For quite a long time, all three console makers were releasing games under a budget name, PlayStation Hits, Xbox Classics, Nintendo Selects and they were amazing. These were great deals for everyone and its a shame that each of the brands has phased them out over the years, but they need to come back.

Before I dive further into this topic, I figured it would be good to explain what the programs were. Whatever you call them, PlayStation Essentials, Nintendo’s Players Choice, Xbox Greatest Hits or anything else, they were all the same. A game would get a slightly modified cover art and occasionally a new disc, then release at a cheaper price. For those in Australia that usually meant the games would be $49.95, down from their normal $99.95 price, though sometimes they would come out cheaper. Whenever they went on sale, they usually became less than $30, with some PlayStation 4 games ending up down near $10 in recent years.

All up, it meant that players who waited or those who were coming into a console later in its life, could get a great selection of games for less than their day one release costs, which was very much appreciated. It wasn’t just home consoles that got this, both Nintendo and PlayStation offered them for their handhelds as well.

It wasn’t just the console makers that did it either, plenty of publishers used to do really cheap PC releases on their own, sometimes Activision would do Ubisoft releases or vice versa. In my collection I have The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind on disc, released by Ubisoft in a bright orange case, though I do have others. My point though is that there were a lot of them, but when did they go away? For some its been a while, but PlayStation were just a few years ago.

• PlayStation - October 4, 2019

• Nintendo - December 1, 2016

• Xbox - Unknown

The discounted PC releases have been gone for some time now, so finding a date for the last one of those proved to be quite a challenge and one I could not solve. As for Xbox and its unknown date, the last release for the Xbox 360 was on May 27, 2014, but the Xbox One did get some stickers applied to game cases calling them Greatest Hits. As they were not reprints of discs and just stickers, I was not able to find when they started or when they stopped.

But why are those dates important, mostly because it shows how long it has been since players were given a cheaper way of picking up some popular titles. It is important to note that none of the console makers ever provided a count of how many games needed to be sold, in order to qualify for a release under their various programs.

Now in the music industry, a record or album would go platinum when they sold 1 million copies and you might think that a similar logic applies here. However that may not be the case, as an example Donkey Kong Country Tropical Freeze on the Wii U, was one of the last games from Nintendo to release here as a Nintendo Selects title. But after checking through years of Nintendo financial documents, the game never appeared in the section labelled “Million Seller Titles of Nintendo Products“, indicating that it never sold more than 1m copies, but it got the re-release.

One game that sold more than 1m from Wii U was New Super Mario Bros. U, with its 5.82m copies and it got a Nintendo Selects release. But Mario Kart 8 sold 8.46m copies and it never got a Nintendo Selects release. So I think we can say that there is no clear cut method of determining why some games got a release and others didn’t, heck there were some indie games on Wii U that got a Nintendo Selects release.

So if there is no clear reason what makes a game eligible for any of the programs and what does not, why have the publishers stopped? Honestly there was never a reason given and I doubt we will ever get one. Now you could say that its just the console makers wanting to ensure they get every possible cent from their customers as they can and that is likely true, but there has to be more than that. On the PlayStation 4, across all regions there was some 120 titles that were included within their Greatest Hits line, with God of War 2018 being the last release. With there being some ~3500 PlayStation 4 games right now, that means roughly 3% of the entire PlayStation 4 line up made it into this program.

The PlayStation 5 currently offers a little over 800 games, at least at the time of writing. If we take that some 3% count and apply it here, that would mean 25 games could be released inside of a new Greatest Hits line, but how d we decide what titles. I would wager that it would need to sell a minimum number of games at least and likely not require any online services to function going forward. If we set the minimum to be 5m copies of a game sold, that would mean that the following titles can be included:

• Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales - 6.5m

• Horizon Forbidden West - 8.4m

• God of War Ragnarök - 15m

• Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 - 11m

While some of those titles include a PlayStation 4 version, there is no way of knowing the split of what console sold what, so it is a total for all sold, not just PlayStation 5.

I would love to do something like this for Xbox, but for some reason Xbox refuse to divulge their numbers and while I can tell you how many millions the group is making or losing, I can’t give specifics on games sold.

Nintendo on the other hand does have details, so using that same 5m requirement, these are the following Nintendo games that would qualify:

• Mario Kart 8 Deluxe - 64.27m

• Animal Crossing New Horizons - 46.45m

• Super Smash Bros. Ultimate - 35.14m

• The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild - 32.29m

• Super Mario Odyssey - 28.5m

• Pokémon Sword and Shield - 26.44m

• Pokemon Scarlet & Violet - 25.69m

• The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom - 21.04m

• Super Mario Party - 20.98m

• New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe - 17.77m

• Ring Fit Adventure - 15.38m

• Pokemon Let’s Go Pikachu/Eevee - 15.07m

• Pokemon Diamond and Pearl - 14.92m

• Pokemon Legends Arceus - 14.83m

• Nintendo Switch Sports - 14.37m

• Luigi's Mansion 3 - 14.25m

• Super Mario 3D World + Bowsers Fury - 13.47m

• Super Mario Bros Wonder - 13.44m

• Splatoon 2 - 13.33m

• Mario Party Superstars - 12.31m

• Splatoon 3 - 11.96m

• Super Mario 3D All Stars - 9.01m

• Kirby and the Forgotten Land - 7.52m

• Super Mario Maker 2 - 7.15m

• The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening - 5.49m

Now if we cull both lists to only count for 10m, that takes PlayStation from 4 to 2, but still leaves Nintendo with 21. Regardless though, you can easy make the argument that Nintendo has made their money back on their games, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe alone, with its 64.27m copies means it has sold in AUD $5.1b, which you have to consider that the game was also a port of a Wii U release, so most of the dev work was done. Given the amount of money made by Mario Kart alone, it is clearly not a lack of cash that is the issue.

The problem is that we are never going to know, unless one of the leaders comes out and explains why, but even if they do, no reason they can come up will be good enough. From their point of view, selling a game for half the amount makes bad business sense, but from the point of view of the gamers, it is a great idea. How often have you popped into a local shop and seen a movie you wanted is down to under $10, you are likely to grab it right, the same happens with cheaper games.

I could wax poetic and say that the console makers should just take a hit and give players cheaper games and all will be better; but I live in a world of reality, so I know it won’t just happen. But doing it becomes great marketing as people will start to talk about the fact that they bought a 5 year old game again.

I don’t know what the future will hold, but I hope that these budget releases come back in some form, because when a company sells 10m or 20m of a game, but still expects people to pay full price, it just comes off as greedy.

But what say you, do you remember these discounted releases and do you want them to make a return?