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Official "Free" NES/GBA games for 3DS thread of Nintendo's guilt

E

Emitan

Member
bluedeviltron said:
I'm about to break down and buy a 3DS at Frys here in about an hour, but I'm wondering one thing.

I had originally bought one close to launch and returned it a couple of weeks later. I did sign in to the eShop, but I don't remember if I had to create an account or if the 'account' is tied to the system itself. Would I qualify for the games with the new system, or am I out of luck on that?
Click to expand...
Out of luck. There's no real account system. You can tie it to Club Nintendo but I think its still tied to your hardware.
 
C

Clunker

Member
Dreamwriter said:
Because pressing Start is so hard! Or L+R+Select, which is how you activate Sleep Mode in most games. And my point was, if Nintendo *did* allow 3DS sleep mode, that could cause weird things if the game was put into GBA sleep mode at the same time. GBA sleep mode already turns the screen, speakers, and CPU off.

And you can't believe that when Nintendo gives us 10 free games that they have no plans on selling to the public, they wouldn't spend a lot of money on making them? This whole thing is a loss for Nintendo, why spend a few hundred thousand dollars adding features that these games never had, when they won't be making Nintendo money, nor will many people be playing them?
Click to expand...
Honest question: Do you genuinely believe these GBA titles are going to never be added to the eShop for purchase by everyone?

And a follow-up question: A month ago, would you have said the 3DS wasn't going to get a price cut until at least mid-2012?
 
B

Brainiac 8

Member
I'm sure that the GBA games will be just like the NES games. We'll get these copies for free, and when the real copies are available (and they will be eventually) we'll get to download the updated copies just like we are with the NES games.
 
D

Dreamwriter

Member
Clunker said:
Honest question: Do you genuinely believe these GBA titles are going to never be added to the eShop for purchase by everyone?

And a follow-up question: A month ago, would you have said the 3DS wasn't going to get a price cut until at least mid-2012?
Click to expand...
They will be, but not for a couple years. We haven't even gotten all the announced systems on the VC yet, specifically GameGear and Turbografx. I'm sure Nintendo's plan was to release GBA games as one of the last systems, and only did the GBA thing to really impress how good a deal ambassadors were getting. Nintendo loves to release VC games at a trickle.

As for the price cut, I've thought 3DS would get one before the holidays since the PSVita's price was announced, and that was further reinforced by news of the 3DS selling poorly.

Roto13 said:
Hundreds of thousands of dollars. :p
Click to expand...
Yes - do you know how much money development costs? It's quite pricey, especially when you have to test 10 full games to make sure the change you made to the system emulation didn't affect a single part of those games. Consider 5 testers per game, that's 50 testers. Let's say they make $40,000 a year, that's over $150,000 just for the testers for one month. Normally you wouldn't need to be testing that many games at once, so you could use those 5 testers over and over, but Nintendo wants to release these games in the next few months.
 
P

plasticpassion

Member
Cerepol said:
Anyone got any recommendations for 3DS/eShop games?
Click to expand...

I've been wondering the same. I picked up a $20 card the other day when I bought the system.

I've heard the Shantae game is supposed to be good, but it's ~$12 (!). Also heard Donkey Kong 94 is great...
 
M

maeda

Member
Zomba13 said:
Don't see why not if it can do the GBA.
Click to expand...
Isn't 3DS using same hardware to play GBA games that is used for DS backwads compatibility? So basically the code is run natively on 3DS...
walking fiend said:
wasn't there a PSP SNES emulator?
Click to expand...
How well does it work?
 
D

deduce

Member
plasticpassion said:
I've been wondering the same. I picked up a $20 card the other day when I bought the system.

I've heard the Shantae game is supposed to be good, but it's ~$12 (!). Also heard Donkey Kong 94 is great...
Click to expand...
For $20 I picked up Shantae: Risky's Revenge ($12), Donkey Kong '94 ($4), and Mario's Picross ($4). Best $20 I've spend in a while.

