Wii's Virtual Console sales declining

I think the comments on here alone give a good idea as to why sales are declining... some people dislike the pricing, some people dislike the point system, some dislike the games that are currently available, some got bored of playing old games... conclusion: there are multiple reasons for the decline in sales... nintendo needs to do 3 things to make sales skyrocket: release more popular games, change pricing, and add features like online play or scoreboards... those 3 things would make a LOT of people start buying more games. Just my 2 cents

At the absolute least they've grossed $15.15 million on the VC so far, and thats just assuming everyone only bought NES games and used all their points. I think it's safe to say that Nintendo doesn't care if sales have slacked off a bit.

Definetly the novelty in the beginning helped the VC stronger success, but I also bet there's a huge number of those people who downloaded and have yet to finish those games. I feel like I've learned not to purchase any more until I've played fully through the ones I've paid for.

nintendo needs to do a couple of things

a. add online play.
b. firmware update for hd tvs (to fix the speed issues)
c. allow games to be stored on other devices say an external hdd
d. pricing (have multiple options)
option 1. you buy individual games (nintendo needs to cut these prices though)

option 2. subscription like gametap (this would easily get a more mass user base , and gametaps a success.

The prices compared to MS Maketplace are not that bad, that said they should lower the prices.

$10 for an N64 game is fine, if it's a classic, but if it's trash it should be less. Same with several of the NES games, Pinball and Baseball should be $1, that would really increase their sales. Why spend $10 on those two games when you can buy Animal Crossing used for $10 and find about 20 games in there.

And they do really need to step up on the good games. The Wii game releases are a joke right now and the VC can change that.

I still don't think you guys understand what idioteraser is saying. VC games are not emulated in the same way as computers emulators work: rather than emulating the system and playing whatever "backups" you want, with VC the games themselves are individually emulated. This means that Sega can't just dump all of their Genesis games on the VC at any time, they actually have to go to the work of individually emulating each. Thus, you *would* have to change the code on every game you wanted online play. At least, that's my understanding - I am not a coder.

As for the complainers, it's all in your perspective. I choose not to play games illegally, so I have to use VC or similar services if I want to play. Given that, it makes sense to me to buy a VC game at their prices if I want to play it. I'll lost all of my old systems in a house-fire six or so years ago, and paying $5 for 20 hours of game-play (if I play it through once) is a heck of a lot cheaper than going to see a movie or something.

And for the genius who suggested sales would quadruple if Nintendo lowered their prices to $.99 NES, $1.99 SNES - they'd make less money then they are now, since the games cost more than 4x that now and they'd incur additional bandwidth expenses.

Yeah, I have more than 20 dollars just sitting there in my account and I haven't touched it in months. Nothing has really interested me and the prices are just too high for me to get impulse titles. Releasing 3 games a week isn't helping. They should do 3 from every system. It's not like the old downloads are going away for anybody who wants them.

I agree that the prices for the VC games are 2-3 dollars too much. The only games I would really pay for on the VC would be N64 games. I have the DC and PC for the other systems. (^.~)

uh...am i the only one who fails to see how virtual console sales are declining? according to this entry sales were 1.5 million for the first two months and 1.8 million for the last three months...and increase of 300,000 games sold. these sales seem quite good to me considering the games that are available on the vc right now.

@ 58: Sales were 1.5 million over the first two months; that's 750,000 per month. Sales were 1.8 million over the last three months, which is 600,000 per month. By no means a nosedive, but it is a slight decline in sales per month.

"59. @ 58: Sales were 1.5 million over the first two months; that's 750,000 per month. Sales were 1.8 million over the last three months, which is 600,000 per month. By no means a nosedive, but it is a slight decline in sales per month."

No doubt we will see an increase in the next three months. It's normal to see dips and dives. The vc is actually a huge money maker which is why you are seeing a lot of third parties expressing interest in the vc.

SNK and Hudson have both pledged massive support of the wii and the vc.

They will not lower the prices on games get real people.

"They should do 3 from every system. It's not like the old downloads are going away for anybody who wants them."

You do realize they have to have the games rated by the required agencies before they can be put on the vc?

They also have to test the game, add the manual and home button and any controller configs. That takes time. Also they have to get the license agreements and the game code.

Jesus why don't people understand how things work in the real world?

"Why spend $10 on those two games when you can buy Animal Crossing used for $10 and find about 20 games in there."

