Gaming My Way

31 Aug

I Don’t Use Nintendo’s Download Services

I love Nintendo’s products. This is probably obvious, as the Wii is my first truly working console this generation, and I have yet to get a working 360 or PS3. However, there is one line of products I completely ignore, and that is anything that must be downloaded for a price through the Wii Shop. Why? Well, first, I’m already a little leery of buying downloads. I like having a physical product. But, with the release of Megaman 9 and the upcoming Sonic 4, I thought about giving it a try. Then I learned something. Nintendo has no convenient mechanism for transferring titles you’ve purchased between consoles, such as if you need to replace your Wii, or for when the next generation of consoles is released.

To me, this is not ok. Yes, the price is low enough that I could pass them off as long-term rentals. But there’s a reason I don’t rent, and that’s because I like to go back to my games. There are very few games I have that I haven’t picked up and played 3-5 times, with the exception of some rpgs, since those are a huge time sink. Back in the day, when games were shorter and played through in one shot, I would play some of the really good ones (I’m looking at you Sonic 3 and Knuckles), over 100 times over the course of my ownership. Of course, to be fair, it was one of only a handful that I had, so I picked the best and played it a lot. But the point is, I like to replay my games. And I don’t want to lose my purchases when the console goes kaput.

To be fair to Nintendo, they will sometimes help people out who call them up with a specific issue, such as if they had to replace their Wii. However, this is not a reliable means of protecting one’s purchase, and there are also people who Nintendo did not replace digital collections for.

Am I perhaps being a little silly about this? Sure, I can see and admit that. For the price, having it locked to one console really still isn’t a bad deal. It’s not the way I want to see it done, but for twice the price of a rental, it’s not exactly a big purchase, so I can still see glorified extremely long-term rental as reasonable. It’s just not what I’m looking for when making my purchases.


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