Also why don't Nintendo Points work. WTF Nintendo. I bought a $20 Nintendo Points card, found out the hard way that they're incompatible with the 3DS when I tried typing it in, then had to wait a few days while Nintendo Customer Support manually added $20 (plus tax) to my 3DS eShop. I know 3DS isn't labeled on the card, but the card had a copyright of 2009 so I thought it was just an older card. Why can't they learn from Sony and just have one card to cover all digital shops?
 
R

Roto13

Member
deduce said:
For $20 I picked up Shantae: Risky's Revenge ($12), Donkey Kong '94 ($4), and Mario's Picross ($4). Best $20 I've spend in a while.

Also why don't Nintendo Points work. WTF Nintendo. I bought a $20 Nintendo Points card, found out the hard way that they're incompatible with the 3DS when I tried typing it in, then had to wait a few days while Nintendo Customer Support manually added $20 (plus tax) to my 3DS eShop. I know 3DS isn't labeled on the card, but the card had a copyright of 2009 so I thought it was just an older card. Why can't they learn from Sony and just have one card to cover all digital shops?
Click to expand...
Because they've stopped using points. The points cards work with everything that uses points. (Wii and DSi.) The eShop cards will work with everything that uses actual money. (3DS and most definitely Wii U.)
 
Z

Zafir

Member
bluedeviltron said:
I'm about to break down and buy a 3DS at Frys here in about an hour, but I'm wondering one thing.

I had originally bought one close to launch and returned it a couple of weeks later. I did sign in to the eShop, but I don't remember if I had to create an account or if the 'account' is tied to the system itself. Would I qualify for the games with the new system, or am I out of luck on that?
Click to expand...
Do you still have the reciept for it or anything?

Not sure about Nintendo of America, but NoE has said that if you have a reciept of buying a 3ds before the 12th, then you can still get the games.
 
ss_lemonade

ss_lemonade

Member
maeda said:
Isn't 3DS using same hardware to play GBA games that is used for DS backwads compatibility? So basically the code is run natively on 3DS...

How well does it work?
Click to expand...
I was thinking the 3ds didn't have the gba hardware in it anymore like the DSi, so maybe these free gba titles will be emulated?

The psp snes emulator works pretty darn good. Just enable auto frameskip and you can play a lot of games at near perfect speeds. Same's true with the gba emulator on there
 
D

deduce

Member
Roto13 said:
Because they've stopped using points. The points cards work with everything that uses points. (Wii and DSi.) The eShop cards will work with everything that uses actual money. (3DS and most definitely Wii U.)
Click to expand...
That's fine if they're moving towards dollar amounts, but it'd be better if they moved to a unified account system. They should pull all the old points cards and release just one unified $20/2000 Point card to remove customer confusion. Especially since I haven't seen a eShop card in stores but always see Nintendo Point cards.
 
R

Roto13

Member
deduce said:
That's fine if they're moving towards dollar amounts, but it'd be better if they moved to a unified account system. They should pull all the old points cards and release just one unified $20/2000 Point card to remove customer confusion. Especially since I haven't seen a eShop card in stores but always see Nintendo Point cards.
Click to expand...
One card can't be worth both points and real dollars because they have to charge tax at some point. There's no tax on an eShop card because tax is charged in the shop itself, but there's tax on a points card because you are buying the points and the points are traded for games and DLC.
 
D

deduce

Member
Roto13 said:
One card can't be worth both points and real dollars because they have to charge tax at some point. There's no tax on an eShop card because tax is charged in the shop itself, but there's tax on a points card because you are buying the points and the points are traded for games and DLC.
Click to expand...
So that's why they refunded me $20 plus tax. Thanks for that bit of info.
 
R

Roto13

Member
Hey, when added that money to your account, does that mean you can use the points card on something else, or did they deactivate it or something? :p
 
J

Javier

Member
Roto13 said:
One card can't be worth both points and real dollars because they have to charge tax at some point. There's no tax on an eShop card because tax is charged in the shop itself, but there's tax on a points card because you are buying the points and the points are traded for games and DLC.
Click to expand...
The funny thing is, you can easily circumvent the tax by simply changing your state in the 3DS options. I'm in Chile but I have my 3DS set to California so I can have full eShop access and no tax when buying. If I set it to Chile I can't access the eShop at all.
 
