc unplayable down the line.
But after more thinking about it, I realised there was one thing I didn't take into account: total incompatibility between console gens may make Sony/MS/Nin stop offering digital downloads for older consoles before the digital download service cease, leaving you relying on the physical media to play it.