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Comment by TylerE | Hacker News Reader

Never say never. Look at Sega.

Even Sony and Microsoft are now publishing their recent Greatest Hits on Steam!

isnt that the sane option just keep the steam price higher than your own price and people would mostly prefer to buy directly to save money, then you get the exposure from steam but you can convert them to your platform.

Well they are also discovering that many people would rather pay the 20-30% extra than deal with the hassle of a subpar platform.

The cost to build/maintain a competent platform is also not cheap even for the big boys like EA.

I think there's some limit to that; Nintendo could sell the new Zelda for $250 on Steam and get some takers, but it won't make them more money just make them look greedy.

I think Valve has a clause in the contract that says the price on other platforms should be as low as the price on steam at most.

Otherwise everybody could just use Steam as advertising platform.

Of course I have no idea how contracts for big companies work

Sega do not produce games to drive console sales. Nintendo's games rarely, if ever, hit other platforms.

They were very much in the console business for a long time.

Which speaks to his point, once upon a time Sega would hog their IPs for their console and arcade games.

They changed their strat abt a decade ago.

They changed after they exited the console market.

If Nintendo ever exit the console market then we can have that conversation about Nintendo IP on Stream. But if that happens, and it is a massive IF, that’s not going to happen for a long time.

They were dipping toes in the water even before their console market exit. Specifically, Comix Zone in 1995 [0], as well as Sonic CD and Virtua Fighter PC in 1996[1]

[0] - There were other Sega games published in 1995, but the examples I mention are titles specifically developed in house by Sega rather than titles by a 3rd party that they published.

[1] - Politely ignoring that whole NV1 debacle here, since it was in the end a very niche card.

If it happens, Nintendo has a long memory. Better to get on their good side now.

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