Virtual Console Christmas is Retrotastic

1up reports the good news that we're finally going to be seeing some of those great Virtual console games here in the U.S.. You know, the ones the Japanese have been enjoying since launch? Christmas day should see the release of Super Mario Bros, Toejam & Earl, R-Type (Turbografx 16), Street Figher II: The World Warrior, and Super Castlevania. The scintillating Baseball and Urban Champion will be making an appearance on New Year's Day. These last two dubious additions will put the Virtual Console lineup at 33 games.

Slow...

[Nemetroid]

Slow news day is slow?

Re:

[voice_of_all_reason]

For those of us who actually showed up to work, slow day is also looooooong.

Any "gifts"?

[freeweed]

There's been a persistent rumour about Nintendo making one or more VC games free as an xmas "gift". Any truth to this?

Re:

[ultraexactzz]

Unlikely... but I am surprised that Nintendo did not offer a free game or credit to get people using the service - maybe on the "Only the first one is free" principle.

Re:

[nuggz]

The Opera Beta is free as well as the weather channel.

Re:Any "gifts"?

[Xymor]

Web browsing with no keyboard and weather forecast. Nintendo knows what gamers really want...

Re:

[Lehk228]

weather integrates with games, so your sports game weather on the field can match your local weather, or the city you are playing in

Re:

[ViXX0r]

Is that true, or did you just make that up to get me even more annoyed that I couldn't find a Wii yet?

Re:

[Lehk228]

http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/games/archives/2006/12 /20/wii_games_get_real_weather.html [guardian.co.uk]

it hasn't yet been confirmed afaik

Re:

[barjam]

It is not a rumor, Madden already does this. Switch your weather type to Sys:(something or other).

Re:

[AuMatar]

And this is better than a random number how?

Re:

[1nsane0ne]

But you can still reply to posts on /.

Re:Any "gifts"?

[bunions]

> Web browsing with no keyboard

Honestly? I don't see a problem. More people should consider the internet read-only.

Re:Any "gifts"?

[Nemetroid]

While the pictures of several games with the price tag "Free" are real, it is not because they will be free to download, only because they haven't been given a price yet. [wordpress.com]

Re:

[grumbel]

There's been a persistent rumour about Nintendo making one or more VC games free as an xmas "gift". Any truth to this?

While there are no free VC games, Nintendo does offer a free game for christmas, its called Mission in Snowdriftland [mission-in...ftland.com] and is a great Flash based 2D jump'n run in the style of SuperMarioBros. Wondering if it will work in the Opera browser on the Wii once that gets released.

Re:

[typobox43]

No, because the Wii browser has no way to simulate keyboard presses.

Re:

[DreamMaster]

There's also the new flash-based games website for the Wii at http://wiicade.com/ [wiicade.com]

All the games have been designed to be used with a mouse or remote, so can be used with the newly released Wii browser. I've tried some of the puzzle games already, and they're pretty fun.

Urban Champion? Dubious?

[The-Bus]

Baseball I can maybe agree with, although the Wii now finally has a baseball game that lasts more than 3 innings.

But Urban Champion? Name any other fighting game where a key tactic is evading flower pots being thrown at your head. This is the game that may have invented the fatality: The loser gets punched into the sewers. I've yet to see any game improve on that.

dear nintendo...

[Dance_Dance_Karnov]

I'm still not going to buy a single virtual console game. Reasons listed below.

1)Region locked VC. This is just plain stupid.
2)Online multiplayer, Every NES/SNES emulator I've used since 1997 has had this feature, I'm sure you can figure it out.
3)No rumble in 64 games
4)Not fixing technical issues due to "authenticity" (but no rumble in 64 titles is ok?)
5)cost. 5/8/10 USD as 'starting points' for price is right out.

Re:

[MysticOne]

1) Who cares? It's locked to your individual Wii anyway. So it's not like you can buy a VC game and then go play it elsewhere. It does suck that the games are different depending on the region, but it seems the game companies always do that.

