XBLA chief trash talks Sony and Nintendo's offerings

All I want to say is way to use cut and paste to make the guy sound like a complete jerk Mr. Grant. I'm sorry but you are completely misleading most of these people in what was said. For all you posters that are bashing Canessa, please go out and find a decent article on what was ACTUALLY said.

Also, everyone that thinks the complete libraries for the NES, SNES, and N64 will be available. You are HUGELY mistaken. Nintendo only has publishing rights to the games developed in house. That means you won't be getting titles like Contra unless Nintendo gets the original publishers to sign an agreement. Go out and do some research on your own instead of looking on blogs for your limited knowledge of what is going on in the videogame industry.

TO:29.

Zelda OOT was Zelda was not 256 MB I dont know were you got that but your not even close.

List of some N64 Games and MBs:
(I rounded up)

-PaperMario-------41MB
-LOZ:OOT----------32.8MB
-LOZ:MM-----------32.8MB
-DonkeyKong64-----32.8MB
-MarioParty1,2,3--32.8MB
-MarioKart64------16.4MB
-SSBROS-----------16.4MB
-Mario64----------8MB

I listed only 1st party games.

Jordan:

#29 said 256 megaBITS not 256megaBYTES...you might want to re-read what he posted.

Yet another failed attempt by some stooge at Microsoft to generate buzz. Yawn.

It's kinda too early for that kind of bashing isn't it? Sony and Nintendo hasn't played their hands yet.

So he basicly said Nintendo's retro games wont hold up anymore, even though xbox live is a bunch of retro games.

All honesty, Id rather play nes, snes, and n64 games, and not atari games, old arcade games, and yet another release of streetfighter.

"If Sony is trying to come at us, you know... 'good luck.' It's going to be really hard for them. It's just a huge engineering challenge, and beyond the engineering challenge, it takes a long time to build a community."

Too cocky. That's the same thing Sony said about them when they announced they were entering the console business, and look how well they did with the first Xbox... oh wait.

Where does Microsoft get these guys??

Mr. Canessa those Nintendo games arent gonna hold up?
You are greatly mistaken. Those Nintendo games will pwn your ass.

Nintendo and Sony are going to beat you up...
so you can..

SUCK IT DOWN!

Huzzah! That is all.

This guy clearly didn't look at any PSP-related message boards after the system's emulation abilities spread...

Seriously, why would Kid Icarus not hold up while Joust does?

"A lot of those Nintendo games, you know, aren't gonna hold up."


Wow this guy must have never played a nintendo game.

I'm not saying anyone would do thise, but if we really were jonesing for a retro nintendo fix, it can be emulated for free with a click of the mouse on your PC. I haven't seen any of the XBLA content, so I do not know if it is also avalible in some PC form. I'm just sayin, if I really wanted to play Super Dodgeball, I can make it happen without the revolution.

#9: Maybe YOU can, if you want. But the idea of console emulation isn't really known outside the gaming community. So any new costomers would see this as the only way.

Besides, I'd rather play Super Mario World with an SNES style shell then a keyboard. =)

Super Metroid vs. Joust...
A Link to the Past vs. Gauntlet...


Do I need to say more? :p

Sure you can get an emulator but most people (mostly the mainstream and non-gamers) don't even know what that is and how it works.

Also, good luck emulating a n64 game on a PC ;)

@ #9 well lots of people can dowload mp3's for free, but itunes is making loads of cash

lots of people prefer owning something legaly.

and Not everyone is tech savy and knows about emulation.

he's gonna get PWNED! seriously they can't stand up? that's craaazy talk!

also...those snes games alone will sell by the bucket load!

yeah itunes is proof nintendo's download service will prevail

coool@@

Here are a few arguments for Microsoft XBLA against Nintendo's back catalog. (I am mainly posting this, because I wanted to share a different point of view, since it seems so "pro-nintendo" on this post).

Microsoft has added functionality to almost all of these retro games. Many are running in HD, and many feature online multiplayer. I don't see Nintendo sprucing up a lot of their titles. I see them releasing straight ports. Espcially with the talk of "the whole Nintendo catalog" could be available. That doesn't sound like they are going to do much polishing on the old titles. Don't plan on playing against you buddies online in "Blades of Steel".

Also, XBLA is NOT all about retro games. Sure, once forgoteen retro games have found a nice home on XBLA, but the service is also flourishing with quirky NON-retro titles (Outpost Kaloki X for example). Also, it seems like XBLA is becoming a breeding ground for the top independent game developers. I see popular flash games (like Alien Hominide back in the day) flourishing on XBLA. On the other hand, I've only heard about retro on Nintendo's side. While retro is great, you need something more than that to compete with XBLA.

