Nintendo's Archaic And Unfair Principles [RANT]

[Funyarinpa]

As someone that has owned Nintendo handhelds since childhood, (starting from 10 years ago when I got a GBA in preschool) it feels like as a European customer that Nintendo's trying everything it can to make me decide to never buy a Nintendo product ever again.

 

Let's start with the obvious issues first.

 

REGION LOCK. Why the hell do you still use region lock? Nobody else does. PS3 didn't. X360 didn't. PS4 doesn't, nor does XB1.

 

So why the hell, Nintendo? Why is it that you keep doing the least customer-friendly things you can?

 

REGIONAL PRICING. Setting possible reasons against greed and one other reason I'll emphasize later, what benefit does this have except pissing off a particular group of customers(in this case, Europeans)? What you can get for $45 on a US 3DS is being sold for €45 in Europe, with no given reason whatsoever. Let's say(for the sake of the argument) that digital purchases are affected by import taxes, license fees and such. However, does that justify paying so much more for each purchase? Steam has regional pricing too, but it doesn't convert everything 1-to-1. Nintendo makes Europeans pay 10$-15$ more for each purchase, which means that Americans can buy four full priced 3DS games for the same money Europeans can use to purchase only three. 

 

Nothing justifies that, Nintendo. NOTHING.

 

 

 

Now let's move on to relatively small annoyances.

 

ESHOP. I have never seen such an archaic and counter-intuitive application before. Long waiting times just to enter the Store, and after that, the store almost tries to make you not purchase anything: It makes you add funds first, getting around and finding new games to play is very difficult. 

 

DEMO PLAY COUNT. "Demo" is short for "demonstration". It's something you give for free,  but you act like you are an almighty god that just blesses a small glimpse of that wonderful, wonderful masterpiece of a game on us pathetic mortals.  Oh, wait. You don't even give demos for your own games.

 

It's for free, god damn it. It's not like people will be more inclined to buy a game because the play count of the demo has finished... Demos exist to be a free version of the full game to show what the game is, what it is about, and how it is played. 

That's done in two different ways:

1) You release a limited portion of the software (One playable character, only three levels, etc.)

2) You grant temporary access to the full software (1-hour trial, limited play count, etc.) 

 

You don't do both at once.

 

That restricts the demo too much for it to be effective, and might kill the enthusiasm of the potential consumer.

 

 

 

And now... for the reason Nintendo gets away with all this.

 

The fanbase.

 

It's as simple as that. Nintendo fanbase (at least a very vocal and/or a major part of it) never criticizes Nintendo's business practices, and gladly hands over its wallet (and occasionally, mostly in Europe, its anus),  never says anything. Never objects. Never questions why it is paying more for the exact same game just because it lives in a different region. 

 

Whatever Nintendo does in business side, as long at it has its Pokemons and Marios and Zeldas, it never receives any substantial backlash. It's pathetic. Really pathetic. 

 

The only thing more pathetic about this whole issue is the feedback of the fanbase.

 

[solidbatman]

Don't worry. All that Wii drug money will dry up sooner or later. 

[Nosebleed]

Both Xbox and Xbox360 are region locked.

Xbox One was meant to be region locked but Microsoft realized they were being retarded after the backlash and reverted this decision.

 

Regional Pricing is everywhere though it's not just Nintendo so this argument is kind of invalid.

It exists because all those fees you talk about greatly reduce gross profit for regional retailers and so they need to rise their margins or else they make too little.

Although the digital copy price should not be as high so that part is indeed retarded.

 

Regional pricing is something we will never be able to solve, it's not a nintedo exclusive problem it's a worldwide practice.

 

 

Regarding the rest though I agree there's no reason for the e-shop to be so annoying but I'd say it's not really that far off from other platforms, the biggest difference for me is that there's barely any demos to try so you either buy a game without knowing if you'll enjoy it or you don't and that's something that should change.

 

I never understood demo playcount though. That's just plain dumb.

 

Even if the fanbase complains, Nintendo will never listen to them, they've been failing utterly for the past couple years to listen to the fanbase.

Eventually their sales are going to be damaged, and they already were with the wii u, and then maybe they'll start realizing their mistakes.

 

And you should also point out the way they handle new systems is kind of like apple does with their iPhones. They release a New 3DS which basically renders the old 3DS useless after just a couple years, great way to treat your fans nintendo.

[Heizei_koukousei]

Independent of your rant, Nintendo is still going down the drain. The faithful customers are going to start moving on considering the choices they are making

 

 

Even if the fanbase complains, Nintendo will never listen to them, they've been failing utterly for the past couple years to listen to the fanbase.

Eventually their sales are going to be damaged, and they already were with the wii u, and then maybe they'll start realizing their mistakes.

WiiU was undoubtedly the dumbest console on the face of the planet. Such a good idea with the handheld device, totally shit on by Nintento marketing

[Funyarinpa]

But do those license fees justify paying 33% more for each game?

 

For example, Steam has regional pricing too, but the difference isn't that drastic. 

 

i.e. Bioshock is $20, and that's converted as £13 to the UK store.