Because most people don't know they can get the games that way or don't care because guess what a lot of people would rather buy games individually then a collection of 20 games or buy them a few at a time then another few then another few.

Reason is because they don't want all the games in the collection they just want a few.

I don't buy any Wii Arcade games because they cost way too much. Lower the price and you will sale a lot more.

#50 nailed it!

@13
If Nintendo dropped the price of NES games from $5 to $1 and SNES games from $10 to $2 and as a result quadrupled their sales, they would only be making 80% of what they were making at higher prices. It's all gravy, anyway. Nintendo just keeps rollin' in it.

@ Grog

I always thought that the emulators were in the Wii firmware itself, and that would be why a few games have problems (like the memory card support in Mario Kart 64, or the cheat passwords in Kid Icarus). I thought that they WEREN'T individually emulated, just put on there and run. Also, if they were individually emulated, they would probably come up with better control maps game by game, instead of saying "NES A = Wiimote A" in all cases

And i would say the sales would decline because this sort of thing appeals to the hardcore gamer that bought the Wii earlier on, rather than now. Also because i bet a lot of Wii points cards were bought during the holiday season, too.

You could be right, Khan, that's just what I've heard. I'm pretty sure you are right about second part (hardcore gamers bought earlier), though I'll also add that there were proportionately more systems sold in the first couple months than the last three months. Since most people don't buy any more games than they are going to play at one time, the earlier buyers might just have bought enough VC/Wii games to keep them busy through now.

Personally my VC purchases have declined 100%. I used to buy many of them, and have 10 so far, and then I stopped buying them entirely. What is the reason behind this mystery? I think it's because now I have 10 games to beat! That's all.

System memory is an issue - I have already been reduced to shuffling things around just so I could download the new browser.

Another problem is the store itself. It's getting painful to find stuff. They have an option to show stuff you've already downloaded, but they need another option to only show stuff you haven't bought yet. That would make shopping a lot easier.

Is Nintendo going to do it? You all know the answer, and its quite simply NO.

@33

"I still have 1500 blocks and guess what I own 15 vc games. Most vc games only take 100 blocks to download for me. That is 150 games."

umm you must not be that good at math...that would be only 15 games not 150.

They need to put more worthwhile games on the VC to get sales back up. I can't believe they still don't have Dr Mario on it.

FrankTheCrank:"I'm not paying $5 for some old NES game that I can download and play on my PC for free."

Good thing that's not illegal or anything. Oh wait, it is. Why do you feel that you are entitled to those games for free? Suck it up, get a job, and pay for the damn games already.

Nintendo should just have a signup/request channel to port over what we want most. I can think of at least 10 games I'd buy if they just had them available.

Combine community and sales. Give us what we ask for I'm sure there's plenty of titles to cash in on.

Well for everyone complaining "where's Super Metroid where's [game x] I believe all of these games will make their way to the system. However Nintendo is going to go the slow route and release them over time. The system has only been out less than 6 months. Although I'd rather them just put them all out there now and let people decide people would forget a couple of months or a year from now about [game x] They're trying to catch people off guard on a weekly basis "oh Punch out is out, I've got to have it!" instead of every good game just sitting there and people choosing. Yes they think their fans have A.D.D. and they are right.

I believe if they added some of the RPGs the VC would do better. Square Enix seem to not want their games published as they have released redone versions of their games on handheld consoles recently. If they could get Square/Enix to releause all their RPGs "including the ones that never came to the US like Romancing Sage 1/2" then I believe they would sell a lot of those games.

Nintendo has kicked Sony's and Microsoft's respective asses in sales. We should all be thankful. More profit for them means more well-developed Nintendo games for us.

Pay your dues, people.

They're pricing is a bit steep, but worth it for the convenience. Hell, it's worth it to pay tribute to the one company that understands how to make games FUN.

Thanks, Nintendo. It's reunited my non-gamer family. *sniffle*

Seems like it makes sense.

The majority of first purchasers of the Wii probably have the console history to know what VC is and want something from i, specifically old games.

Nintendo's strategy is to bring new users to the console experience. These people wouldn't even know the VC exists, let alone know what the titles are.

I've brought three non gamers into the loop already, and I guarantee they have no clue they can play these old games on the Wii. And even if they did, the number of titles they would even recognize would be limited to a very small handful.