Frankly, Nintendo's new subscription service isn't about "Nintendo greed" (as most people would claim it is), it's just "greed". The Wii U was Nintendo's last hurrah for their "outdated" approach to consoles and games. In their old philosophy, consoles were toys, so they had to feel fun to play around with and be plenty durable (because kids). In their old philosophy, games were just extensions of those toys. Most people (probably) don't know the CONSTANT backlash Nintendo got during the Wii/DS to WiiU/3DS years. Go on any major gaming forum or site during that time and read the articles, the comments, etc. There will be hundreds of comments spread throughout these sites (DAILY) about how Nintendo was TOO SLOW in adopting the digital storefront, how they were BACKWARDS for not doing Season Passes and Subscription services, how they were FOSSILS for maintaining and relying on physical markets. Oh? And the classic games on the eShop? People were YAMMERING about how OVERPRICED THEY WERE, how "they should be 10 Cents!" or "they should put them all on a subscription service!" (no, I'm not exaggerating, that was genuinely being shouted back in those days). They were harassed day-in and day-out. Now, call me a conspiracy theorist, but I honestly believe that a 1/5th (to a 1/4th) of those sort comments were from paid opponents. (with the rest being half-genuine, half-peer-pressure) Nintendo was the only major company refusing to "get with the times", and so long as they refused to budge, the other companies would look terrible once the quality of games/ownership rights dropped. During that time, the other companies stepped up their qualities, and some seriously amazing games and incentives (for both physical-preorders and digital sales) released. It was GOOOD to be a console gamer during that time. But after Nintendo changed, the quality and freedoms these companies (on ALL platforms) originally gave suddenly dropped (whether intentionally: greed, or unintentionally: oldguarders quitting). It was the typical franchise formula: start off with quality service/products, then once you've monopolized the field: drop the quality. The consumers have no other choice but to buy from them. If you think this sounds crazy, it was also during the time when there were several attempts to prove that gaming journalism was completely bought and paid for by the other major companies. Reviews were rigged, and most importantly: spotlights were rigged - you wouldn't even know if a quality game released during that time if the other big companies didn't play ball (can you believe how many people, TO THIS DAY, had no idea Pokken Tournament existed??). I distinctly remember a comment on Joystiq, where a person toured a Microsoft (games) building, and he witnessed an entire row of people on gaming sites like Joystiq, commenting - not as Microsoft employees, but as regular commenters. This comment was immediately responded with some Joystiq regulars saying that "that's perfectly normal, that's just damage control, a standard practice in companies"... when these very same Joystiq regulars would constantly witch-hunt Nintendo-positive comments by claiming these comments "must have come from Nintendo employees!" ... I was a target of these very witch hunts. Anyways, after the passing of Iwata, it seemed like Nintendo suddenly shifted in their approach to not only console design and marketplace standards, but also in game designs. There was a serious and drastic switch in how they portrayed themselves and their products. Frankly, anyone that disagrees is in complete denial. You just have to compare Switch Sports vs Wii Sports/Resort for everything to be spelled out clearly. Heck, you just have to accept the fact that Nintendo's pretending that joycon drift is normal (this isn't limited to Nintendo, the other consoles are also prone to joystick drifting - one of the rare times they're all in agreement) - and ignoring the fact that joystick drift was COMPLETELY SOLVED during the PS2 years (there's a reason why Nintendo avoided joysticks until the N64: joystick drift was an issue since the 80s). Nintendo's changed. They're no longer thinking about making "legacy consoles" like they did during the Wii/WiiU years. Now they're just going to milk you of all the money you've got. Back in the day, Nintendo DID care about their image and relations with customers. If anything, haters simply hated how conservative and Japanese (no, not about racism... it's just all the typical legal/PR issues that Japan typically had: Nintendo was singled-out for, even though companies like Sony did similar things... main issue was copyright laws - Nintendo wasn't the only one taking down fan projects... it's just that Nintendo had more fan projects than Sony did, so it was more obvious) they were. Were those things an issue? In many ways. But are the issues that modern Nintendo has now worse? Absolutely. Nintendo changed so it can fit in with the big boys. Being greedy is a given.
It’s super greedy. Everything should’ve been put on sale. Like bottom of the barrel sales: it’s so bad in my opinion that they never let a sale happen.
I didn't own a WiiU but I definitely think Nintendo is disgusting for doing this. I'd always prefer owning a game, rather than paying monthly for it. I absolutely loathe paid subscriptions. Especially when the illegal versions of these games often run better than the official vanilla versions. Why pay them 80 bucks per year (or whatever it is) for a Big Mac, when you can grill your own burger at home? If Nintendo wants us to pay, they need to serve up something better than a simple Big Mac or a Whopper. 👍🏻☕️
