So, your company bragged about a new console taking off in the market, and your company renders other consoles obsolete,–causing electronic waste, and more people to buy new tech. However; continuing to sell older consoles, or revive previous versions of these game consoles with native hardware,–or porting to PCs as an alternative option is key to enable your company to reach more platforms. For this instance, your text-adventure games what you developed are mainly designed for either PlayStation… well, I am familiar with this console,–after Nintendo, and Sega.
Why this is a problem
Even older consoles can still be targed by developers who wanted to port their games to older systems. If your company continues to sell older consoles with games still being ported; your company has an option to retarget their consoles to retro communities who prefer retro gaming. However; for the past years, exploring platforms when playing games, or viewing games being played is key to explore concepts.
Although; I didn’t know about our platforms’ flaws associated with selling more newer consoles with new features, and discontinuing older consoles. Although; that makes backporting too difficult for some developers who have a warm heart when developing games for people who prefer older hardware over new hardware. Most consoles what we know previously and today don’t have expansion ports like a PC. If these companies what we kno today compete with a fair competition, and reduce antitrust, that should’ve enabled companies to make more money.
If you were an owner of NES, and other Nintendo products in your house, and you were a developer who develops your own games inhouse, and you rely on your porting efforts to port to other platforms, you can still reach more of the audiences. However; the issue is: Older hardware and consoles are no longer manufactured by Nintendo, and that can be a pain for many people who wanted to preserve older games, and make their own games in the future.
With all of the people hacking older hardware to make clones, and no access to affordable licensing,–due to ILLEGAL price gouging, causing you to pay more, all without expecting affordable licensing for your products, even if you obtained permission.
Bad Business Models & Bad Business Decisions
Despite me… a fan of Nintendo myself, and I am currently a shareholder of this company by owning at least 1 share. This is an outrage for some Nintendo fans like me. If you discontinue your previous consoles; you are most likely be attacked by pirates of any kind. Even if you stopped manufacturing game cartridges with these games what we want to play,–or in some cases, enable us to make our own games, and flash them into blank cartridges. Unfortunately, publishing an open-source game can be a pain, due to DRM and other technological measures that may lead to rootkits, viruses, and even defects. Although; Nintendo is extremely strict with their intellectual property, and this is a real version of King Midas what we know today! And speaking about King Midas, too much of owning intellectual property isn’t a good thing. And sometimes, too much money isn’t a good thing either.
The another business decision of NOT providing a subscription for your gamers who consume your platform games by downloading ROM files for their emulators is a bad idea. If your company retargets their games to a specialty market for these rare games, or a library of legacy games; you can offer a service for your customers, or make it available for public libraries.
What’s Wrong With Nintendo’s business model currently?
Although; Nintendo has been criticized for their practices, such as: shutting down websites where fan made games are developed, poor naming plans for some consoles, NOT providing affordable licensing of their characters for amateur game developers, NOT properly respect fan-made game communities, NOT listening to fans, abusing the DMCA system, price gouging, NOT providing accessible versions of their consoles,–including previous versions of their systems, ignoring fair-use, and more.
Being greedy with your intellectual property is like being a real version of King Midas with a golden touch. Well, King Midas has wished anything what he tough is gold! However; businesses do fail,–due to bad decisions. However; crying over your intellectual property doesn’t solve problems, that makes it worse.
Unfortunately, Nintendo doesn’t sell firmware binaries for people to build their own retro consoles. This is one bad decision,–despite Nintendo being a such a large company. Being strict with your intellectual property doesn’t always mean better. Newer consoles doesn’t always mean better. If Nintendo provide us with easy to purchase binaries to downloading for building our retro consoles, or provide licensing for manufactures to build retro consoles, and enable manufacturers to pay royalties, that should’ve made them money like usual. With all of that revenue being lost via piracy, or even lawsuits,–or being sued completely; that can cause Nintendo to experience financial difficulties. If Nintendo give back to fans, or even us to enroll our work to be published on Nintendo’s ROM cartridges in the first place… that should’ve enabled us to hop on a tram to developing our own Nintendo games from scratch.
Also, Nintendo is notorious to have flawed products, currently Nintendo Switch with issues with their controls.
Not porting to PCs, and other platforms to enable other people to play their games should’ve enable Nintendo to get these other perks when adding their work to other competing platforms like Sony PlayStation, Microsoft XBOX, Sega, DOS, Ubuntu, Dreamcast, Debian, Fedora, Linux Mint, and more,–except for Apple because, I don’t support Apple. If Nintendo targeted other consoles via other platforms in the first place; that should’ve enabled them to earn endless royalties.
No open-source variants available; this is a known issue. There’s no such opensource variant of their software. If Nintendo develops an open-source version of their software, and their machines; that should’ve solved their problem. With an era of open-source software gradually replacing closed-source software, that can cause further issues with them. Look… closed-source software is susceptible to pirates, while open-source software is owned by a community. However; I believe Nintendo missed out on open-source software.
No braille present on their products. This is my major concern, not just me, other blind gamers, if you were considering a Nintendo Switch, or you got one as a present… you may need to request Nintendo to update their products.
This issue doesn’t apply to only just Nintendo, however; PlayStation and XBOX has caught up accessibility for the blind gaming community. However; Sega didn’t catch up because, this is a current issue for Sega fans who are blind too!
How Can We Fix These Problems?
Reconsidering older systems, and adding backporting insentives, and other features, and proper timely manufacturing of these consoles.
Test products thoroughly. We’re NOT saying, “you can’t mass produce products…” but timely manufacturing of products is essential to catch defects and flaws.
Provide an option for game developers to skip DRM. If this is the case; give publishers an option to automatically donate to Free Software Foundation after royalty payments.
Don’t just tie users to purchased downloads, set a system for purchases to expire, so you can have repurchases that can repeat, that can help reduce bandwith costs.
Always provide an option to use open-source alternatives to your software.
Leave your fans be, and keep fan-made games flying, if you were planning on providing licenses that enable fans to subscribe when making fan-made games, offer it!
Distribute ALL games that published to public libraries. If you have unpublished games, give them a new lease of life by distributing to public libraries. Public libraries play a key role for the poor community in the USA, and parts of our world. Check with library vendors who will help you distribute your games. A library price must be implemented for the best experience.
If you were a game developer
Don’t just put all of the eggs in just one basket, diversify your work from the oldest systems to the newest. Always set your games for older hardware as specialty products that don’t require mass manufacturing. Specialty markets are key for older games. Don’t rely on “easy money” schemes when publishing your games.
Implement a policy that will prioritize public libraries as your default distribution channel for your games via any platform.
Always rely on public libraries as an indifinite source of income. No more customers purchasing licenses to access your content and downloads!