Virtual Console Offers 100 Games, 4.7 Million Sold

GameDaily reports on new numbers from Nintendo, discussing their ongoing success with the Wii's Virtual Console offering. According to the piece, there are now over 100 games available on the service, and some 4.7 Million downloads have been transacted since the system's launch late last year. "Nintendo has been updating the Wii Shop with new Virtual Console games every Monday. The top five downloads worldwide to date have been Super Mario Bros. (NES), Super Mario 64 (N64), Mario Kart 64 (N64), Super Mario World (SNES), and The Legend of Zelda (NES). 'With an Internet connection rate reaching 40 percent, Wii owners have more options than ever to find the kinds of games they love to play,' says George Harrison, Nintendo of America's senior vice president of marketing and corporate communications. 'Beyond the Wii Shop Channel, all types of people are getting connected and checking out the information and entertainment options available on the Wii Menu. Whether voting, creating a Mii or just checking the weather, everyone has a favorite channel.'"

Blame me.

[MeanderingMind]

I'm one of those morons who ditched their old consoles with the advent of each new one. Now, Nintendo, Sega and the rest get to sell me nostalgia at top dollar.

I've purchased 4 NES games, 2 SNES, 2 Sega Genesis and 3 N64 games thus far. It's not an average, but assuming it is we divide 4.7 million by 11 and get 427,000ish people like me in the world.

Scary, eh?

Original carts

[HalAtWork]

Too bad there's no program for someone with the original carts to enter into a program that allows them to download their games onto the Wii. Maybe someone could come up with a reader that plugs into USB for the NES, Genesis, TG16, N64, SNES, etc that allows you to use your originals. I like having all my games accessible on one system so I don't have to have them all set up, but I have a lot of games and paying for them all twice would suck, especially if the Wii's successor won't allow you to transfer them...

Re:Blame me.

[AKAImBatman]

I'm one of those morons who ditched their old consoles with the advent of each new one. Now, Nintendo, Sega and the rest get to sell me nostalgia at top dollar.

I have 8 to 10 classic game consoles at home, and yet I have purchased about 6 games from the Virtual Console. There are a variety of reasons for this:

• Convenience - It's a lot easier to boot the Wii and play a quick NES title than it is to pull out the classic console (which you lovingly repaired the pins), snake the cables behind the furniture, and hook it up to the television.
  
• Availability - I never had a Sega Genesis, nor have I ever felt the need to own one. The system didn't have much in the way of lasting appeal, but it did have Sonic. Now that I can purchase Sonic from the Virtual Console, I have even less reason to own a Genesis.
  
• Price - Believe it or not, TurboGrafix systems and games are not that cheap in the wild. $8 a pop is a pretty good deal for many of these games. Especially uncommon cult classics like Military Madness and Blazing Lasers. If the rumors of Nintendo adding Neo-Geo games turn out to be true, the value of the Virtual Console games will go through the roof! (Neo-Geo carts still cost upwards of $30 used.)
  
• Storage - I try to keep my games and systems neatly organized. Playing games on the VC allows me to do less to disturb that order, and can even save me storage space for titles that I don't necessarily want to invest in physical copies of.
  
• Authenticity - Playing games on the Virtual Console feels much closer to playing them on the original system than playing them on an emulator does. Nintendo seems to make an effort to replicate the experience as closely as possible. The NES-style controls of the Wii Remote and SuperNES/Playstation feel of the Classic Controller help heighten that sense of authenticity.
  

Nintendo may not have the most original idea with their VC service, but they've struck gold in terms of its implementation. :)

Re:For now...

[p4rri11iz3r]

How many AAA titles (that they have the rights to) are really left from NES/SNES/N64? I'd have to think that the majority of these buys are for Mario or Zelda properties, and they've put almost all of those onto the VC already.

I tend to disagree, there are many games which I am still looking forward to (granted, many of them are Mario-related) such as:

• Super Mario 2
• Super Mario 2 (Japanese version) - Really hoping to get this... Never got to play it.
• Super Mario 3 - Pretty much a guaranteed 1M+ sells
• Super Mario World 2
• Mario Party 1-3 (from N64)
• Goldeneye 007
• Donkey Kong 64
• Blast Corps - Granted, this game is mostly unheard of, but that doesn't prevent it from being one of the greatest, most underrated games from the N64.
• Tetris (NES version) - It rules over all other versions of Tetris.
• Mega Man I-VI, X-series
• Original Contra
• And others

I've never been that big of a Zelda fan myself, but recognize there are legions of them. Nintendo still has "Majora's Mask" and a few others from NES/SNES to release.

