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[Conrad Link]

The complaints will continue till Nintendo give us Earthbound I suppose, then we can all find another game to pine for every week and be disgruntled about them not having released yet.

Actually, silly me this is Earthbound we're talking about here... we'll get a lot more complaint millage out of that one still by the time Nintendo never release it.

 

[Scrubking]

Nintendo continues to shaft us with crappy games and limited releases, and to make things even sweeter Master System games are NOT 400 points. Thanks for lying to us!

Why aren't we getting the awesome games? Does Nintendo think that we only love shooters or something? Nintendo is running the NA VC into the ground!

I just hope that they don't pull this shit with Wiiware.

 

[lopaz]

Is there a chance of Spiderman: Maximum Carnage or Xmen from Genesis/Megadrive showing up? Or are licensed games too much hassle for them to bother with?

I fucking love those games

 

[crowphoenix]

I just thought it should be called as it is.

:lol :lol

I like the title change. Now, I'll just have to remember what to look for.

 

[CreatureX3]

Fantasy Zone! YES!

 

[BooJoh]

I've honestly become pretty jaded toward VC. I don't tend to look forward to the news anymore, I just check this topic and roll with the punches. If Nintendo steps it up and puts more/better games up and addresses the storage issue, this would be an awesome service.

As is, it's an average service with as many problems as good games, and soon to be overshadowed by Wiiware, especially when the two services are fighting over such limited space.

 

[mollipen]

Since when is 2 games "un-awesome"? PSN barely gets 2 games a month.

Yes, and like Virtual Console games, the only work involved with PSN titles is slapping a ROM into a DRM wrapper and including a virtual instruction booklet.

Oh, wait.

 

[Vyse The Legend]

Yes, and like Virtual Console games, the only work involved with PSN titles is slapping a ROM into a DRM wrapper and including a virtual instruction booklet.

Oh, wait.

Maybe, he meant PS1 games? In which case, he is right. Sony has grossly mishandled PS1 content in the US PSN store.

That said, two games a week (especially two meh games) is very un-awesome.

 

[mollipen]

Maybe, he meant PS1 games? In which case, he is right. Sony has grossly mishandled PS1 content in the US PSN store.

Yeah, to be fair, if he meant PS1 games, then I completely agree. The divide between the Japanese and US PSN stores when it comes to PS1 titles is just shockingly ridiculous.

 

[Link Man]

Is there a chance of Spiderman: Maximum Carnage or Xmen from Genesis/Megadrive showing up? Or are licensed games too much hassle for them to bother with?

I fucking love those games

I doubt that the Genesis X-Men shows up, as it would be rendered unbeatable on the VC.

 

[JoshuaJSlone]

Is there a chance of Spiderman: Maximum Carnage or Xmen from Genesis/Megadrive showing up? Or are licensed games too much hassle for them to bother with?

I fucking love those games

Licensing tends to add a layer of complexity, but we've seen them work through it as with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. I'd say your particular wishes would be more likely if there were a new Spider-Man or X-Men movie coming anytime soon that would help sell a VC release.

Since when is 2 games "un-awesome"?

Maybe it's the discussion that's un-awesome.

 

[d+pad]

I've honestly become pretty jaded toward VC. I don't tend to look forward to the news anymore, I just check this topic and roll with the punches.

+1, with sadness.

I used to look forward to seeing what Nintendo put up, but I honestly have seen anything that interests me in many, many weeks.

Oh well, Mario Kart Wii's out soon

 

[lopaz]

I doubt that the Genesis X-Men shows up, as it would be rendered unbeatable on the VC.

How comes?

Licensing tends to add a layer of complexity, but we've seen them work through it as with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. I'd say your particular wishes would be more likely if there were a new Spider-Man or X-Men movie coming anytime soon that would help sell a VC release.

True, but then they gave us the dreadful TMNT game instead of a good one. I'll be expecting Enter Electro or some crap next time a spiderman film is out

 

[Link Man]

How comes?

