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Nintendo Network shutdown – The beginning of the end

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Re: Nintendo Network shutdown – The beginning of the end

#91

Post by hellotheretoday »

daydream wrote: post #37

I wonder long will the backend infra supporting the Switch will last. Especially now that they’re selling download-only versions of the games. Online services for earlier consoles like the Wii were more basic, and IIRC in some cases were developed and maintained by third parties, not Nintendo themselves? I understand wanting to get rid of that overhead especially if it wasn’t driving incremental revenue. But now the…

I can sort of understand ending life for allowing purchasing on the platform but why would you not create servers for the new consoles in a way that allows you to continue to serve downloads or at the very least whatever licensing necessary to launch the software to old hardware?

If I buy a game I should be able to launch it and redownload it. If the above is not feasible then strip the drm at the consoles end of life and allow me to download my library and launch it indefinitely until bitrot destroys it. Absurd that we have this current system of “purchase digitally and play until the servers are shut off, which is a timeframe that is unclear”

Re: Nintendo Network shutdown – The beginning of the end

#92

Post by Nifty3929 »

Services should not, cannot, and will not continue past the point at which their value to the users is less than the cost of maintaining them. I don’t know if that’s the case here or not, but I would expect any service that doesn’t have a recurring fee associated to it, or is otherwise driving more value like games still being developed and sold for it, to continue very long. What would be the point?

Re: Nintendo Network shutdown – The beginning of the end

#93

Post by spookie »

grumbel wrote: post #66
slowhadoken wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Valve has the perfect setup right now. Your desktop, laptop, or Deck can connect to Steam.

Steam will drop Windows7/8 support January 1, 2024[1], Vista and XP support got dropped a long time ago. Meanwhile they still sell Win95/98 games on the Steam store, which won't run well or at all on a Windows10/11. So not exactly perfect either as far as backward compatibility is concerned. [1] https://help.steampowered.com/en/faqs/view/4784-4F2B-1321-80...

Is it a Valve problem, or a Microsoft one at that point? Nevertheless, you could still download your game and remove the thin DRM layer (tools available to do so), and then play them on your Windows<10 machines.

Re: Nintendo Network shutdown – The beginning of the end

#94

Post by YoshiRulz »

wsve wrote: post #83

Now that we've seen this pattern emerge multiple times in the past (people losing a large chunk of their games due to the shutdown of the online catalog), I think it begs for a killer feature in the future: the ability to burn the games you've purchased from the online catalog onto write-once blank cartridges. Distributing games via physical copies is already a profit loss compared to distributing them via an online…

This is a great idea, but doesn't solve the problem of _game servers_ shutting down.

Re: Nintendo Network shutdown – The beginning of the end

#95

Post by Dalewyn »

spookie wrote: post #93
grumbel wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Steam will drop Windows7/8 support January 1, 2024[1], Vista and XP support got dropped a long time ago. Meanwhile they still sell Win95/98 games on the Steam store, which won't run well or at all on a Windows10/11. So not exactly perfect either as far as backward compatibility is concerned. [1] https://help.steampowered.com/en/faqs/view/4784-4F2B-1321-80...

Is it a Valve problem, or a Microsoft one at that point? Nevertheless, you could still download your game and remove the thin DRM layer (tools available to do so), and then play them on your Windows<10 machines.

Valve problem. Selling merchandise you know/stated the customer can't use is negligent at best, malicious at worst.

Obligatory IANAL.

Re: Nintendo Network shutdown – The beginning of the end

#96

Post by Dalewyn »

easton wrote: post #62
slowhadoken wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Valve has the perfect setup right now. Your desktop, laptop, or Deck can connect to Steam.

Unless it’s a 32-bit Mac come January or a machine running windows Which I’m fine with, but it’s not like Valve is magical somehow. If your machine isn’t still getting Chromium builds they can’t build Steam for it, you still need to buy new hardware. And the game consoles (less) often let you play old games on new hardware.

>in which case you’re screwed until you buy new hardware.

Windows 10 runs on anything that will emit a clock signal, and Windows 11 can be forced onto hardware it doesn't officially like.

I don't like Windows 7 support being dropped either, in large part because the dropping comes due to CEF used by Steam, but it's not like the hardware concerned becomes useless with no way out.

Re: Nintendo Network shutdown – The beginning of the end

#97

Post by tredre3 »

KennyBlanken wrote: post #88
al_borland wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This was my tactic as well. Seeing Xbox and Playstaion making console versions without optical drives has me worried about what the future may look like.

Optical drives have been useless for ages. Games are routinely coming out with ~60-100GB day-one updates.

And optical drives can store that comfortably.

There is no reason the entire game couldn't be on the disk and working as intended.

The reason there is such a large day one update is simply that games are released unfinished and/or untested. This isn't the fault of the medium. This is a systemic video game industry problem.

Re: Nintendo Network shutdown – The beginning of the end

#98

Post by Andrex »

kmeisthax wrote: post #82

So... Nintendo made the same mistake twice? For context, the Wii used GameSpy under-the-hood. You weren't necessarily required to use it (as evidenced by EA shipping their own system) but most developers did. The reason why Wii online was shut down was specifically because GameSpy got bought out and started massively increasing their server hosting costs. Of course, that's a little different from the Rendez-Vous situ…

Maybe NIH syndrome has its uses. I don't blame Nintendo for using outside companies to handle online, it's never been their core competency. They're an entertainment company, not a tech company.

Re: Nintendo Network shutdown – The beginning of the end

#99

Post by hadlock »

saghm wrote: post #89
daydream wrote: post #37

I wonder long will the backend infra supporting the Switch will last. Especially now that they’re selling download-only versions of the games. Online services for earlier consoles like the Wii were more basic, and IIRC in some cases were developed and maintained by third parties, not Nintendo themselves? I understand wanting to get rid of that overhead especially if it wasn’t driving incremental revenue. But now the…

It's kind of crazy how Nintendo has basically thrown out their entire service for consoles multiple times and started from scratch now. Can you imagine if Xbox Live or the PSN were thrown out and replaced with an incompatible new service after a single generation of use, let alone multiple times? Even ignoring the user experience, it feels like a massive waste of engineering work, with the benefit being...not having…

Lack of support for 3DS and (probably) switch means I am moving over to the Steam Deck for my next console, probably early next year. Losing my entire switch library, basically forever, when the Switch 2 (or whatever they call it) is released seems like throwing good money after bad.

Re: Nintendo Network shutdown – The beginning of the end

#100

Post by robinson7d »

tredre3 wrote: post #97
KennyBlanken wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Optical drives have been useless for ages. Games are routinely coming out with ~60-100GB day-one updates.

And optical drives can store that comfortably. There is no reason the entire game couldn't be on the disk and working as intended. The reason there is such a large day one update is simply that games are released unfinished and/or untested. This isn't the fault of the medium. This is a systemic video game industry problem.

(The following comment agrees with you, it is not intended as an argument against what you’re saying):

Technically being able to contain the content and actually being able to boot the game from the disc (after transferring to the console hard drive) are two separate things. Even without counting Day 1/Day 0 patches. Some games refuse to run without downloading additional content that isn’t on the disc, others require talking to a server even if you’ve just downloaded the latest updates, others. A patch to fix bugs and add content is one thing, refusing to play entirely is another.

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