R

Roto13

Member
I live in Canada and there are no provinces without sales tax, but I do have my region set to Alberta so I pay as little tax as possible. Same with my PSN account.
 
D

deduce

Member
Roto13 said:
Hey, when added that money to your account, does that mean you can use the points card on something else, or did they deactivate it or something? :p
Click to expand...
Nah, I had to email them a scanned copy of the points card plus receipt. They said the card would be deactivated then I would be credited the amount. Would have been nice though.
 
P

plasticpassion

Member
deduce said:
For $20 I picked up Shantae: Risky's Revenge ($12), Donkey Kong '94 ($4), and Mario's Picross ($4). Best $20 I've spend in a while.

Also why don't Nintendo Points work. WTF Nintendo. I bought a $20 Nintendo Points card, found out the hard way that they're incompatible with the 3DS when I tried typing it in, then had to wait a few days while Nintendo Customer Support manually added $20 (plus tax) to my 3DS eShop. I know 3DS isn't labeled on the card, but the card had a copyright of 2009 so I thought it was just an older card. Why can't they learn from Sony and just have one card to cover all digital shops?
Click to expand...

I see Donkey Kong 94 in my near future.
 
C

ConradCervantes

Banned
Javier said:
The funny thing is, you can easily circumvent the tax by simply changing your state in the 3DS options. I'm in Chile but I have my 3DS set to California so I can have full eShop access and no tax when buying. If I set it to Chile I can't access the eShop at all.
Click to expand...
No tax is cool, but you're left with extra pennies, which is annoying. I currently have $12.07 on my 3DS.
 
graywolf323

graywolf323

Member
odd the bit about the Ambassador program has disappeared from the news section on my eshop :-/

edit: ah okay it was taken down

well I linked my club nintendo account and registered my 3DS on Wednesday so would think I should be fine
 
D

Dreamwriter

Member
georaldc said:
I was thinking the 3ds didn't have the gba hardware in it anymore like the DSi, so maybe these free gba titles will be emulated?

The psp snes emulator works pretty darn good. Just enable auto frameskip and you can play a lot of games at near perfect speeds. Same's true with the gba emulator on there
Click to expand...
Well, the 3DS can play DS games, which requires the GBA hardware or a really good emulation of it - even for native DS games, the DS really was treated as if it were two systems in one: a 2D game system using the GBA hardware, and a 2D/3D game system using DS hardware. You had to assign one "system" per screen. Some folks think the DSi just removed the cartridge port, nothing else.
 
H

hardcastlemccormick

Banned
Didn't the PS1 ports of Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy 4 through 6 all just end up being SNES emulations? And heck, the PSP was capable of emulating some N64 games, once it was tweaked right.

If that's the case, I'm assuming the 3DS is easily capable of emulating the SNES.
 
L

Luigi87

Member
Roto13 said:
I live in Canada and there are no provinces without sales tax, but I do have my region set to Alberta so I pay as little tax as possible. Same with my PSN account.
Click to expand...

Here-here!
In Ontario, using Alberta as my province... Seriously, the 8% additional tax I'd have to pay is ridiculous...
 
F

Fuzzy

I would bang a hot farmer!
Roto13 said:
I live in Canada and there are no provinces without sales tax, but I do have my region set to Alberta so I pay as little tax as possible. Same with my PSN account.
Click to expand...
Sony stopped charging sales tax on PSN in Ontario. I don't know about the rest of Canada.

Yeah, I have Alberta as my Province on my 3DS.
 
R

Roto13

Member
Fuzzy said:
Sony stopped charging sales tax on PSN in Ontario. I don't know about the rest of Canada.
Click to expand...
Dammit, when was this? I haven't bought anything on the PSN since like March. I hope I didn't accidentally spend me on sales tax than I had to by trying to beat the system. :p
 
I

InertiaXr

Member
Zafir said:
Do you still have the reciept for it or anything?

Not sure about Nintendo of America, but NoE has said that if you have a reciept of buying a 3ds before the 12th, then you can still get the games.
Click to expand...

