Wii points costs for Europe News

I'm thinking that for extras, I may be asking my friends in the US to mail me stuff.

Like the game cards and the controllers for example ;)

Importers ftw

£7 for N64 hopefully Mario 64 best 3D platformer EVAH!!

£4.50 - £5 for Super Mario World best 2D platformer EVAH
/prepares flameshield from Sonic Zealots.

/creams.

Can you win Wii Points via games like the Xbox Live system? Or is it purely a paid for thing?

SNES Super Mario Kart battle mode is coming home XD

"SNES games 5.60"

Pack of 20 smokes mate. Tis but a trifle.

....so £3.50 for NES, £5.60 for SNES and £7 for N64 games...?

Not bad. You can't really expect Nintendo to give away their old games for pennies.

£4.50 - £5 for Super Mario World best 2D platformer EVAH

Lies! That's Super Mario World 2: Yoshis Island. FO' SHIZZLE.

So is there a gamertag type thing? How do you keep track of your Wii points after hardware failure or loss of SD card?

Ever heard of something called a server.

And that Wii connect 24 should also come into play.

"Can you win Wii Points via games like the Xbox Live system? Or is it purely a paid for thing?"

You can't win Microsoft Points by playing games with Live. You're getting confused with Gamer Points.

i just know i'm going to be bummed in the gob by getting a european Wii.. just wait and watch as 10 titles a month get added to the US service with only 3 or 4 added to the european version and probably months late too

And if they give us PAL roms that run at 50hz i will kill myself

£7 for Golden-Eye? Not bad.

"You can't win Microsoft Points by playing games with Live. You're getting confused with Gamer Points."

Ah right. Never used the things cos I've not got a 360.

So Microsoft points you buy Live Arcade type games with, and you have to buy them over the counter or on t'internet right?

Whereas gamer points = what you get for achievements in games?

Seems a shame the two aren't kinda the same deal :)

Too expensive for old games.

I'd rather dig out my old consols, or play them on my PC (or PSP).

Too bad, I hope they lower the prices eventully or they may go the way of UMD movies.

they sold super mario bros 2 -> yoshis island for gba for 30 quid a pop not too long ago (but you did get mario bros for free in each one -oh boy-)

speaking of which, wonder if GB/GBC/GBA games will make an appearance on the marketplace at some stage

When / where can I get a red one?

"£7 for Golden-Eye? Not bad."

Dunno if there'll be GoldenEye, it'd be littered with copyright problems (like Activision now own James Bond, and Microsoft now own Rare).

"£7 for N64 hopefully Mario 64 best 3D platformer EVAH!!

£4.50 - £5 for Super Mario World best 2D platformer EVAH
/prepares flameshield from Sonic Zealots.

/creams."

?

""You can't win Microsoft Points by playing games with Live. You're getting confused with Gamer Points."

Ah right. Never used the things cos I've not got a 360.

So Microsoft points you buy Live Arcade type games with, and you have to buy them over the counter or on t'internet right?

Whereas gamer points = what you get for achievements in games?

Seems a shame the two aren't kinda the same deal :)"

Exactly right hehe. It's an easy mistake to make and many people do and it would be very nice if the two were combined! It might even work in Microsoft's favour and make people buy more £50 games (though companies would make games with easy gamerpoints purely for sales)

any mention of online play on virtual console games? if they do i'm game £3.50 for online dynablaster or £7 for online goldeneye sounds worthwhile but if not i can't see myself getting them, as i already own most of the games i'd want to play for real.

Yep goldeneye ain't gonna happen anytime soon i think....
or any Rare titles for that matter...

Ninty: Excuse me mr gates, can we have one of your games our new consoles online system?
M$: Errrrrrrrrr.............................................No!

Sounds a bit expensive...

Convert our Star points to Wii points Nintendo..pleeeese.

So we can actually buy something.

Yep goldeneye ain't gonna happen anytime soon i think....
or any Rare titles for that matter...

Ninty: Excuse me mr gates, can we have one of your games our new consoles online system?
M$: Errrrrrrrrr.............................................No!
the N64 goldeneye ip and assets are owned by it's publisher, nintendo, not the developer. the copyright hasn't run out on it yet so nintendo can re-release it as long as the copyright agreement lets it. it's got nothing at all to do with microsoft. activision might have some sort of role in this but microsoft certainly wouldn't.

the lack of rare games is a real shame :( still hate microsoft for ruining one of the finest developers.

No goldeneye, perfect dark, Banjo Kazooie, Jet force Gemini, Conkers, Donkey Kong 64, to name but a few.

@Aretak: LOL

not sure if it's been asked and answered before, but will some of these VC games be online multiplayer enabled?

/points @ SNES Super Mario Kart online

Yes the way I put the situation was slightly simplified, but you'd be naive to think that microsoft would have no say in wether rare titles make it onto the Wii VC...

"Convert our Star points to Wii points Nintendo..pleeeese. So we can actually buy something."

That is a really really really good idea, it would make star points actually worth collecting, and it'll cost Nintendo nothing to give away a few old game downloads to people who buy lots of full price games.