2) I agree it would be cool, but they'd probably have to implement it in such a way so the whole VC realm of games uses friend codes. They probably just didn't feel it was important enough to include, and would rather people just play it with those sitting next to th

Re:

[Dance_Dance_Karnov]

1)My bad, i didn't make that clear. I meant not allowing people to buy games from any region. I want to to buy things like "sin & punishment" and "mother" among other titles.

2)the wii already has a code, they could just use that one. (pokemon uses a seperate code because of the connection with the DS, and most DS wifi games will allow you to play against random people regardless of if you have their code).

4)They don't have to modify the roms, I mean fixing things like slowdown due to too many sprites on

Re:

[Lehk228]

who's to say the "Starting" point means 'and up' surely less popular publishers will want to sell games, even if they aren't really worth the full price,

Re:

[Dance_Dance_Karnov]

good point, but I'm not going to hold my breath.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm wondering how much #1 has to do with licensing issues in each country. Especially for third party games. Also, it appears that each game has to go through the ESRB to get a rating (since they didn't have ESRB ratings back then) before they'll release it in the US. Doesn't explain why first-party games aren't coming out faster, but it may have something to do with them wanting to space things out to show they aren't just about their own games. Seriously, if they released the S/NES Metroids, Zeldas, and S

Re:

[Wandering Idiot]

For instance, the greatest NES platformer ever (DuckTales)

Notice: You will be (rightfully) killed by hordes of Mario 3 fans in 3... 2... 1...

Re:

[NotthatFrankie]

For points 2,3, and 4, you seem to be missing Nintendo's aim here. They want to make players play the exact same game that they did 5, 10, 20 years ago. It's nostalgia. Which makes point 5 spot on the money. To the letter-sending campaign!

Re:

[Akaihiryuu]

The N64 games don't implement rumble functionality? That sucks...they should, at least if you're using the GC controller. The N64-to-Gamecube Zelda ports used the rumble functionality. Then again, the only N64 games I'm interested in are OoT and MM and I already have both of those on the GC, so I doubt I'll ever download any N64 games anyway. The main use I'm going to see out of the VC is if they release games that are rare/hard to find the original cartridges for, as I've already got all the old system

Re:

[Khuffie]

Frankly the biggest issue for me is the price. $8 for the Genesis games is way too much. If they were down to $5, I'd already have bought Ecco the Dolphin and Ristar by now. Definitely going to buy Toejam and Early, but come on Nintendo! Bring the prices down, you're asking a wii bit too much.

Re:

[jdcope]

Yeah, $8 for Genesis games is nuts. I can get a Sega-style controller that plugs into my TV with a dozen or so Genesis games on it for $15 at Target...

Re:

[Gogo0]

Im thinking that there [b]is[/b] rumble support, though there are no N64 games released yet that actually support rumble...
Star Fox 64 (the debut of the Rumble Pak) came out long after Mario 64 did.

Re:

[Dance_Dance_Karnov]

star fox came out in april 97 in japan, 10 months after mario. I remember a nintendo rep stating that there would be no rumble pak support, period. (i wish I had a link, but it was a while ago.)

Re:So I'm dim...

[heinousjay]

I can tell you how to get to it, but first I'll need you to take a picture of a pigeon or a squirrel.

Re:

[sinclair44]

Wikipedia is your friend [wikipedia.org] (basically, it's a service where you can buy downloads of older games and play them on the Wii)

Re:

[thrashaholic]

Yea but we play it legally. Asshole.

Re:

[geminidomino]

"We" are paying 5-10 bucks for 15-20 year old games, and *he's* the asshole?

Re:

[Duds]

For some people, legality does matter.

Re:Really, what is the point?

[Yvan256]

Heck I can even play my NES library on my DS if I want.

... with unauthorized "hard-to-get" hardware (i.e. you can't buy that at Toys'R Us). But, that's not what I really want to comment about.