IMO, Nintendo has yet to drop some of the greatest games yet, and I can't wait.

Re:Success?

[AKAImBatman]

FTA the top five are all Nintendo games.

This is because the Nintendo titles have greater mass appeal than the Genesis/TurboGrafx titles. That does NOT mean that the Genesis/TurboGrafx titles are doing poorly. In fact, Hudson originally announced only 5 TG-16 titles destined for the Virtual Console. Since then they've expanded the list to some of the best titles ever made for the system. This includes: Bomberman '93, R-Type, Military Madness, Bonk's Adventure, Bonk's Revenge, and Blazing Lazers.

While Nintendo and their partners have been keeping hush-hush on a lot of the VC sales data, Hudson's strong support [vc-pce.com] for the VC certainly suggests that they've been having good success with the service. Sega seems to be becoming similarly infatuated [sega.com] with the service.

It's also interesting to note that there hasn't been a strong Nintendo title released for the VC since Starfox 64.

I bet the top ten are as well.

I'm not sure I would be so quick to say that. Nintendo's games will always dominate simply because they dominated back in the day. (e.g. 3 of my 6 VC games are Nintendo titles.) But that doesn't mean that the third parties aren't doing exceptionally well. Sonic, for example, was exceptionally popular back in the day. I would be surprised if it wasn't on a top 10 list.

When 3rd party titles dominate the top 5, THEN we can say they have good 3rd party support.

That, I'm afraid, will never happen. The customers are Nintendo players downloading titles on a Nintendo system, and have fond memories of playing Nintendo games. Combined with the timeless reputation of some of their games, Nintendo's classics library cannot be beat. As I said, though, this does not mean that third parties aren't seeing wonderful sales through the VC.

Anecdotally, I have heard a lot of excitement from friends/acquaintances over TG16 and Genesis titles. (Though the 600 points for TMNT got a big 'WTF?') The only catch is that there's more of a spread between which titles they're interested in. Some like shooters, some like beat'em'ups, and some like platformers. Nintendo's appeal tends to be more universal.

Re:For now...

[Wdomburg]

Erm, there's a fair number of Mario titles left:

    Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels (orig SMB2 in Japan) (NES)
    Super Mario Bros. 2 (NES)
    Super Mario Bros. 3 (NES)
    Dr. Mario (NES)
    Super Mario Kart (SNES)
    Yoshi's Safari (SNES)
    Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island (SNES)
    Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars (SNES)
    Mario Party (N64)
    Mario Party 2 (N64)
    Mario Golf (N64)
    Mario Tennis (N64)
    Paper Mario (N64)
    Mario Party 3 (N64)

As well a number of Zelda titles:

    Zelda II: The Adventure of Link (NES)
    The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask (N64)
    The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Seasons (GBC)
    The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords (GBA)

Then there are other franchises, like Metroid:

    Metroid (NES)
    Super Metroid (SNES)
    Metroid Fusion (GBA)
    Metroid: Zero Mission (GBA)

Or Kirby:

    Kirby's Avalanche (SNES)
    Kirby Super Star (SNES)
    Kirby's Dream Land 3 (SNES)
    Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards (N64)
    Kirby & the Amazing Mirror (GBA)

There's plenty of other games out there - the original Super Smash Bros, the entire Megaman series, the Wario games, the remaining Castlevania games, the first Star Fox, etc.

And of course there's plenty of games left from other platforms. Plenty of titles continue to roll in from the Turbographix-16 and Sega Genesis. There are MSX games in Japan that could potentially be introduced to the US market. Neo Geo games are in the pipeline.

Given their current strategy of trickling the top tier games one a week (or less, some weeks) they've got enough material for a good while, even if they don't add any more systems to their repetoire.

Bigger issue than most realize.

[Cyno01]

Most people who (console) game on LCDs dont even realize theres any kind of lag because they get so used to it. For a couple of weeks at work we had a guitar hero demo set up with a 42" LCD. I played it every day on my lunch and had all the high scores, but then i tried playing at my friends house and i was terrible, coming in early on everything, because id learned to play on an LCD with a lag. This was one of the reasons i bought a CRT HDTV.

Re:We Want Bubble Buble

[juletre]

When Bubble Buble comes out, I will be happy. Until then.. it's Mario Strikers Charged.