No more new old games

A few weeks ago, it was announced that the Xbox Originals are no more. Remember? It's where you can download original Xbox games to your 360 for much more than you would pay at GameStop or a pawn shop. In honor of Max Payne 3's announcement, for example, they re-released the first two games at the standard Xbox Originals price of 1200 Microsoft points each ($15). You can buy both Max Payne and Max Payne 2 from Gamstop for $12 combined. But then you wouldn't get all the achievement points you can get only on 360! Oh wait... Xbox Originals don't offer those. Major Nelson said it was, "to preserve the integrity of the original gaming experience". And yet Galaga, Pac-Man, and Paperboy have achievements. That doesn't really seem fair, does it?

Another problem with the Originals is that most of them will steal about a gig of hard drive space. I only have a 20-gig hard drive on my 360 (big ones were too expensive!). That's a lot of wasted space. I would rather have the game take up space on my shelf. There's a lot more room, and then visitors can revel at my geek-tastic wall shrine!

The last issue is the same one facing Wii gamers with their Virtual Consoles - the good games that were re-released for download are already owned by the people that wanted them. People aren't going to pay another $15 to play an exact duplicate of an Xbox game they completed 6 years ago. That's three times the price of nostalgia of an NES game on Wii. For 400 Microsoft points, you might have yourself a deal. Triple that... probably not.

Still, it was nice seeing some underappreciated gems like Psychonauts and Dreamfall getting a little bit more attention a few years too late. Maybe it will get the three people that downloaded them to try something obscure and interesting in the future? We can only hope.

45... 37... 21... Price Hike!

For the first time in the history of video games, the price of a system may actually go up, at least in England. Citing exchange rate fluctuations, Nintendo will raise the wholesale price by about £19‭. So far, nobody is really sure if the price increase will simply be absorbed by retailers or if consumers will take the economy-sized bite in the form of an MSRP increase. Even if the price doesn't increase, the Wii will become the first console to maintain its launch price for two whole years. Not too bad for the most powerful, weakest system of this generation.

In related news, numbers of online users for the three systems are in, and the 360 was the clear winner. In second place was the Wii, with PS3 bringing up the rear. That's right, Wii beat PS3. I don't know if its because of the sheer numbers of Wii's versus PS3's, or if the Wii just has a more satisfying online component. HA! It's probably because Virtual Console games are, in general, more interesting to video game geeks than PSN games (except Echochrome and Pain... sweet). It's impressive though, considering what a hassle it is to get the Wii online. You have to buy an ethernet adaptor! For 30 bucks! Weak.