Here's the idea: it would give an incredible boost to VC sales if I could upload the emulators (along with the ROMs) to my Nintendo DS. Imagine that: buying the VC games on the Wii and then playing them on the Wii and the Nintendo DS.

Re:

[roger6106]

Even better: play two different games simultaneously on the DS each on their own screen!

Re:

[Jerf]

it would give an incredible boost to VC sales if I could upload the emulators (along with the ROMs) to my Nintendo DS.

Why is this the first time I've heard this idea? That would absolutely rock. Especially if the DS could toss saved games back onto the Wii for the next download. (Downloaded content on the DS is lost at system power down. You can shut the case and it'll suspend, but if you shut it down the RAM is wiped. So, persistent saved games would have to go somewhere, and Nintendo is going to be wary a

Re:

[Yvan256]

I think I've seen SNES and TurboGrafx-16 emulators for the GBA, so my guess is that it should be possible to run such emulators at full-speed (with audio) on the DS, even if you have to use both CPUs to do the job (GBA+DS).

Re:

[necro2607]

Key reasons:

-quality Nintendo controller
-genuine game experience not interrupted by Windows error alert boxes, MSN signon/signoff/msg alerts, blue screens and what have you
-convenience (turn on the machine and grab the controller, select a game and play)
-easy configuration/setup (none) compared to any emulation setup
-vendor support
-games from numerous platforms over the span of many years, available all in one spot, playable on one system, with all of the benefits listed above

Re:

[voice_of_all_reason]

Versus the world of the black sails:

1) Quality "any PC controller on the market you desire", customizable to each button
2) I don't think that word means what you think it means
3) Convenience of not having to hook up an entire system whenever you want to switch platforms
4) Windows emulators are not linux. It's not like you have to mount a drive here
5) lol, wut?
6) Any game ever available from any region, including betas and developer models. And hacks/fanedits.

Re:

[chemical55]

You forgot the ability to save anywhere, anytime. ;)

Re:

[keitosama]

I thought VC had gotten that functionality, but I could be mixing it with the suspend feature.

Re:

[necro2607]

1 - Cool, sure, but can you use that same controller for 5 or 6 different platforms, all with native support in every game, without the need to set up your drivers, bind controller keys to in-game buttons, etc.?

2 - What word? ... Genuine? If that's what you meant, I would honestly love to see any N64 emulator you've found that can perfectly reproduce the game, entirely indistinguishable from playing on a true N64.

3 - With Virtual Console on the Wii, it's all running on the same system. You don't have to "sw

Re:Really, what is the point?

[dividedsky319]

There is nothing exciting about Nintendo's virtual console.

For a lot of people, there is.

For one, I like playing on my TV, with a controller meant to play whatever game it is I'm playing. Sure, I've played games on emulators on my PC, but using a keyboard or some random crappy gamepad never felt right.

And two, I don't want to have to jump through hoops to get a game to work. I just want it to work. My wife would NEVER figure out how to load up a ROM and play it. With this, she can simply turn on the Wii, point at the game, and start playing.

And three... like someone else said, this is actually legal.

Re:

[Headcase88]

You can get a pretty decent game pad for abut $15, and with the help of S-video or other cables, you can play games on your TV. I buy VC games for one thing: multiplayer. It's hard to play 5-player Bomberman off of one computer.

Re:

[tepples]

For one, I like playing on my TV

Home theater PCs have TV output.

with a controller meant to play whatever game it is I'm playing.

PlayStation to USB adapters are available for home theater PCs. Or are PS1 gamepads "random" and "crappy"?

My wife would NEVER figure out how to load up a ROM and play it.

Associate .smc with the emulator, and there's no problem.

And three... like someone else said, this is actually legal.

But is it legal everywhere to mod a console to run games developed by amateurs or smaller companies? No royalty to Dell or Microsoft is required to develop a game for a home theater PC or any other Windows machine.

