'We Thought It Would Be Fun': Nintendo Has a Whole FAQ on Why It's Selling Pokémon FireRed and LeafGreen Separately for $20 Each - IGN
https://www.ign.com/articles/we-thought-it-would-be-fun-nintendo-has-a-whole-faq-on-why-its-selling-pokmon-firered-and-leafgreen-separately-for-20-eachOpen linkView original on piefed.ca239
Comments103
everything about this release is ridiculous
20$ is way too expensive for what it is, it should honestly be 10/15$ at most
why just fire red/leaf green? why not other pokémon games? ruby, sapphire, emerald, these have never been rereleased!
why are all language versions separate purchases??? you couldn't be arsed to bundle them?
the only new feature of this release, and really the only reason one might want to use this version instead of emulating on another platform, pokémon home compatibility, is not available at launch and will be added later. come on.
anyways play cassette beasts instead
Monster sanctuary was a lot of fun too
Coromon rocks! And its only 5$ on steam.
LumenTale just released a new trailer today.
ohhh cool thanks!
I liked Nexomon Extinction, and am looking forward to Nexomon 3D.
Monster Sanctuary had much worse graphics and the story was not engaging at all but somehow I still enjoyed it a lot more than Cassette Beasts.
People shit on it a lot but I played TemTem at release and the whole time felt sad because it was what I'd so long wished that Pokémon would become.
I bought their album, its fantastic. Cassette Beasts is the best pokemon.
Seconded on Cassette Beasts. Beat the game, then play it with random beast typings.
Such a good game! It did not have to have all the extra features it does to be worth the purchase, but they loaded this game with fun!
And Magi Nation!
Sorry, Shin Megami Tensei has already won me over. Can't beat fighting and having gods fighting for you in my book
You ain't going to jail for downloading a GBA game. And it is much cheaper than 20 dollars (except if you really want to play it on a switch for some reason)
Even if you really want to play on Switch there are CFW options that enable GBA emulation.
Yeah but those require either an specific type of Switch or a modchip (which does cost a little AND requires soldering)
Nintendo thinks their customers are fucking dumb morons
Well... I mean, do you remember the height of Pokémon Go?
As much as I think nintendo and the pokemon company are evil shits, I do believe overall pokemon go was net positive for humanity.
The physical health benefit from all those people walking around, and the mental health benefits from said populations being more social and friendly with others won't ever show a statistic for lives saved, but I think it's reasonable to assume lives will be saved from extra exercise and positive social interactions.
I do agree, but it's too bad they ran both that game and the goodwill generated by it into the ground.
I remember when there wasn't much more to worry about besides a surge of people going outside with their phones.
Those were the days.
At least they added the speedometer so if you go too fast the game doesn't work.
Made playing the game on public transit impossible though :/
Or as a passenger in a car
Pokemon go to the polls
You mean the same people who in the same breath complain about the state of Pokémon and immediately follow up by saying they're going to buy it anyway? Those people? 😅
Then they know their audience. Source: Nintendo customer
Because they are? How many YouTubers are playing The Hot New Thing from Nintendo right now, because they bought it? They are the ones perpetuating this shit. It's all a feedback loop meant to suck as much money out of the public as they can.
I can go and find at least 6 YouTubers that I subscribe to that almost always play the newest of the new thing so it's featured on their channel. RTGame, Mo1stCr1t1kal/Penguinz0, Game Grumps, IronPineapple, VideogameDunkey, OboeShoes, hell even General Sam as much as I love his style and humor.
Game Grumps got in trouble from what I remember using emulators on old games haha.
I actually forgot that Game Grumps only play the newest of the new when it's from a particular series or something.
Why did they get in trouble? Was it with Nintendo or the fans? I kinda remember some "controversy" over them using emulators instead of original hardware, but imo that's bullshit. Sometimes old hardware isn't better, and all kinds of things can go wrong with it.
I wish I remembered...Im spacing right now and search isnt coming up with anything. I just remember there was a small stink because some game or another was too expensive? And they just emulated it but showed one of the screens? Its been many years.
Yeah, seems about right for some of the purists out there. There's a whole fucking subreddit dedicated to talking shit about them. It's honestly sad.
Like it's one thing to have a semi-parasocial relationship and call it "hanging out with your friends" but it's another entirely to dedicate time out of your life to get upset and angry over a goddamn YouTube channel.
That is not semi-parasocial, it is full parasocial, and you should do your best to discourage that kind of sentiment if ever conveyed genuinely.
I know it's a tough subject. Pretty much everyone is semi-parasocial. But describing someone you literally don't know and just watch content from as a friend is parasocial and an incredibly delusional and dangerous mindset.
Yes, yes they do. And many are considering that they’re doing this.
You know there are Nintendo fans and then there are Pokemon fans. They have a reputation of not really being into games but being into everything Pokemon.
