29th May 2005, 9:03 PM
Yeah, but those games had production costs -- to make the cart, packaging, shipment, etc... that chews up a big chunk of that $20. Online, it's almost pure profit... the price can be much lower, and yet Nintendo would probably still make more money from it. :)
Editor: Asking far, far too much.
Debugging: Again, it's probably asking too much. Oh, they have copies of the carts and stuff, but do they have access to the sourcecode? Do they remember how this game was programmed? Could they debug it easily? Or would it take time, effort, and money Nintendo would probably rather not spend? I think the latter is much, MUCH more likely than the former. Expect framerate fixes and stuff, and maybe minor bugfixes for the big stuff (that has been fixed in past ports -- like the removal of the Minus World and stuff), but definitely nothing beyond that... remember, these are re-releases. Not remakes. There's a big difference there.
Multiplayer: You can emulate multiplayer for these games over a network -- some emulators do it (for SNES and stuff). It doesn't require changing the game code, either, just creating emulation code that tricks the system into thinking the input is coming from the other "controller" when in fact that controller is on another system over the net... I wouldn't EXPECT (I don't expect anything beyond the minimum) this, but it'd be awesome to have and is definitely doable (since only the already-required hardware emulation code needs to be changed, not the game software code).
Translations: A great idea... they definitely should release Mother 0. Other games it is much more problematic, however. They have no translation, after all, and it'd cost a good bit to translate those games (the ones that have not previously been officially translated, that is)... they certainly can't recognize fan-made translations, and making their own would cost more than they'd probably want to spend, so sadly I'd say it's unlikely... though it'd be really awesome if they did it.
Editor: Asking far, far too much.
Debugging: Again, it's probably asking too much. Oh, they have copies of the carts and stuff, but do they have access to the sourcecode? Do they remember how this game was programmed? Could they debug it easily? Or would it take time, effort, and money Nintendo would probably rather not spend? I think the latter is much, MUCH more likely than the former. Expect framerate fixes and stuff, and maybe minor bugfixes for the big stuff (that has been fixed in past ports -- like the removal of the Minus World and stuff), but definitely nothing beyond that... remember, these are re-releases. Not remakes. There's a big difference there.
Multiplayer: You can emulate multiplayer for these games over a network -- some emulators do it (for SNES and stuff). It doesn't require changing the game code, either, just creating emulation code that tricks the system into thinking the input is coming from the other "controller" when in fact that controller is on another system over the net... I wouldn't EXPECT (I don't expect anything beyond the minimum) this, but it'd be awesome to have and is definitely doable (since only the already-required hardware emulation code needs to be changed, not the game software code).
Translations: A great idea... they definitely should release Mother 0. Other games it is much more problematic, however. They have no translation, after all, and it'd cost a good bit to translate those games (the ones that have not previously been officially translated, that is)... they certainly can't recognize fan-made translations, and making their own would cost more than they'd probably want to spend, so sadly I'd say it's unlikely... though it'd be really awesome if they did it.