Re:

[talksinmaths]

I know just what you mean dude. It's like when my wife tries to buy me a 12-pack of beer at the store, and I'm forced to scoff at her naivete. Why would anyone buy beer in a convenient pre-packaged form when you can just as effectively brew your own? All you need is a huge pale, a siphon, a hydrometer, malt, hops, yeast, sugar, and water. It couldn't be simpler, really. I know that some pansies use fancy 'Microbrewery Kits', but that runs counter to the true spirit of the home-brew community if you ask

Re:

[JoshJ]

They've already profited from it. Many people have already paid for the game once, on an older console, and would like to play it again without pulling the console out of a closet (or it may not even work anymore) and are entirely justified in their refusal to pay for it again.
Your troll-fu is weak.

Re:

[El Gigante de Justic]

That hasn't stopped most people from buying the re-releases of the same games for GBA or other systems, and considering how most people probably don't have their old systems anymore or never had some of them to begin with (How many people here actually owned a TG-16?) the virtual console prices are reasonable. The VC makes emulation as simple as can be. Even with emulators for older systems you sometimes have to keep 2 or 3 different emulators around and mess with different settings in each because some ga

PAL at 60 Hz

[tepples]

While I don't think free-region is necessary (besides, with the whole NTSC vs PAL thing, it would be a pain to pull off)

The majority of PAL televisions in Europe, and all PAL televisions in Brazil, can display a PAL signal at 60 Hz.

The problem here is that [...] localization is not a trivial expense

I see your point about games that have been released only in Japanese language, but what's the big expense to localize the United Kingdom and France versions of a game to the United States and Canada or vice versa, or the Spain version of a game to Mexico or vice versa? Or do EU regulations require all video games sold in the UK to be made available in other countries in their native langu

Re:

[seebs]

The point is that it turns out to be fun having them on something with TV out and a convenient controller that I already have hooked up to my TV.

Re:

[geminidomino]

Having recently setup FCEU, ZSNES, and ePSXe on my KnoppMyth box, I can certainly agree!

Re:

[Omestes]

I though long and hard about this. I Sure, I can (and to be honest, did) have all of the NES and SNES games I want for free and with somewhat upped graphics instead of buying them. But I still ended up in the end buying the original Zelda, Sonic, and Mario 64.

Why "waste" the money? For several reasons. I'd like to support Nintendo, since they really haven't disappointed me yet, and I thus support their products. I'd like also to convince them to release some older games, so I can actually OWN t

You hit it on the head....

[trdrstv]

Also I support the VC for the same reason I support iTunes, they try for something legal instead of just suing. There really is no excuse for piracy when it is offered cheap, easy, and legally.

Warner Bros realized the same thing with their DVD's. They have the largest catalog of DVD's for $10 or less, and thus the lost levels of piracy. The trick to beating piracy is to make your products:

1) Inexpensive / Reasonally priced.

2) Readily available.

Now the VC isn't 'impulse buy cheap' as many people want

Where are N64 games?

[chrismcdirty]

I plan on buying Super Castlevania and SF2, but where are the N64 games? Last I checked, the only one available so far is SM64, which I can still buy in stores for the DS.

Re:

[trdrstv]

I plan on buying Super Castlevania and SF2, but where are the N64 games?

I honestly thought this batch would be 'Wiimote controller centric'. If you notice there are a disproportionate amount of games (Including genesis, and Turbo16) that work fine with the Wiimote sideways. More SNES games are a good sign. Hopefully we'll get at least 1 new 64 game a month going forward.

Last I checked, the only one available so far is SM64, which I can still buy in stores for the DS.

Yes, you can buy Mario 64 for t

Super Mario Bros.

[7Prime]

Wait, wasn't SMB one of the launch titles? I've seen it on the Wii Shop area every day since its launch! This isn't new.