I think Ninendo has the most satisfying collection of classic games (their library simply OWNS all). I really do hope Nintendo does a great job with the whole downloadable game thing. But, I am not expecting much (just your normal straight-forward ports). But then again I wasn't expecting much from XBLA, and I've been extreemly surprised and satisfied with it. Hopefully I am underestimating Nintendo and what they will be doing on their service. Because I would love for it to be great. But, I am just not sure that JUST retro games will cut it. Of course EVERYTHING is specualtion, because we don't know what the hell is going on. Because Nintendo and Sony are either keeping us out of the loop, or they themselves don't know whats going on yet. Hopefully, it's the first excuse.

not only that, but nintendo has stated they will have upgrades. old games with add ons, or online support. n64 games running at 60fps. extra download content.

more then enough reason to play it on console then pc.

Lets just see how long it take for a sony online community to get started cuz imma sign up an account on launch day...I got a 360 but im more of a fan of sony and classic nintendo...plus most of the arcade games on xbox i dont play, maybe street fighter but i bet 10 dollars that nintendo's virtual console will get it also. go nintendo and sony yeahhhhhh man! cowabunga, turtle power

And I should believe you guys because...?

Microsoft has added functionality to almost all of these retro games. Many are running in HD

---

LMFAO!!!! That's what Nintendo needs HD for: KID ICARUS and RAD RACER

What i want to know is when Nintedo says you can play thier olg games, do they mean the games Nintendo owns or do they mean all the games that were playable on thier systems. Cause i wouldnt be surprised to see Mega Man or Contra on XBLA.

"Super Metroid vs. Joust...
A Link to the Past vs. Gauntlet..."

Probably not the best comparison. You are comparing two of the greatest games in the past decade of Nintendo and comparing it to two of the weakest games in the short lifespan of XBLA (maybe try comparing something to Geometry Wars). Also, there is one big difference between these games. I can play Gauntlet and Joust on my XBLA, nobody can play Super Metroid or Zelda on a Revolution (yet). Also, how much is Nintendo going to charge for these games? Nintedno hasn't been shy about asking full price for these remakes when they came to the handheld market. Do you see them all of the sudden dropping the prices down to XBLA level ($8)? Hmmm, not sure about that one. You can proably expect to pay at least $20 if not more for many titles. Is it worth it to you and me?...hell yeah! Is it worth it to the masses of people that aren't purists? For that price, probably not. The only way retro games will make a HUGE impact is to be dirt cheap ($10 and under), and I think Nintendo might have too much pride to do that. When will these titles be available? Nintendo just came out of the gates in the online market with DS, and the online titles haven't exactly been flooding into stores. It might take a while before they even get the download service up and running on the revolution. Also, the lack of a big hard drive hinders the downloading system. How can this system flourish when you don't have enough memory to download the game? And good luck getting the masses to buy a hard drive attachment. Sony PS2 the overwhleming leader last console race even bundled it in with one of their biggest franchises (Final Fantasy), and they still couldn't get a wide-adoption of hard drives by gamers. Once again, I am just trying to spark something with this post. So don't label me a hater or something, because I want Nintendo to succeed.

Emulators suck, you have to play them on a keyboard,
picture is crap because of the high rez and they don't
always work. Need i say more?

I agree that the online service will be utterly awesome. I would love to replay those games again with a better controller and legally. Also, I agree that XBLA can have newer games on it that are also awesome. It's great that nintendo is offering classic gaming to a younger generation so that they can know the pain of some 8-bit gaming. I'm also happy that starting out indie devs can make money off simple puzzle games on XBLA. Both are great services, and allow for more opourtunities for you: the gamer.

Why is anyone fighting over anything?

#21. Thanks for cropping my comment. While most 8-bit games defiently wouldn't gain anything from being in HD, many would benefit from online play. Which was the part of the comment that you cropped off. Also, many N64 games WOULD benefit from HD.

# 23

I don't think it was unfair at all considering he said the games won't hold up well or be fun anymore like Joust and Pac-man.

Also, I recall reading something about both big game companies and indie developers making games for the download service so I expect to see new content as well.

Finally, I'm sure the games won't be that expensive. There's no need for carts, documentation, etc. plus they might give some for free when you buy a game as a bonus or something.