Do you think I would be able to buy a Flame Red 3DS and use my friend's 3DS receipt from a few months ago to still get these free games? I'm not sure how much information about the particular 3DS is on a receipt, but I assume there is no way for Nintendo to know if I pull this on them? Obviously a Flame Red 3DS would have to have been bought after yesterday since I am in the United States...
 
I

InertiaXr

Member
donny2112 said:
No. The serial # of the 3DS is on the receipt.
Click to expand...

Ah well, I figured they would be able to track individual 3DS's somehow like that. Why didn't they release the red one before this program ended? :/ That's the best so far, all black is bland and the blue is too light of a blue, but I really want this one.
 
F

Fuzzy

I would bang a hot farmer!
Roto13 said:
Dammit, when was this? I haven't bought anything on the PSN since like March. I hope I didn't accidentally spend me on sales tax than I had to by trying to beat the system. :p
Click to expand...
First time I bought anything after the change was June 9th according to my Transaction History. I'm not sure when it actually started.
 
B

BocoDragon

or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Realize This Assgrab is Delicious
Hamster0 said:
you can change your region to alberta to get less tax on online games?
Click to expand...
It's not worth it, because then you have to identify as an Albertan.

I can make that joke because I am, in fact, from Alberta :p
 
C

cultureculture

Member
The SNES chat got me thinking about how SNES screenshots might look on the 3DS screen. I gave it a go using the browser, and the results were pretty nice. The screenshots looked quite sharp and fitted nicely on the top screen, and I ended up spending a while just looking at shots of different games to see how they'd look. Here's a crappy washed out photo, taking photos of screens is hard. I recommend trying it yourself if you never fell out of love with the SNES platform.

Really hope that SNES VC happens eventually, even if it's only homebrew.

edit: better photo
 
A

AndyMoogle

Member
JoshuaJSlone said:
For that matter, there was even a far-from-perfect SNES emulator for GBA.
Click to expand...
It could run games at a decent speed without sound. The DS emulator was obviously better, but it was still lacking. The 3DS can easily emulate SNES if Nintendo themselves make the emulator.

Hopefully they are planning on releasing GB/GBC titles and NES titles at the same time later on. After they are done with that, they might release GBA and SNES titles. Shouldn't take more than 3-4 years at this rate.

Or we could hope that Nintendo is just holding back on VC titles because the 3DS hasn't sold much yet. When it starts picking up, they might release more titles each week. (Probably not)
 
IMACOMPUTA

IMACOMPUTA

Member
I was aware that you had to login to the 3ds shop before Aug 12th to be eligible for the ambassador games.. And I did. I downloaded excitebike the day it came out.

I was listening to Weekend Confirmed (podcast) and they said that you have to log-in AFTER they announced the Ambassador program.

I was not aware of this... is this true? If so -- fuck.
 
U

undecided

Member
IMACOMPUTA said:
I was listening to Weekend Confirmed (podcast) and they said that you have to log-in AFTER they announced the Ambassador program.

I was not aware of this... is this true? If so -- fuck.
Click to expand...

That was a pretty dumb way for them to do it, but I bet you will be able to work that out with Customer Service in a few days.

They will probably get a flood of those requests.
 
S

Shiggy

Member
IMACOMPUTA said:
I was aware that you had to login to the 3ds shop before Aug 12th to be eligible for the ambassador games.. And I did. I downloaded excitebike the day it came out.

I was listening to Weekend Confirmed (podcast) and they said that you have to log-in AFTER they announced the Ambassador program.

I was not aware of this... is this true? If so -- fuck.
Click to expand...

You are still eligible for the ambassador games as long as you bought your Nintendo 3DS system before August 12th, 2011. Using the eShop was only one - and probably the easiest - method to "sign up".
 
W

wrowa

Member
IMACOMPUTA said:
I was aware that you had to login to the 3ds shop before Aug 12th to be eligible for the ambassador games.. And I did. I downloaded excitebike the day it came out.

I was listening to Weekend Confirmed (podcast) and they said that you have to log-in AFTER they announced the Ambassador program.

I was not aware of this... is this true? If so -- fuck.
Click to expand...
What, really? Nintendo never said that. I doubt that it's true.
 
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