And please... good times is when they finally release Link to the Past, Super Metroid, Final Fantasy, Secret of Mana, Mario 2 & 3, Mario World, Megaman. And some more obscure goodies like Gardian Legend, Kid Icarus, Karnov, and such. 90% of the games I've seen so far are either generic NES sports titles, or the same kinds of shit I could get for my iPod for a dollar.

And why are there 4x as many Genesis and TG16 games as SNES games? The SNES is OWNED by Nintendo, and it had more games, period. Something fishy is going on here. Seriously, I was more concerned, back when they talked about "fan favorites", that all they would have would be the big titles that everyone's already played, so I'm glad to see them jump on board with more obscure titles, but they haven't released very many large, and more lengthy titles yet. Give me my SNES epics... PLEASE! Stop giving me generic sports games, block puzzles, and arcade bullshit.

Re:

[person132]

Soooo... you want them to release the big titles everybody's already played?

Re:

[7Prime]

Sure, why not... they're tried and ture. I just want them to release more of everything, and a good variety. The back catalogs of all 5 systems is ENORMOUS. At the rate they're going, it'll be a decade before they scratch the surface. I refuse to believe that it takes that much effort, at all, to port a rom over to the VC, especially if they aren't going to change anything. Hell, hackers used to do a few overnight, back when the SNES catalogs were being ripped for emulation. If the VC is a full-blown emulat

Re:

[Boogaroo]

(I don't even really remember sports games on the NES, were there really this many?)

Yes.
Tecmo Bowl, Super Tecmobowl, Baseball, Tengen Baseball, Base Wars, Tennis, Tecmo NBA Basketball, Baseball Simulator 1.000, Track and Field 1 & 2, the Power Pad games, Baseball Stars, Micro Machines, Rad Racer 1 & 2, Double Dribble, Ice Hockey, Blades of Steel, Punch Out, Arch Rivals, World Cup Soccer, etc...

If I tried looking I could find dozens more. Sports games are great sellers because they're inherently mu

Re: What they are doing...

[trdrstv]

The bottom line is, though, that Nintendo has a plan, but I can't, for the life of me, figure out what the hell they're doing.

I'm sure you have been noticing a pattern, but it looks like you don't understand the "why". The batch of VC games have been VERY heavy in the direction on using the Wiimote only. The NES, Turbo16, and Genesis games can be played with the Wiimote sideways perfectly fine (or even better, as I don't hit the "nuke all opponenets" in Golden Axe accidentially anymore). What they did w

Re:

[7Prime]

good point. I didn't think about it like that... but unfortunately, neither is most of the game playing population. Wouldn't it be better for their hardware sales to release a few MUST HAVES on SNES and N64 in attempts to get people to buy the VCC early on?

Re:

[lucianx]

SMB isn't on there - the original "Mario Bros" is.

Re:

[SageinaRage]

They're holding on to some of the really big name releases for a lull in the Wii releases. That way, they can have a big game coming out pretty much all the time, whether on Wii or virtual console.

FINALLY

[MeanderingMind]

I don't know how long Toejam and Earl has been on the official website, but it's been too long to just leave it there and not availible for me to consumerize. I want to be spoon fed my nostalgia at a much faster rate! Otherwise, I may actually be able to retire...

Re:

[dolson]

I agree. 3-5 per week is ridiculously slow.

And WHERE THE HELL is Dungeon Explorer and Super Mario World? They were both supposed to be launch window titles, with the latter supposedly being a launch day title...

anyone else having this problem

[MemoryDragon]

I just got my component cable (not the original nintendo one) and the vc games cause a black screen, all of them except mario 64. Anyone else having this problem?

Re:

[trdrstv]

Make sure your TV supports Progressive scan (not all with component cables do). Otherwise I don't know. The official Nintendo ones work great.

Re:

[MemoryDragon]

I noticed in other forums that the sharp Aquos line of devices seem to have a problem with YUV and 576p which all pal versioned VC games switch into. I am not sure if this can be fixed on the side of Sharp, but I will give them notice of this problem.