About Gametap & the Nintendo Revolution's online shop

[OmegaDog]

I'm sure a lot of you already know about the Revolution's planned online shop for games, both classic and more-recent -- and maybe a few of you probably already know about the upcoming Gametap, a subscription service for games.

These are awesome steps in the right direction. The companies themselves are taking initiative to make the classics easily available, and they're utilizing the power of the Internet to do so. It'll be like the iTunes and the current-model Napster, but for gaming -- you get it quickly and easily online, and you support the companies that make these games. [This online business model might already exist for PC games -- though for classic console/arcade games and the like, this is the first time we see a real push for it, no?]

The libraries might be limited, at least to start -- but if you take a look at Gametap's trailer video, you'll note that one of the first games they feature on it is Gunstar Heroes. That's a pretty big indicator that they're looking to go beyond the mainstream for their market. (And, for the Sega fans here -- they happen to feature quite a few Sega games too!)

[Sure, many might have complaints about DRM -- but still, DRM is what's making these companies willing to provide these services in the first place. There might be arguments of DRM as regards Fair Use rights, and that's understandable -- and I'm hoping there'll be a good compromise between consumers and companies that both can agree on.]

The way the market is officially transitioning here, for classic games (and even modern ones!) -- this really is an important step.

[ptr.exe]

It really is a big step, video games is a medium that would work really well in a purely downloadable form, ie. no more discs. Starting with retro games is also a really good idea as they can iron out any problems before perhaps doing this for new commercial games.
However i am slightly worried about storage, Revolution has 512MB of online flash, thats plenty for NES/SNES but no where near enough for N64, even using say a 2GB SD card you'd be limited.
There's also the issue of piracy, if Nintendo charge for this service then within minutes someone will upload the file from an SD card for anyone to download and use, hence crap sales of downloads and Nintendo giving up on the idea.