Metroid Prime Remasteredshadow dropped on theSwitchrecently and, once again, fans are hailingNintendo’s 2002 explore-‘em-up as one of the greatest games ever made.
As TheGamer’s EIC Stacey Henley pointed out inher recent piece, the remaster’s stellar reception is a reminder that fans shouldn’t forget the past, and I agree. At the same time, I’m thinking about Features Editor Ben Sledge’s recent article on howvideo games aren’t affordable for the working class. Games and consoles are too expensive, especially in the UK, for fans with limited income.
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That’s even more true when you start tracking down old consoles and vintage games. Though most tend to depreciate in value, tracking down an oldGameCubeand a few games is still going to be more expensive than, say, renting an old movie on iTunes. For movies, you either pay for the subscription service and gain access to hundreds or thousands of series and films, or you have access to the service for free and pay for the movies or series you want individually. In games, it isn’t that simple. If you want to play an old game, there’s a good chance you’ll need to track down decades-old hardware.
That wouldn’t be the case if publishers like Nintendo andSonydid a better job of making older games available on current gen systems.Microsoftdoes a good job with this. Between the Microsoft Store andXbox Game Pass, you can access a great deal of the games that have appeared on Xbox consoles over the years.
Unfortunately, Nintendo and Sony — when they make classic games available at all — have stuck them behind the paywall of a subscription service or remastered them at a higher price, often not even in bundles. This is different from Microsoft’s method because all the games available on Xbox Game Pass are also available for purchase individually. But a great deal of Sony games from the PS3 and earlier are only available via streaming, which is only available through a PS Plus Premium subscription. If you want to play, say, Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus, you have to shell out $17.99 a month for that subscription (assuming you can afford or even have access to the stable internet connection necessary to play it).
Nintendo’s practices are just as bad. Though many fans would gladly pay to ownThe Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of TimeorEarthboundon Switch, they can’t. If they want to play those games, they, again, have to shell out for a subscription service. That means that when Nintendo inevitably shuts down Nintendo Switch Online at some point down the road, fans will lose access to them.
It’s also worth noting these are games popular enough to warrant inclusion on PS Plus and Nintendo Switch Online in the first place. Many aren’t. I’m currently readingChris Scullion’s The N64 Encyclopedia: Every Game Released for the Nintendo 64 and that book has hammered home the sheer amount of games, once widely available, which current players will never even know exist. I write about games for a living and the book is filled with titles I not only haven’t played but haven’t heard of.
So, when players make lists of their favorite games, it’s understandable that their preferences skew toward the recent, rather than the titles from a few generations back. The best (and best-selling) may survive to be played by future generations of gamers. But, many more will be forgotten entirely. And companies who treat that history’s precarity as a value add for a subscription service are complicit in that loss.
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