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Remastering / Re-Releasing Games is a Big Business

If I haven’t spent more money rebuying games in the past year than I’ve spent on new games then it has to be really, really close.

There’s a really big trend in the past few years toward re-releasing or remastering past games. Even the most recent Nintendo Direct was all about re-releasing games like Dark Souls, and they also recently released Skyrim (which itself has had numerous releases). Nintendo is leading this phenom with their NES and SNES classic systems and console tempting lots of games to release again.

Two days ago I saw they were remastering Assassin’s Creed Rogue which was the last of the franchise to be released on PS3 — sorta got stuck on the console to be honest and didn’t get a fair shake.

That same tone of “let’s give this game another chance” or “let’s put it on a platform where it’ll shine” is also fueling games like Donkey Kong Country Tropical Freeze porting over to Switch.

VR is providing yet another reason to release these games again with additional modes. Games like Skyrim are surely the beginning. Full on GTA experiences are probably just around the corner (if not already a thing?).

And to all of it I say, “Why not?” Great games releasing on newer/more accessible platforms, another chance to play a great game you enjoyed, and keeping us all entertained with games that are/were actually great vs. a lot of the junk we have today… works for me.

If I could go back to my post I made toward the end of this past year about what we think 2018 will be, I would amend my answer to say that 2018 will be the year of re-releases and remasters.

  • I also say “Why not?” to re-releasing games like this. The idea of, even on recent consoles, pulling out that old hardware (if you even have it) isn’t something I really want to do. My best option would be a re-release that has been at least somewhat remastered. If it hasn’t, I rarely think it deserves the price tag they like to tack on to them.

    It’s also great for PC – which is A LOT harder than consoles to get running correctly on newer hardware (or even booting up an old PC [which takes a whole lot of room]).

    I would love to see a re-release of Kirby’s Dreamcourse and maybe a “remastering” of Super Mario 64 with Odyssey graphics. I don’t like it, normally, when they add new gameplay/mechanics to re-masterings (unless its to improve) much like they did with the Nintendo DS release of Super Mario (DS) 64.