The way Nintendo operates its digital transactions is often ridiculed, and for good reason. They've only recently implemented any kind of account system and are utterly unclear as to how that operates in regards to digital purchases, they don't offer cross-console ownership despite that being a relative norm these days, and they have something against giving gamers anything that they have not played one hundred times over. All kinds of solutions have been proposed as to how they can "fix" the problems, but this is one I haven't seen before:
Physical to Diital Trades.
Particularly with the DS supposedly coming to a Wii U near you, I think it might be worthwhile for Nintendo to look at the possibility of offering download codes to individuals who already own the physical game. I've thought about this a bit, and one of the big problems that pops up is how to make sure each game is only being granted one digital copy, and not circulating around a group of friends. Club Nintendo is one way of doing it, give Club Nintendo users a free digital copy of anything that they have registered to their account. I'm in strong support of that, actually.
But that only covers the Wii and DS generation (maybe the taile end of the GameCube). What about the N64, NES, and GB games?
I think Nintendo should allow users to mail in their carts in exchange for a free virtual console download. If I send them Super Mario Bros. for the NES, I should get 8-Bit Super Mario Bros. for the Virtual Console. While this would mean they couldn't resell the same game again to everybody, it would also grant them a lot of public blessing, I think.
Even big movie studios are taking a look at this concept by offering DVD/Blu-Ray to Digital conversions (albeit, at a small fee). There isn't really any reason for video games not to follow suit, and even do it better.
What do you think? Phys-to-Dig?
Physical to Diital Trades.
Particularly with the DS supposedly coming to a Wii U near you, I think it might be worthwhile for Nintendo to look at the possibility of offering download codes to individuals who already own the physical game. I've thought about this a bit, and one of the big problems that pops up is how to make sure each game is only being granted one digital copy, and not circulating around a group of friends. Club Nintendo is one way of doing it, give Club Nintendo users a free digital copy of anything that they have registered to their account. I'm in strong support of that, actually.
But that only covers the Wii and DS generation (maybe the taile end of the GameCube). What about the N64, NES, and GB games?
I think Nintendo should allow users to mail in their carts in exchange for a free virtual console download. If I send them Super Mario Bros. for the NES, I should get 8-Bit Super Mario Bros. for the Virtual Console. While this would mean they couldn't resell the same game again to everybody, it would also grant them a lot of public blessing, I think.
Even big movie studios are taking a look at this concept by offering DVD/Blu-Ray to Digital conversions (albeit, at a small fee). There isn't really any reason for video games not to follow suit, and even do it better.
What do you think? Phys-to-Dig?