Eighthours wrote:But Nintendo offering a Netflix style service instead of their piecemeal Virtual Console offering? Well, that seems OBVIOUS from a money-making point of view. They'd make way more, they'd get customer loyalty and lock people into the Nintendo ecosystem, getting a steady, reliable source of income every month. Man, it's strawberry floating obvious. Which is frustrating.
I don't think that is something we can say with any real confidence. We know nothing about the cost of running the virtual console, or how the game rights are worked out with third parties. We also don't know how much money they make from the drip-feed approach, or even from people paying the "upgrade fee" or just outright buying the games multiple times. I definitely agree that it would be a very good model for
us, but when it comes to it being a good model for Nintendo we haven't any info either way. Playstation Now is at least similar in concept, but it doesn't appear to
that popular.
Ultimately, especially on the Wii U, the virtual console has been a squandered idea. It does feel like we've moved back from what we had on the Wii, instead of forwards.