An alarming bit of news for anyone considering picking up the original Project X Zone from the Nintendo 3DS eShop. According to various users, the game has vanished from the North American and European 3DS eShops. What's more, if you own the digital version and try to re-download it, a message stating “This software is currently unavailable” is displayed. That's not good.
Pending word from Bandai Namco or Nintendo, no one knows why it's been removed. I'm willing to bet it's license-related. Nevertheless we'll keep an ear to the ground for updates. For now, careful not to delete the game off your 3DS.
UPDATE: The re-download button doesn't appear on PXZ's eShop page but - BUT - you CAN redownload it from your list of “Redownloadable Software.”
Source: Nintendo Everything
What a brave new frontier where games featuring Mega Man can be cancelled after release.
ReplyDeleteGet down off your cross, someone else needs the wood.
DeleteROFL!
DeleteThis digital gaming is the wave of the future, after all, remember?
We take our hands and WAVE them side-to-side as we say goodbye to our beloved games forever, ha ha ha.
I hope contacts can be better made in the future, if that's what this is all about. If this is some mistake on the eShop, then... hurray?
PHYSICAL FTW
ReplyDeleteMost likely it is license issues. They will probably get resolved and the game will be back up in the near future.
ReplyDeleteGood thing I have a physical copy.
ReplyDeleteSAME
DeleteSame here
DeleteMight just be an error. If it was licensing issues, you'd still be able to re-download it after already buying it.
ReplyDeleteYou can redownload it off your previous download list. Like most services.
ReplyDeletePic or it didn't happen. Multiple people say you cant
DeleteSeems like the story has updated to reflect that it is redownloadable via the previous downloads. This is just another one of those times where 1 report got it wrong and everyone dogpiled on. It does suck that its no longer up for purchase though.
DeleteSee this is why I dislike just downloading games. That's why I'm waiting so long for Gunvolt. sigh
ReplyDeleteWhy don't you just download the game and preserve it? You can even preserve it on physical mediums similar to the 3DS carts that it would come in on a traditional physical medium.
DeleteSometimes people find the pettiest stuff to try and validate their position. It's like if my dog chewed my 3DS cart and destroyed it (which actually happened btw), then I said see this is why physical sucks.
"It's like if my dog chewed my 3DS cart and destroyed it (which actually happened btw)"
DeleteWait, this actually happened to you? I consider *that* a fairly petty excuse given that an action as simple as utilizing a drawer/box/cabinet for cart storage should solve the issue. (Either that or some appropriate pet training/containment.) Don't use your own negligence as a means to belittle the opinion of others...it just looks silly.
Except that I literally had the Dog a whole of 2 weeks when it happened and the fact that I can't leave a game top of a drawer for two minutes with an untrained dog means that in itself is a negative to physical's convenience. In essence I get to be more negligent with digital with less of a negative trade off in that regard. Also it was literally my very young little brother that switched the games and left one un attended and exposed shortly before we left to grab a bit in another room.
DeleteEven considering that, you act like Dogs are freaken Pokemon, reality check, real animals are unpredictable even considering being well trained. On top of that, not all Dogs are equal, some are less prone to training and intelligent behavior than others even among those of the same breed.
(FORGETTING ALL THAT) The fact that it is a petty excuse for the argument at hand was my entire point. I don't care how responsible you think people need to be in regards to handling video games, I can guarantee crap happens to physical media all the time, disc scratches from all types of various circumstances, a damaged chip from a cartridge for inserting it wrongly, short circuits on the chip of a cart many many many things. I am positive if you find all the "incidents" that cause physical media to malfunction or cease function you'll find waaaaay more examples of that than digital media that publishers take down that if purchasers had could never get back again if they ever lost it.
Which even in this PXZ case people could redownload the game, and even then if you really wanted to be super paranoid could even back up multiple copies of the game throughout multiple devices or physical media.
Does that mean physical sucks? No. It just means the world isn't perfect and everything has its negatives and positives. The heck is this fanboyism over a medium anyway? What are people afraid physical will go away or something?
As negative as I can be about the state of Mega Man these days, I'll actually be kinda surprised if this turns out to be anything more than a mistake. As far as I know, when digital games are taken down due to licensing or w/e, people who already purchased it are generally still able to re-download it or something like that.
ReplyDelete"UPDATE: The re-download button doesn't appear on PXZ's eShop page but - BUT - you CAN redownload it from your list of “Redownloadable Software.” "
DeleteTHERE we go. NOW I can reasonably expect it to be licensing issues.
And this is why I have physical copies of games...
ReplyDeleteI have both physical and digital or sometimes both for the same thing. I have no strong bias here or there.
DeleteIt has nothing to do with bias. I have a few digital games. Or I had them. Games that I bought for my 3DS, phone and Tablet I had to delete in order to free storage space. When I needed to download them again later on I found out that I couldn't redownload them. Most of them I needed to buy again. Unlike the physical copy which I own. The digital copy even though I purchased it, I don't actually own. And after more then a few times finding out that I can't re download a game that I should have rights to since I should own it I gave up on digital copies.
DeletePhysical > digital, as digital won't be available as long as physical (assuming you take good care of it). I wonder when (and IF) a "Virtual Console Collection" with 50+ games will be released. ;P
ReplyDeleteThis is why I only very rarely buy a digital game for more than 25% of the regular price. In addition, I tend to prefer distribution channels that put the user in better control of their downloaded data (such as GOG and Steam). At this rate, I figure that I should be able to maximize my play time and lose minimal amounts of money if my purchases are ever pulled off of the service. Since Nintendo tends to make their data management a bit of a black box compared to other services, I only buy digital games from Nintendo if I can't get them anywhere else. If this were to change, Nintendo and other companies would possibly get more purchases from me and potentially at full price. Their loss.