@ #23
I think you misunderstand the reasoning behind the prices of teh re-release games. First of all, the straight ports (or in some cases, simple emulation) titles have usually come in bundles or been budget priced (See Super Mario All Stars, or the NES series for GBA). The other instances are upgraded or bastardized versions (See Super Mario Advance, and SUper Mario Advance 4, respectively--If that second one was teh SMB3 port, I didn't play past the first world, where many platforms had been extended, and the game was made cheesy-easy).
The other point behind the pricing is that most of the remade games were on *cartridges*. This makes a huge difference, as it is more expensive to manufacture than a CD-type media. The Zelda compilations for GCN, for example, were both free, though of somewhat limited availability. The first was a promo for pre-ordering WW, and the scond was bundled with some console packages.
With downloadable content, then can charge almost nothing and still make a profit. I would like to see something like this for the pricing: $5 for an NES game, $10 for an SNES game, and $15 for an N64 game. No, even that might be high, but keep in mind, if the majority of teh games we're seeing are nintendo classics, and not bargain-bin dredges, then I think those prices are fair, based on the levels of complexity, and download sizes of most games.

Also, a large (1 gb) memory stick would cut it for most SNES and NES games. Few people would fill one up with that much space. Keep in mind, also the size of some N64 games: 512 Megabits was the largest, and that's just 64 MB. Zelda was 256 Megabit, and most were 128 megabits or less. Do the math and you can see that these are not large. I can only think of a few N64 games that I'd want to have anyhow. So, I think their memory stick idea is valid, though I do admit that a hard drive would be nice. I mean, look at the adoption rate of teh original Xbox HD. 100% How'd they manage that? Oh, right they put it in there to begin with. The thing is that developers aren't going to use features that are expensive add-ons. No expensive add-on, no matter how good, has been widely adopted. 32X? nope. Sega CD? nope. disk drives for any Nintendo system (granted they weren't even released outside Japan, but that kinda tells you something, huh?)--nope. N64 memory Expansion Pak? I dunno, I have one, but it was only useful for three games, I can think of--I got it for Zelda, and later, Perfect Dark.

Nintendo of europe made a comment about games only costing 2-3 euro

#24.

Try using a wired Xbox 360 controller. Works wonders.

what a tool. i happily own a 360, but while waiting for the Revolution. I own ever nintendo console to date and STILL plan to get some of the games. "won't hold up", get your head out of your ass man.

Nintendo games can't stand up. Why? 'Cos they're a rare species of tapeworm who are now in larvae stage, hiding in Steve Canessa's gut and are awaiting for a right moment to rip out of his groin, swallowing his testicles along the way, and defecate back those testicles on his mutilated corpse!


Uhm, sorry what are we talking about again? ^_^

>Also, the lack of a big hard drive hinders the downloading system. How can this system flourish when you don't have enough memory to download the game?<

I could comfortably fit every Nintendo-developed NES game onto a 256MB memory stick (hell, it's probably a lot less space, but I'm not going to go hunting through the library). The Revolution will have twice that for this type of thing.

And as mentioned above, a lot of Nintendo's pricing on the NES flashback series was manufacturing cost and retailer markup. No matter what, you're not going to make a profit on a GBA game unless you charge a certain amount. That's just the basic economics of the situation, all of which get tossed out the window when it comes time for digital distribution.

If Nintendo's smart, they have the games purchased on a points plan and give away points with modern game sales. I don't think online head-to-head play on the legacy titles is that high a priority with them, frankly, and really it wouldn't matter much.

i don't see why i would pay 5or 10 dollars to play metroid when i can have it on my pc with an emulator. i do have a nes, snes, n64, and gamecube emulator and can run these games on my pc. granted i can also play gauntlet on my pc, but paying the 5 bucks for the game is well worth it on xbl because on my pc i cannot play with 3 friends and talk at the same time. i could talk on a ventrilo server on p, but not be able to play. if nintendo can come up with a way to play smash bros. and mario kart dd with other people then they will truly do something great that they couldn't do on gamecube or n64 and this is where i think the big N will either fail or succeed

for all of you with your emulators: great job on supporting the industry you love! You should also download your favorite movies too so that the production companies and writers don't get paid. That way, you all can enjoy the fruits of smaller game budgets and less quality games since there isn't any money to make something decent.

Granted, we are talking about 8-bit games that aren't in production anymore. However, if Nintendo can make money off their classics, then maybe that money will be put back into developing newer better games.

I like how he just randomly claims that Nintendo's library of classic titles won't stand up, and then doesn't provide a single reason for why he holds this opinion. Classic.

First microsoft screws up the with releasing the 360 ( ok, after 3 months the 360 should be EVERYWHERE already) and now this jackass says the old nintendo doesn't hold up? but the nes, snes and N64 ALONE will sell the system and I have a 360 and played some of the live arcade games on it and eventhough I like the idea but if there's one thing missing are the nintendo games and that is what we will get on the revolution. I am going to get the revolution when it comes out but I might have to preorder it because so many people will be trying to get one.