"the N64 goldeneye ip and assets are owned by it's publisher, nintendo, not the developer."

The game assets might be, but the IP (the James Bond stuff) was never Nintendo's, they just got temporary permission to use it from the company that makes the Bond films.

Now that temporary permission resides with Activision, not Nintendo, it's unclear if Nintendo are allowed to re-release a Bond game on a new system, even if it's an old one running through an emulator.

The safest thing would be to re-release the game with all the Bond references taken out, but that would mean changing the name too.

Surely Nintendo would have released Goldeneye for the DS if they had the lisence to do so?

if the VC games are playable over the internet then i for one will definately get one that would truly be amazing.

these games may have to be ported, they are not just rom's im sure ninty will have to mess around with widescreen aspect ratio and progressive scan support. maybe some controller config etc.

nes games for the price of a pint? not tooo bad, snes games for the price of a pizza? canny, n64 games for the price of a music cd? suppose.

"Convert our Star points to Wii points Nintendo..pleeeese. So we can actually buy something."

Wait. So Star Points are like Gamer Points on the 360 right?

/getting deeply confused

£7 for a N64 game?!?!? Ouch!

£7 = 2 pints of lager

"Wait. So Star Points are like Gamer Points on the 360 right?"

You get star points whenever you buy a nintendo game. You can then put them into nintendos website for free gifts, etc.

Well at least you can in japan.. in england the best offer i've ever seen was for a ringtone!!

"Wait. So Star Points are like Gamer Points on the 360 right? "

You got "star points" when you bought Nintendo games for the GC. They could be traded in for goodies like toys and controlers.

"£7 for a N64 game?!?!? Ouch! "

If they up the framrate of Zelda OOT to 60fps and stick it in a higher res then they can charge me double that if they want.

What angers me is that the Americans are paying $10 which is £5.32 for a 64 game we have to pay £7 for. Ok sure there are arguments for the hardware costing more, but surely here we are buying EXACTLY the same item. It doesn't cost more to download from one country than another. Do they have to adapt the format of the game for the UK? I wouldn't think so, and if they did surely they could just use original Pal roms.

"Whate grates me is that the Americans are paying $10 which is £5.32 for a 64 game we have to pay £7 for. Ok sure there are arguments for the hardware costing more, but surely here we are buying EXACTLY the same item. It doesn't cost more to download from one country than another. Do they have to adapt the format of the game for the UK? I wouldn't think so, and if they did surely they could just use original Pal roms."

I think it might have more to do with tax. As you probably don't know we're taxed to hell and back in the UK.

Star points = wii points, a great idea.
Nintendo's game pricing, bad.

"Whate grates me is that the Americans are paying $10 which is £5.32 for a 64 game we have to pay £7 for"


US prices do not include tax. Take the tax off the UK price and it's-

UK £5.96 vs US £ 5.32...so 64p more in the UK.

I really wish UK reports would make that clear when quoting prices as people always assume they are being ripped off far more than they actually are.

The safest thing would be to re-release the game with all the Bond references taken out, but that would mean changing the name too.

but then they'd be messing around with rare's tech thus landing themselves in trouble. as far as i see it, nintendo are within their rights to re-release goldeneye on N64. the copyright means they can sell you a new N64 cart if they want. the trouble is going to be with the fact thet the hardware is being emulated. i'm sure there is some complicated legal document that would set us all straight but for now i don't see goldeneye being a total no-go.

Surely Nintendo would have released Goldeneye for the DS if they had the lisence to do so?

well no... because it's a different console and would have to be re-written as a DS game. the Wii's virtual console is emulating the actual N64 hardware and the game data would be identical to that of the original cartrige so it's a little more complicated as far as legality is concerned.

i guess we'll just have to wait and see... here's hoping for online dynablaster! bomberman FTW

Do we pay taxes on digital items like downloads? I never really thought about that. I still seems a steep jump.

"I really wish UK reports would make that clear when quoting prices as people always assume they are being ripped off far more than they actually are. "

Well we are being ripped off. Just not so much by the companies, more by the asshats in Gov'mint. ;-)

i can see a roaring trade in point cards from japan or the us, or where ever the state of the economy and exchange rate makes them cheaper than here (pretty much everywhere).

"i can see a roaring trade in point cards from japan or the us, or where ever the state of the economy and exchange rate makes them cheaper than here (pretty much everywhere)."

But now that NOE have said that the sustem IS region coded maybe the cards/codes will be incompatible.

"but then they'd be messing around with rare's tech thus landing themselves in trouble."

You just said all the assets were owned by Nintendo and nothing to do with Rare or MS. If they're owned by Nintendo, they can do what they like with them.


"as far as i see it, nintendo are within their rights to re-release goldeneye on N64."

It's unclear. No one has ever tested that, because consoles are obsolete by the time a particular rights deal ends, and the game is assumed to lose all commercial value once the console has vanished.

There's a game on the Spectrum called Batman which had the official Batman licence about 20 years ago for a limited amount of time. The creator of the game admitted he had no idea if a remake or emulated version of the game could be re-released because such a situation hadn't even been conceived when the rights deal was struck.