I think Nintendo is right
"Neither of these answers seem to address the question of why the games could not also be part of the Switch Online's GBA collection... or why the games are priced at $20 each..."
Nintendo:
Meanwhile, I can go to a certain website, get the gba rom and even a romhack adding tons of QOL features and new stuff.
Then, thanks to emulators, I can play it on any device, have cloud saves if I want, online multiplayer for free, in any language I like and for only $0.00
Because their real answer of "Because you dumb fucks will buy it anyway" wasn't nice enough for the press lol. Seriously as long as you dumb asses keep buying old ass games from Nintendo for way too much money they will keep letting you do it.
LOL I just downloaded the roms and used an emulator. There's no way I'd re-buy for the Nintendo Switch, only because I am against their current practices. Until they abandon their virtual card system, I don't think breaking my boycott is a smart move.
This is the real reason Nintendo is suing emulators and ROM hosts. They JUST realized there is a market for this. Took them 30+ years to figure it out.
I mean, not really. Nintendo has been fairly consistent about rereleasing old titles for many many years now.
I mean the game in question is the first of two remakes of Pokemon Red, and (if I remember correctly) the first official re-release of a remake of Red. I'm not going to say all of the releases are the same experience by a long shot, but it's a little hard to argue they're only now figuring it out.
If you want to say that it should have been made more available to current platforms sooner then that's a different argument.
I would way rather play on a platform that allows me to save state at any time and as many as I want (Though I guess most of my devices are set up to have 10-20 saves max, but I could set them up for however many I want.)
What is the point of having Nintendo online if Nintendo isn't going to release the games/DLC you want on Nintendo online?
I've got my ROMS permanently so I'm saving my money.
*$20 each, for each language.
TBF these are games that were originally released with separate cartridges for each language, so this isn't an especially surprising thing.
Plenty of GBA games had multiple languages on one cartridge. No excuse.
Yes, but not mainline Pokémon games.
Exactly. No excuse back then, even less an excuse now
Especially in Europe.
I remember plenty of GBA titles with language options. I used to buy them on flea markets abroad and didn‘t know a lick of english. I find it absurd that this one wouldn‘t have that option.
I would have loved like a Mario all Stars of retro Pokemon games. They don’t even have to get fancy with it. Give me like Gen 1-5 and we’re good. Or hell, even just Gen 1-3 and I’d be happy.
The ROM hack Pokemon Unbound is what you're looking for.
I always thought it would be cool to have a pack of the games that allows trading between the versions, or at least tracking of the pokedex across versions. I'm not crazy enough to play every single version, but if they had every version of every game for several gens, with a central pokedex, it would let the super fans try to completely fill out the dex.
I've been trying to fill out the pokedex in home, and i know i'd get a lot of usage out of that. It'd be nice to be able to track it in game rather than having to hop between
OMG, a Pokemon All Stars would be amazing. But I do want them to get fancy with it: with every new game that starts, make me start with a starter as usual, but once I get access to trading, let me pull Pokemon that are below the soft level cap out of my boxes.
Now that you mention fancy features, i wouldn't mind if they did some stuff with QOL changes. I know some people hate it but i'd love to have the Modern Exp. All for my entire party in everything outside gen 1
Lmao hard pass.
I’m all for buying current games and remasters but $20 for a 20 year old game (that they’re releasing the editions separately) is absurd.
You know it's bad when Konami can release GBA roms for a better deal at the exact same price (talking about the Castlevania Advanced Collection).
People complain but they keep buying Nintendo trash so why not
Generally speaking, the people complaining are not the people doing the buying.
It sure seems like they are in the case of Nintendo.
Yes i think it's morally correct to pirate their games
I am part of the problem
$5 for a whole generation of games would be fair...and this certainly isn't. Wario is the true representative of Nintendo.
"Cause we love money, lol, fuck you poors." - Nintendo
Nintendo: “What are you gonna do about? Not buy it?”
Nintendo is only doing this because people let Nintendo fuck them in the ass without even a kiss and a reach around. And then they say “thank you senpai”
Obligatory fuck nintendo
Nintendo suckss
Time to pirate FR to play on my phone just as a tiny middle finger to nintendo, who can't do shit against me in Brazil 🇧🇷 🖕
Oh, let me also play more Palworld, who's having to fight bullshit patents
Never in my life have I been as excited about a video game release as I was in 2004 for Pokémon FRLG.
Now I haven't touched them in a long time and have no idea why anyone might be excited about games we already know everything about. But then again there are children out there who are the same age as I was in 2004 and they might never have played FRLG on the GBA.
I'm playing through Pokemon Unbound on my Steam Deck and it's scratching a decades old itch. I mostly outgrew the games after Gen 1, but that little red Gameboy Pocket got me through many a 9th grade study hall.
