News Extreme-G and Iggy’s Reckin’ Balls available now on N64 NSO

[Jahranimo]

Extreme-G plays extremely well. Definitely a smoother framerate than on the original N64 hardware.

I need to play it more with my retro fighter N64 controller though for the c buttons.

 

[SeafoamGaming]

god i fucking wish we got Hydro Thunder

shit is there a source for sales being that low? double digits is fucking crazy

Not a publicly available one but a few years back I wrote an article going into how the VC model was no longer sustainable for third parties and during that research I heard from people who’d know the eshop sales stuff damn well point out how some VC games basically werent even worth letting Nintendo/D4E do the port jobs for them, which is why 3DS VC basically ended altogether in 2014 in Japan save for pokemon stuff and special event releases, and the N3DS got SNES stuff.

M2 also did an interview many years ago (i cannot find it for the life of me) noting they hoped the game gear stuff on 3DS would have done better and pretty much indicated it did very very very badly, which is probably why you dont see modern sega reissue 8 bit stuff at all anymore. People beg then never show up if delivered.

The biggest public evidence backing what I heard is the aforementioned sales charts people linked earlier where the most popular VC games on Wii U/3DS were just mario, zeldas and pokemon, along with Earthbound for whatever reason. The miiverse communities for wii u vc games are also a good indicator on how many folk bought and played games, and sure enough, the nicher stuff had hardly anyone posting about it (and Japan VC games for like, MSX/niche SFC/FC stuff maybe had single digit posts from people who owned them? Which would really cement what I heard about some JP games not cracking 100 lol)

 

[Spikeylord]

Is this the first time Throwback released something on NSO? What else do they have? I remember someone mentioning they were the ones owned Aero 1-2...

Not sure if you've gotten a response yet, but they do have two titles on SNES NSO already - Jelly Boy and Bombuzal, although neither of these were originally Acclaim titles afaik.

 

[Josh5890]

Yep, this is why subscription model is here to stay and buying ala carte is dead. Very few people were buying ala carte, and what they were buying was the same dozen games over and over and over again. Look at how many people on various social media sites instantly dismissed these two games they'd never even heard of or tried. As someone who has played and would recommend both titles, I'm not sure I would have dropped $5-$10 to buy these titles on my Switch. More NSO+EP gamers probably tried at least one of these two titles then would have bought them on the Wii and WiiU eshops combined during their hay day.

Yup. I wouldn't necessarily mind if Nintendo offered ala carte for those who want it, but give me the subscription model going forward. $10 a year to play all of these games? Absolutely.

I'm sorry, but I do not need to repurchase Super Mario World for the 12th time. Just give it all to me up front and I am a happy camper.

along with Earthbound for whatever reason

That makes sense though. It was the first time that Earthbound was available for purchase on any platform in 20 years. Fans had been clamoring for that game for a long time, going back to the Wii. That was by far the biggest VC announcement for the Wii-U.

 

[Sailor Moon]

I’m one of those double digit weirdos who preferred buying a la carte and was buying up to the death of the VC, so it’s never not going to stick in my craw just a little bit that I have to pay for online that I never use to get to play all these games. and cloud saves have come in handy a time or two I must admit

 

[Mer.Saloon]

If Nintendo took the SEGA Ages approach, even adding small emulator level accessibility settings to their old games for a standard release, I think that'd sell me on buying Ala-Carte stuff.

Phantasy Star 1 especially benefitted from that map and bestiary, imagine something like that added to NES Zelda and Metroid. And if the price were inflated, I doubt there'd be enough people cancelling subs to offset the benefits of both existing.

It's just a matter of paying people to do this kind of effort.

 

[Oscillator]

Do we know of any improvements to the emulation? Fzero got fixed? Paper mario frame rate and star summit?

Only fix appears to be to Mario Kart 64:



Also, Extreme-G and Iggy's needed quite a bit of work for release on NSO:

 

[Mer.Saloon]

Also, Extreme-G and Iggy's needed quite a bit of work for release on NSO:

The N64 is a particularly tricky beast to this day so it doesn't surprise me if every N64 game needs individual tweaking.

