VC Price Increase? - R-Type

Agreed. I've not even been tempted to buy any. They're going to have to half the price before I even get half interested. I'd be interested to know what the takeup was like, does anyone have any numbers for sales?

i'm sure the VC pricing is something they are still playing with, just as MS is still playing with pricing on Marketplace, and Valve is even still fiddling with pricing on Steam after all these years. it's still a relatively new market, one price oddity is hardly a trend here. regardless, i'll buy a game based on the game, not release system or price. $10 for Mario 64 is worth it to me. $5 for Zelda was also worth it. i haven't grabbed anything else yet since the games so far are mostly bleh. once i find another Wii Points card, i'll pick up Castlevania 4 as that game is pimp, and i dont even know how much it is right now.

chances are, we'll see some games come out that will be cheaper than their brothers on the same system. maybe that will get people like me to buy more games, since "eh, it's only $2. might as well try it". it's still experimentation time for Nintendo.

Wow, thanks for the heads-up. I didn't even notice the price increase and was considering buying the game since it's a TG-X game and therefore "is" only 600 points!

I think the VC pricing is fine for favorite games, but how many of those is someone going to have? R-Type looks interesting, but I've never played it. I don't have any interest in taking a chance on the game for $8. I think it's going to come down to a situation where Nintendo's going to have to decide between the following:

Sell 100,000 copies of a game for $8
or
Sell 500,000 copies of a game for $4

I'm definitely going to buy Castlevania 4 since it's one of my favorite SNES games, but how many others will say the same?

I doubt this is a general increase.

In Japan, R-Type was initially released as two games -- the first contained levels 1-4 and the second 5-8. They simply weren't able to fit the game on a single Hu-Card. Remember, R-Type for TG-16 was nearly identical to the original arcade game -- a rarity at that time (most home ports were lower quality) -- and was thus larger than what was the norm.

By the time the US release happened, they apparently figured out how to fit it onto a single Hu-Card and it was released as a single game.

I bet the higher price for the US R-Type is related to the fact that a Japanese VC release would consist of two fully seperate downloads that would each cost the base PC-Engine (TG-16) price. $8 is still a deal compared to $12.

Concerning price in general, I really think Nintendo needs to stop this system pricing approach and move towards a game popularity/quality approach. There are some games I would easily pay $20-40 for, since they are better in my opinion than all current and most likely future games which cost $40+ (Chrono Trigger on the SNES comes to mind; for which the SNES cart still sells for $30+ on Ebay). Heck, I would have paid $10 easy for Gunstar Heros. On the other hand, there are tons of games I wouldn't pay more than $1-3 for (pretty much every NES and SNES game on the VC right now besides SMB and Castlevania 4). Here's hoping Nintendo either ups the quality or lowers the prices (or both) in the near future.

$8 sounds high? I guess it's all perspective - you could blow $8 on two movie rentals that you don't know anything about, or spend $8 and know what you're getting. With the movies, it's a rent and return. The games are keepers.

$8 is like 6 cups of coffee. I could give up six cups of coffee for a game.

Just my opinion, but $8 is relatively cheap comared to other stuff we willingly spend our money on.

Once Blaster Master is on VC, I'll pick up a Wii just for that...and R-Type.

I payed $8 for Gunstar Heroes. Well worth it with the fun 2 player mode.

I have yet to purchase SMB at $5 since I'm looking to find the Gameboy Color re-release that came out a few years back (with a ton of extra features and competition modes) which will play happily "on the big screen" in 480p via my Gamecube's Gameboy Player -- just like how I won't buy VC editions of Mario 2 through World or Link to the Past given that I own all GBA re-releases and play them via my GC.

All things considered though, $5 isn't asking too much given that you get 480p output, save/restore support, and the ability to use vastly superior controllers (classic or GC) above and beyond the original NES freebie. Had I not already been using my GC as a "virtual console" through GBA re-releases, Sonic Mega Collection, and the Zelda Collector's Edition the past 2 years, the VC would be pretty attractive to me. Thus far, it's just been Bomberman, Gunstar, and Castlevania 4.

VC prices are nuts at this point. Other than Mario 64 I feel they are gouging us at anything over $5. Heck NES and SMS games should be $2. It broke my heart to do it but I passed on R-Type. I just do not want to be part of the consumer base that says I am OK with these prices

It still seems silly to me to price based on system/age.

Games clearly haven't improved with each generation. There's a reason all the various "Top 100 Games" list tend to include a ton of games from N64/PS era and back; and it's not just nostalgia.

If I went to Amazon right now and started looking to buy a new CD, music from the 60s would end up costing me around the same as music from this year. A DVD of Wizard of Oz (1939) would cost me the same as a DVD of LOTR: Return of the King (2003). Consumer products, cars, etc get better over time and therefore depreciate in value. Entertainment (in all forms: music, movies, games) tends to be timeless and stay relatively consistent in price.

Games that have lost their fun over the years (or were terrible to begin with) really should be dirt cheap -- or better, not even available on the VC. Games which are some of the best ever made should be priced accordingly. The problem is less about price in my mind and about quality. The VC titles thus far (in the US, atleast) are pretty lackluster. There's something like 4 "top 100 games" lists online, and 2 or 3 from print magazines -- Nintendo really just needs to read these and start releasing games appropriately. Unfortunately, they're probably already doing this but waiting to release the games during the normal summer "no new game" drought.

Dude Rtype totally rocks! Best shooter ever!

Though R-Type is a great game, I'd personally take Gaiares, M.U.S.H.A., Thunder Force III, Target Earth, Radiant Silvergun, Ikaruga and Gradius III over R-Type.

I forgot how flush with classic shooters the Genesis was. I played so much Thunder Force III I could beat it with a single life without taking a hit.

Not to mention Zero Wing - which is a darn decent shooter, even though it's famous only for the introduction.

You know... I agree with you. The prices "should be" lower and they'd guarantee virtually everyone would buy more VC games; but, Nintendo would have to be crazy to do so considering the volume of sales they are racking up. This is exactly why they continue to make a profit in an industry that has trouble doing so.

Don't worry, I have a feeling we'll be seeing a "Player's Choice" pricing for older VC titles as newer titles are added. That way they can charge "full price" for recently released VC games and discount older titles.