I don't know if the retro games will work out or not. Personally, I think Geometry Wars works out because it's got a retro feel--but with modern flair. There are definitely a lot of modern touches--it's not Space Invaders.

But, even if it does work out--and even if this Microsoft spokesman actually believed that it would--why would he say so? He works for Microsoft. I don't find Greg Canessa's comments surprising--what surprises me are the number of people who do.

@ 24 : emulators actually work very well, you can plug just about any controller in a PC, you can use AA and AF, and there are high-res texture packs in the works for some of the most popular games : http://www.emutalk.net/high-resolution-textures-projects/
Of course, all of this is legal if you own the original console and games...

as other folks have stated, he's talking about new content, not old. he says for the most part games aren't as fun as they used to be. which is entirely correct, i think.

i was so very stoked to play multiplayer gauntlet. fired it up. holy suck batman. so much better in my memory. joust is still pretty good, tho.

and, obviously, some (not most. not even more than a few) of nintendo's games are timeless. those aren't the games he's talking about tho.

because, what happens when all you have is 20 or so retro games that you want? that's not a very valid service, because, once you buy those 20 games (less than that, i'm sure will actually be good games that you want to spend money on) you don't have anything else.

i think that's silly. nintendo would be stupid to just release back catalog games. of course they are going to make new ones. they'd be crazy not to.

the problem, tho, is the hard drive.

sure, a bunch of snes games could fit. how many n64 games tho? and, how many of these new downloadable games? (xla games run 30-40 megs each) you'll find yourself with no room for your games and their saves. not to mention any demos of games you might want to download.

without a hard drive, it sounds like nintendo is just sticking with back catalog games. that's just not enough. they need to be delivering new, fresh indie games too.

m3mnoch.

if you have a router you should have access to you computers hard drive on the network so why would there be any problems with storage it shoud be easy for nintendo to allow you to store the games on your comp hard drives and that should solve all the storage problems.

This is retarded. The guy is an ass. If Nintendo games don't hold up and emulation is the end all be all of retro gaming, then explain to me how Nintendo made a killing by re-releasing classsic NES games on the GBA for $35. Nintendo laughed all the way to the bank. One of the best selling titles on DS is a remake of Mario64.
Nintendo has already stated that some of the games will be enhanced and they also said that they are talking to 3rd parties about having their games on the VC too. F@#k emulation. I want legit games on my console. Micorsoft is too arrogant and talking a lot of shiznit when the competition hasn't shown their full hand yet. Dumb bastard.

Oh I forgot mention. Nintendo has already confirmed that the REv will use SD cards to save downloaded games in addition to the 512MB and they can be saved to your HD on your PC. So even if you use the entire 512MB of RAM on the Rev, you're good. Nintendo has you cover

What a dweeb. Nintendo content won't hold up whereas Joust and Gauntlet do? What kind of silly argument is this?
Nintendo has said they will "improve" the experience when playing the classics. Can't ever assume but Nintendo is not stupid. Hopefully they're smart enough to implement co-op of some sort over the Web.
I love the 360 but only Geometry Wars has grabbed me. Everything else in the XBLA have sucked terribly.

@41: So Nintendo should rely on everyone connecting their Revolutions to the net via a 3rd party router? That's weak and complete fanboyism if you support that idea.

I believe the success of Nintendo download servive will depend on if they are will to open the floodgates right off the bat. Are you listening nintendo? this may be your last shot. This retro craze isnt going to last forever. Dont be stingy with your back catalog.

I mean dont just Give everything from from 1st party catalog but also Give big incentive to komani and capcom to put up everthing also. I mean theese games are sitting in most people closet,well the people interested in them it anyway.

I've beat all the zelda and mario games let me play the crazy ass games I might have missed like Street fighter the movie game or Battletoads meet doubledragon. I mean i'm playing with the powerglove 2 give me tons of kinch value. Instead of donkey kong, which I'VE owned from everthing from coleco to nes, give us donkey kong 3 or Friday the 13th.

I mean i really didnt see myself getting too excited when I saw excite bike for gamboy for 30 dollars. Why be greedy with 8 bit games that people can download for free. the thing with nostalga is once I pull out my old coleco and play mr DO. I only care about it a few minutes reliving old an memory then throw in another cartridge and so on.

If people have tons of games they never had seen before and might end up playing all day evertyhing from james bond jr. to the Duck Dodgers. and forget about the next Halo or metal gear