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Why won't companies easy re release old games or at least make very old ones free?

I’m no business graduate but you’d think Nintendo and Xbox who have closed their marketplaces on specific consoles I.e. 3DS market and 360 market.

There are some absolute bangers on there and old games in their possession as well. Since some of those games are still cherished, you’d think they would be helluva easy to profit by re selling or making a super duper old game free!

That would up both their PR and Profit.

I mean sure, there IS emulation, but we’ve all seen Nintendos stance on that clearly and their own product is a bit shoddy at best, subscription seems half baked and the mini consoles were overpriced pi zeros. Looking at you PlayStation Classic.

So how the hell are these giant firms not realising this despite the retro aesthetic of games going up these days?

towerful ,

Older games for specific older console hardware were specifically designed.
It leveraged specific features of that hardware.
They literally hacked the consoles they were releasing on to get their desired results.
And because it’s consumer gaming hardware/software neither backwards compatible nor forward compatibility for all the stuff the pulled were ever built in. So a game would have to target multiple platforms to actually release on multiple platforms .
It’s like why so many games don’t run Mac OSX. “Why don’t they just release windows software for free on Mac OSX?”. Because it needs to be redesigned to work on OSX, which costs money.

Everything up to, what, PS4? is probably specifically tailored to that specific hardware. Games that released on PS3 and xbox-whatever would have some core software dev team, then hardware specific developers. It would be targeted for the target hardware.
At some point, things like Unity and Unreal Engine took over, with generic code and targeted compiling. Pretty much (not quite) allowing developers to “just hit compile”, and release to multiple architectures.

Any official re-release of Nintendo games have generally been on an emulated system. Where they have developed that emulation to work with the original software.
There are some re-releases, where the game has essentially been rebuilt from the ground up, using original assets but to work with modern (and flexible) game engines.
Both of these have a lot of work, so not free. Worth $60 or whatever Nintendo charges? Meh, that’s competing with real games.

If you own (or buy) a nes/snes/N64 cart, you can rip it. There are plenty of ways.
It’s not the source, but it’s what it compiles to. And you can reverse engineer the source, then adapt it to modern game engines. There are a few open source projects that do this. Their quality varies.
Or you can build an emulator to run that software, as if it was the original hardware - an emulator.
Nintendo can skip the rip, decompile and reverse engineering steps. They likely have access to the source code, and the actual design specs for the hardware (not just what they tell developers - who then hack the hardware anyway) All of this requires a LOT of work. So a sellable product from someone like Nintendo requires a lot of investment.

Emulators are good. Any used for speedrun leaderboards on equal footing to actual hardware (ie times are similar, even if they are different categories) will be good enough that you wouldn’t know.

lordnikon ,

Companies don’t want you to play games already out it’s about controlling what you do play and breaking an old game from running is a feature not a bug. If I could develop a game where customers get nothing and you are required to pay them money. It would be the top funded game by every AAA publisher. Remember the people at the top and especially the shareholders don’t care about games.

They care about money and vendor lock in and planned obsolescence is how they get it. Because enough people have yet to say enough is enough. They do that with Legacy IPs because most people say well I bought the first one I wouldn’t be a real fan if I didn’t buy the next one.

cobysev , (edited )

They do that with Legacy IPs because most people say well I bought the first one I wouldn’t be a real fan if I didn’t buy the next one.

I hate how accurate this is. However, it can also hurt them because there have been many franchises I’ve refused to buy because I never played the first games and I don’t want to jump into the middle of a story I’m unfamiliar with. I’m a bit of a completionist like that.

I wonder if this is why a lot of games are no longer numbering their new releases and just giving them unique titles. So people don’t think of them as a series and are more willing to buy the latest releases.

On a related topic, I HATE how Call of Duty just made a totally new game and called it Modem Warfare, then started up a new franchise with MWII, MWII, etc. We already had Modern Warfare 1-3! It’s like they’re trying to erase/overwrite their old franchise so when people look them up, they just find the latest games. Very sneaky!

EDIT:

If I could develop a game where customers get nothing and you are required to pay them money. It would be the top funded game by every AAA publisher. Remember the people at the top and especially the shareholders don’t care about games.

This is where microtransactions and DLC (like useless character/weapon skins) come from. The customer gets practically nothing, but they pay the company so much money for it. There are tons of games that thrive on this model (especially mobile games) because selling microtransactions and extra downloadable content that’s just a recoloring of a skin makes way more money than just selling the base game.

lordnikon ,

oh it will definitely hurt them long term but shareholders and therefore leadership bonuses only think in terms of quarter by quarter. So any long term sustainably gets thrown out the window. Same goes for energy companies and the planet.

RightHandOfIkaros ,

Record label companies. Various licensing and IP contracts that they never write to be indefinite because of greed.

NeoNachtwaechter ,

Your day has 24 hours, and they care about how you spend it.

Do you spend your day playing old + free games? They call you worthless.

Do you spend your day playing the very newest shit? They call you precious.

ohlaph ,

They want you to buy their new games.

finley ,

Riven, a game from 1997, just got an official re-release. Probably one of the best video games of all time.

lung ,
@lung@lemmy.world avatar

No way, that game terrorized my childhood and is basically just a picture book click adventure

Kolanaki ,
@Kolanaki@yiffit.net avatar

Nintendo only doesn’t like emulation when others are doing it. It’s not like they actually ported the games on the virtual library to the Switch or Wii/WiiU. They’re emulating them.

frankPodmore ,
@frankPodmore@slrpnk.net avatar

easy to profit by re selling

This was exactly the reason they shut down the 3DS marketplace: re-selling old games is more profitable via Switch Online than it was through the 3DS marketplace!

ChonkaLoo ,

They want you to buy their new games. They also want you to be more likely to buy the old games again when they eventually do a sloppy re-release of the old games or tie it to increase the value of their subscription offerings. Basically to make more money.

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