I haven't bought anything from Nintendo since the 3DS. They just can't hold my interest anymore, and I really hate what they've done to Pokémon. They know it, but they just don't care because people will keep buying it regardless.
“We think it’ll be fun.”
I would Pay $60 for a switch physical cartridge with all of their GB through GBA Pokemon games, especially if there was a way to trade pokemon with myself. I would still play them all on roms on my other devices, but I would totally buy that cartrage. But I'm not paying $20 for a digital version of just one of them.
Piracy is justified because I already own those games, and they're not backwards compatible. I'm not going to pay for the same game multiple times.
Probably not from indie developers
Even from indie devs. Many have said that if you don’t have the money to buy their game to get it and play it anyway. More eyes on it and word of mouth and whatnot.
Do you work for the billion dollar company? Weird fucking take you have portraying them as a victim
Thinking that pirating a $20 game from Nintendo is fucking someone over is a wild take. Stop treating international giga corporations like people
The work was already done, and the people who worked on it have already been paid. Nobody's getting royalties here.
The devs already got paid. The money spent buying this game just goes to the higher ups who spent 0 time actually working on the game.
You were right in your first comment, but this is plainly false. Not pirating, mind, but making copies of what you already own is legal, at least in US and most of Europe.
I do whatever I want regardless. That you go out of your way to defend the multi-billion company from copyright theft is pointless, when nowadays agents like Meta have been reported stealing millions of copyrighted materials and nothing happened.
If a company shows no respect for its consumers by nickel and diming them for everything, then there is no reason to show a company respect by purchasing its products.
If they re-released their entire back catalogue at reasonable prices—not locking them behind a subscription—with a commitment to letting users transfer them to future consoles without an upgrade fee, then things would be different.
Sure, but there is a difference between not giving them money, and not giving them money but getting their product anyway.
"I don't like your product or practices, so I'm not going to purchase it" is not the same as "I like your product but not your practices, so I'm going to pirate it."
Video games are not exactly a vital good like food.
Blind consumer loyalty only incentivizes Nintendo to further raise prices and make their products less consumer friendly.
Piracy simply demonstrates a problem with supply; if Nintendo wants to solve it, the solution isn't trying to cuts heads off of a hydra, but rather adjust prices to capture unrealized market potential.
I did not say anything about blind consumer loyalty, so that comment feels strange in the context of this conversation.
Unlike physical cartridges, a digital, emulated copy of FireRed has no resale or collector's value. The lack of physical copies for virtual console games also means each copy sold costs Nintendo nothing beyond the initial emulator development cost, which would be minuscule on a per-game basis.
Considering those factors, and the Switch having a higher install base than prior systems (over ten times Wii U unit sales), maintaining the Wii U and 3DS price points is the most reasonable means for Nintendo to monetize their back catalogue in a way that makes piracy less enticing for many people: $3 per GB, $4 per GBC, $5 per NES, $7-8 per GBA, $8 per SNES, $10 per N64/DS, and $20 per Wii.
Given that each emulated console only requires that a Switch emulator be developed for it once (something Nintendo has already done for NSO) to support hundreds of paid titles, there's no need to increase prices when the games will sell several times more than they had any chance to on the Wii U.
Given how many games NSO includes, they could continue offering them that way for people who prefer renting their library. Consumers want meaningful options; pricing a GBA game at $20 is not that.
I feel like people who were never gonna buy it no matter what the price tag was just want something to be mad at.
When I had a Wii, I bought games I had played and wanted to play on the NES when I was younger. Now I have nothing to show for it. Never again. At least with Steam, GOG, or pirating, the power is in my hands to keep those games for as long as I can. Nintendo doesn't give me that option in any legal manner.
So you were never gonna buy it no matter what the price tag was.
You're right, because I've literally done it before with them and have nothing to show for it. So which of us is the fool?
Well if you're replying me just to tell me you were never going to buy it, you're proving my point.
So if no one responds, it's because they have no rebuttal, but if they do, they're proving your point. Quite the big brain theory there. My point was that it had nothing to do with the price tag, except that the value proposition isn't there when they can just stop giving you access whenever it becomes inconvenient for them. Moreover, while I have regrets about buying stuff on the Wii store, I'm not angry at them. So it just sounds like you're saying I'm not much of a customer for a restaurant that I don't go to anymore just because I got food poisoning a few times. Must be me and not them. And you sound like you're defending a shitty company because people say their product isn't worth buying.
If you respond to tell me that you were never gonna buy it, you prove my point.
It's just kind of tiring how every post about anything Nintendo does ever has the exactly same whining every time, especially when you're not actually whining about FRLG here at all, you're just whining to whine. You just want something to be mad at.
You see where they said "I bought games"? It means they bought it.
They were never gonna buy this game.