Transferring VC titles to a new Wii?

Infil

Here's a question I haven't seen a definitive answer to. If you download a bunch of VC titles, and you need to get a new Wii, how will you be able to re-download those titles for free? You aren't able to transfer them to an SD card (according to the official Nintendo FAQ). And let's say your warranty is over so you need to buy a new Wii from a retail store (instead of shipping in your Wii to Nintendo).

Does anyone know how this will all work?

scootch

the question is why wouldn't you pay nintendo shipping fee and let them replace it or fix your broken machine? it sure beats spending $250+tax (or how ever much it cost in canada).

games are locked into the system. you can't personally transfer files.. nintendo does it.

Infil

So what if your Wii breaks on you in two years, when Nintendo will no longer service your machine under warranty?

GertBeef

You pay?

Infil

So, when you buy titles, they're not really yours... they belong to your Wii, and if that breaks, you have to pay again?

I find that hard to believe... surely there's a way you can get access to those games on a new Wii if you call Nintendo or something?

EDIT - Or maybe can you tie your Wii to your www.nintendo.com account, and then just re-tie your new Wii to that account? I don't really know, since my Wii has to be shipped in because of problems connecting to the Nintendo servers. I wasn't able to explore this option with my system.

mntorankusu

Infil wrote: »

So, when you buy titles, they're not really yours... they belong to your Wii, and if that breaks, you have to pay again?

I find that hard to believe... surely there's a way you can get access to those games on a new Wii if you call Nintendo or something?

Send it into Nintendo and pay the non-warranty repair/replacement fee. It'd certainly be cheaper than buying a whole new system.

slash000

You can link your games to an online account. I know that much for sure. What happens, however, if you link a newly bought/fixed Wii to the same account? Does it 'credit' your VC purchases?

It really doesn't matter too much. If your Wii breaks, have Nintendo fix/replace it, and they'll transfer the VC games.

LA:

Out of curiosity... What if your Wii gets stolen and you buy a new one? Is there a way to get your games back then?

Neo Rasa

I'd think the only way to do it then is to have it registered with them already so they can link your name to the serial number.

Lurker

I'm wondering how they are going to handle things for the Wii's successor.

rightbelow

Lurker wrote: »

I'm wondering how they are going to handle things for the Wii's successor.

I was thinking about that the other day. I hope it's something like, every "Wii 2" comes packed with a special cable that plugs into your original Wii and transfers VC games, saves and suchlike to your new one.

Neo Rasa

Surely by that time they won't care as much about Wii piracy, so an official SD card made to allow Wii data to be transferrable could happen?

LaPuzza

slash000 wrote: »

You can link your games to an online account. I know that much for sure. What happens, however, if you link a newly bought/fixed Wii to the same account? Does it 'credit' your VC purchases?

I read a magazine article (Game Informer maybe) that answered this question saying that it hits your account or whatever so that when you get a new Wii, you can download previously purchased content for free.

How that stops you from using your account on every wii, that I still don't understand.

Jollus

I don't think that is how it works, but if it is, they could just turn off your VC games on the old Wii unit. (on the next time it connected to the internet of course)

Infil

It seems likely to me that when you link your Wii number to your nintendo.com account (I'm assuming this is 100% the case from the above poster), that they will obviously know what VC games you've bought. When you register that same account on a new Wii, the old Wii will know it is unable to play those games (but would require being connected to the net to determine this of course). In a perfect world, that old Wii would be broken and never turned on again... I don't know if Nintendo chose to handle it this way or not, but it seems to make sense. There might be loopholes where you could be constantly de-registering and re-registering different Wiis with your account, but Nintendo would be suspicious of that behavior I think, and do something about it in those rare cases.

Grizzly_Addams

Actually, the VC games you download are tied to your Wii itself. While you can delete and re-download VC games over and over from the same Wii, if you lose or need to replace your Wii for any reason, the VC games are gone with it. End of story.

Edit: And while yes, you can link your nintendo.com account, it has no impact on this situation whatsoever.

corcorigan

I think Steam handles buying and re-downloading games much much better...

Dodge Aspen

I'm sure by calling Nintendo, they will be able to help you transfer your stuff to your new console. Those fuckers are so damn helpful.

The mynintendo account has no bearing on what VC games you have. My account doesn't even register Contra III or Castlevania IV, even though every game you download is supposed to be automatically registered.

That reminds me, I should e-mail them about that.

Sharp10r

If I needed to, I would file a claim in small claims court, it would be cheaper for them to replace the games then send someone out to represent them. :P

Zek

Your VC titles are all linked to the nintendo.com account that you tied it to before you used the Shop channel. If you get a new Wii all you have to do is have it linked to that account again and you can re-download them. I'm sure Nintendo's customer service will do that for you.

DigDug2000

People who's Wii's are under warranty have already had to deal with this. Nintendo has been nice enough to move the stuff over to their new Wii for them. I seriously doubt that they can legally refuse to do it just because your warranty has expired.

Seriously though, we don't even know how online gaming is gonna work on the Wii yet. Is it worth asking questions about "What if my machine breaks in 3 years" right now?

Sterica

Neo Rasa wrote: »

Surely by that time they won't care as much about Wii piracy, so an official SD card made to allow Wii data to be transferrable could happen?

This is the company that has gotten me to buy Super Mario Bros. God knows how many times.

LBD_Nytetrayn

Interesting, my MyNintendo account shows the VC titles I've gotten...

I imagine they'd replace the old Wii registered with the new one, and you'd redownload after that when it recognizes you got them.

But you can only register one system per account, a slight pain for me when I've wound up with multiples of something.

--LBD "Nytetrayn"

Dodge Aspen

So, is anyone else not getting some of thier VC titles to register when they are downloaded. Castlevania IV and Contra III both won't show up. All the other titles I have are on there. Maybe it's a Konami thing?