ReplyDeleteWith that said, it seems that in this age of digital downloads, gaming companies should be getting permanent distribution agreements when licensing with other companies. I've seen a number of digital games run into issues in this way, and it seems silly to me for a company to go through the trouble of making a digital game without ensuring that they can sell/distribute it for as long as they want. While I am on the subject, there should also be some sort of legal guarantee that a buyer will be able to access their digital purchase forever. Of course, that may mean relaxing DRM, to the dismay of some of the more greedy software companies, but the consumers should have more rights when it comes to downloadable software.
This is one of the many reasons why digital games suck. Physical copies ALL DAY!
ReplyDeleteSuch bias...
DeleteI'll tell you what though, for all this talk about digital going away. I am glad Konami and Sony re-released Suikoden II digitally. I then conveniently bought it for 2.00$ (on sale out of its 10.00$ original price) and downloaded it on one of my PS3 hard-drives (physical medium) where I have the ability to preserve it just as much as any other physical media.
This is good since before that it would cost an arm (minimum of 100$ 10x the digital price and more than that in terms of what I paid for) to buy the original physical release for the original console. This is not only the case with Suikoden II though I can think of many many other rare, (that where for me) unaffordable games made available for me through digital releases, that I now own, store and preserve.
If your a big "fan" of something, you'll buy a game physically. No matter the price. Maybe that's just me. I'm someone who still owns Tron Bonne, X2, X3, EarthBound, Chip and Dale 2 etc etc for example from when I was young and get pissed at people in my age bracket now that bitch that the games are too high to get. These are people who actually could of got them retail but passed on it. Many that I still own aren't even on digital markets. I was a fan of a lot growing up and bought/got them as gifts. All I can say to people is, Should of bought things when they came out if you were a fan or wanted to play it. If you weren't born yet, but a such a "fan" then just buy it. I have friend who bought mint copy's of things like SNES Chrono Trigger for $300. He's a fan, so he gets them because they are physical. Physical is always best if it's an option for games. Too many problems occur on the digital front like this with PXZ for example.
Delete@MegaNerdX- Your argument has a flaw. It assumes that people who are die hard fans also have income reliable enough to drop $300 on a single copy of a game for a system that's been out of production for a few decades OR that true fans of these games were responsible enough as children to take care of these games for future use. I am a huge, die-hard MegaMan fan and have at one point had physical copies of pretty much every MegaMan game out there. These days, I can say that the oldest MegaMan game that I myself still have a hold of is Battle Network 6. I never had the money for buying all these things, but I found alternative means for it. I managed to play BN6 when it came out in Japan due to techniques I taught myself when I was still in middle school. I only very recently managed to get my hands on a Progress PET and Link PET EX even tho I desperately tried to get them when they had first released via Toys n Joys, which failed me.
DeleteEnd of the day tho, physical can end up damaged and costing too much, digital is limited to whatever system you buy it on so long as the account isn't banned or whatever and is typically, tho not always, re-downloadable. Digital is a lot easier to keep ahold of so long as you got the HDD space for it, and it cuts the middle man of amazon or dealing with a store, so despite it's issues in this day and age digital works.
@MegaNerdX:"Physical is always best if it's an option for games. Too many problems occur on the digital front like this with PXZ for example."
DeleteYou're nitpicking very small examples of "problems regarding digital". Your argument is so faulty and double standard on so many levels.... Good lord where to begin first off just read what DarkDreamTCK says in regards to being a fan and having financial responsibilities. Just to add to that though, even if I where in the position to afford 300$ video games that originally were worth 60-70$ and there was a cheaper alternative to owning that game and all I wanted to do is enjoy the game (even though many digital downloads come with digital copies of the manuals and box arts) and not the material it came in, I'd consider it highly irresponsible of me to drop that kind of cash for something that I find petty.
Anyway do you not see the hypocrisy of what you are saying??? On one hand you are saying if people are true fans they'll get physical no matter what price, then through your personal anecdote rag those that pass up games when they were new as them missing their opportunity. Then on the other hand you say that a game becoming unavailable digitally is a problem with that method of distribution.
There is so much wrong but lets start here. Not every one is born a fan of something they have to experience the thing first, in conjunction no one is omniscient and most everyone has to go through a process of learning in order to acquire knowledge. In other words if people aren't exposed to a certain aspect of Mega Man that grabs them and converts them into fans (like for example to game itself) then they won't be fans, and once they become fans they'd likely miss out on some kind of legacy the series had, and would have to play catch up through as a result through no fault of their own. Some even are born after a game's release.
Two, do You know why old games cost 300$? It is because they have limited quantities and are no longer readily available in the commercial marketplace and are being in essence being auctioned off by small businesses at inflated prices. In summery IT ISN'T PHYSICALLY READILY AVAILABLE ANYMORE.
Let me break it down. to make it clear.
Physical: Publisher ships to the store = Consumer buys within the quantities available = Publisher no longer ships units to store = residual units go into rotation = quantities become sparse = small business sellers sale left overs at an inflation.
Digital: Publisher licenses product to the store = People download the product onto a device... Sometimes (so far) Publisher removes licensed product off the store. In tern however the downloader can then be used to make copies onto multiple other devices and backed up and made available to others for free for as long as feasibly imaginable.
digital is limited to whatever system you buy it on
That is not true, buyers will have the download on whatever system band you where able to download it on (as in any PS4). If that is not what you meant and you meant to say people can only download on any PS4 but only PS4, that still isn't true and depends on the service and game compatibility. For example I can download/play Suikoden on my PS3, PSP and VITA with a single purchase from the PSN store. I can literally download/play Azure Striker Gunvolt on any PC that can run it, which needless to say is many, with a single steam purchase.