It is pretty impressive how Nintendo tries to keep some level of consistency and seamlessness when switching between games on one emulator.

 

[Mandos]

The N64 is a particularly tricky beast to this day so it doesn't surprise me if every N64 game needs individual tweaking.

It is pretty impressive how Nintendo tries to keep some level of consistency and seamlessness when switching between games on one emulator.

Kinda feel like people forget how much work it can take to get stuff up to a standardized acceptable level in an emulator when you can’t brute force it and have mandatory features. It’s not plug and play.

Does explain why there can be a bit of time between drops too(well on the n64 side)

 

[SeafoamGaming]

That makes sense though. It was the first time that Earthbound was available for purchase on any platform in 20 years. Fans had been clamoring for that game for a long time, going back to the Wii. That was by far the biggest VC announcement for the Wii-U.

I mean yeah but let's face it, there have been a ton of things fans beg for and then it eats shit when it hits the mass market because those fans dont show up or it doesnt pull in newcomers

So to see Earthbound of all things remain a top seller for the entirety of the Wii U's life on VC... That was honestly a bit remarkable. Even Earth Bound on NES (my personal favorite Mother game) didn't seem to catch on.

I’m one of those double digit weirdos who preferred buying a la carte and was buying up to the death of the VC, so it’s never not going to stick in my craw just a little bit that I have to pay for online that I never use to get to play all these games. and cloud saves have come in handy a time or two I must admit

Having owned 190 Wii U VC games... I totally get that lol; I discovered so much fun stuff on VC. But I kinda feel the NSO model is the most safe of them all as long as games don't start vanishing left and right with no way to buy and keep them... Though if any of em do, it's absolutely gonna be Goldeneye as the first to go.

If Nintendo took the SEGA Ages approach, even adding small emulator level accessibility settings to their old games for a standard release, I think that'd sell me on buying Ala-Carte stuff.

Phantasy Star 1 especially benefitted from that map and bestiary, imagine something like that added to NES Zelda and Metroid. And if the price were inflated, I doubt there'd be enough people cancelling subs to offset the benefits of both existing.

It's just a matter of paying people to do this kind of effort.

I loved, LOVED that Ages port of PS1 and having come from the Playstation 2 compilation to the Switch port, I was amazed by how M2 somehow outdid their prior work. I hoped PS2 would get similar treatment. It kinda did on the Genesis Mini 2, but man those dungeons are badly made still.

And then in the end almost nobody bought the damn thing because people mostly stuck and bought the lamer games like Puyo, Outrun, Alex Kidd and Sonic. You telling me people skipped Thunder Force AC and Shinobi for fucking outrun? Power Drift is a way, way better Sega Racer, and so is Virtual Racing IMO... I really liked the AGES line and was sad to see Sega kill it and I kinda blame that on again, the west being exposed to Genesis games too many times (and them being milked to death here until Sega pulled up and made licensing more $$$) and people constantly bitching about Saturn/DC games not being there (My distaste for DC aside, Saturn stuff is just not at all something you'll see companies touch for $8/10 lol; the Saturn Tribute line is just kicking off and even it has hit some snags here and there)

Also that bullshit interview translation where they made it seem like M2 confirmed Naomi games were coming to AGES, even though they said no such thing in the slightest and it was mistranslated and distorted. The amount of people who just assumed Sonic Adventure or Crazy Taxi or whatever was around the corner due to the shit tabloids pulled blew my mind... Then when they announced the end of the lineup those same folk were suddenly confused or thought they canceled naomi stuff when naomi stuff was never confirmed to begin with. This is why you don't just throw a quote into Google Translate or whatever.

Only fix appears to be to Mario Kart 64:



Also, Extreme-G and Iggy's needed quite a bit of work for release on NSO:

Does not surprise me in the slightest. I'm kinda surprised it sounds like it was on throwback's end though, and not NERD/IQue; I thought that they're the ones who mess with the emulation stuff. At least from that image it seems like TB did something.

Kinda hoping for more games from them soon. I'll forgive them for unleashing Jelly Boy on us if they bring out Extreme G-2 or Forsaken.