Mojo's stage requires you to push the Genesis's reset button. I would think that this would be a rather substantial hurdle on the VC.

 

[Ranger X]

I just hope that they don't pull this shit with Wiiware.

You seriously think they will update new games faster than old games taken from a library of like 6000 titles? :lol :lol

The only consolation you will have is that maybe you'll get a Wiiware game a week and hopefully it compensate for the total lack of 4 VC games updates.

 

[lopaz]

Mojo's stage requires you to push the Genesis's reset button. I would think that this would be a rather substantial hurdle on the VC.

Balls >: (

 

[Ranger X]

Mojo's stage requires you to push the Genesis's reset button. I would think that this would be a rather substantial hurdle on the VC.

Nintendo might want to let them do a special reset at that particular place using the Home Menu.

 

[Link Man]

Nintendo might want to let them do a special reset at that particular place using the Home Menu.

Like they allow rumble for N64 games? Oh wait...

 

[leroy hacker]

Balls >: (

Go to the home menu in a VC game, and there's a reset button. In Zanac at least, it acts as an actual NES reset button, allowing one to do the "reset 13 times to unlock a stage select" trick. So there should be no trouble here.

 

[lopaz]

Like they allow rumble for N64 games? Oh wait...

Go to the home menu in a VC game, and there's a reset button. In Zanac at least, it acts as an actual NES reset button, allowing one to do the "reset 13 times to unlock a stage select" trick. So there should be no trouble here.

Nonbeliever, you just got DISPROVED

Spoiler

we still won't get Xmen

 

[Conrad Link]

Anyone expecting WiiWare to be any better than VC should probably go load up their XBL or PSN accounts, cause thats all shit shit shit shit or nothing nothing nothing for months and months between the 'Wow awesome! games.'

Then you'll actually be wishing for the days of 2 week decent enough 'rom dump' games of the VC.

 

[SonicMegaDrive]

Anyone expecting WiiWare to be any better than VC should probably go load up their XBL or PSN accounts, cause thats all shit shit shit shit or nothing nothing nothing for months and months between the 'Wow awesome! games.'

Then you'll actually be wishing for the days of 2 week decent enough 'rom dump' games of the VC.

Now this I agree with.

 

[Somnid]

This week looks pretty good actually. I wouldn't mind owning either game.

 

[EphemeralDream]

Well, being better than PSN's awful doesn't make VC good, I suppose.
That said, "horrible" might be going a bit far even for me, and I'm pretty sure I've railed against the two-game weeks as much as anyone here. Or many people combined, for that matter.

Yep, I feel the FUD hasn't quite warranted this new thread title. It tarnishes the dream of VC, like seeing G.I. Joe say communism is perfectly alright. If this week had come out a year ago and included 1 more game, it'd have been a "just fine" week. It's unexciting at its worst.

 

[A Link to the Past]

*sobs*

The fact that Nintendo thought it necessary to put ANOTHER system on there, making even more games for them to put up instead of the games they made.

Totally effing inexcusable to have a two-day week without any Nintendo input whatsoever. Seriously, if they started back to three games per week, and two of the games were on a Nintendo system, they probably would run out by Wii 2.

 

[Speevy]

Yes, and like Virtual Console games, the only work involved with PSN titles is slapping a ROM into a DRM wrapper and including a virtual instruction booklet.

Oh, wait.

A game is a freaking game. I personally don't think adding HD resolution to a game and giving it online leaderboards makes it a whole new experience, but that's another discussion for another thread.

I'm firmly anti-piracy though. I don't believe the ability to steal games makes Nintendo's decision to sell them any less legitimate. Maybe I'm just CRAZY though.

Anyway, by the Wii's standard, by Xbox Live's standard, by whatever download service's standard, the North American PSN has failed to deliver.

So yeah, if the Wii "just" gets 2 Genesis games, that's the equivalent of 2 more freaking awesome Genesis HD Remixes or whatever you want to call worthwhile on the other two consoles.

I personally play SNK fighters on my PS3 and they're just as standard definition as they can be.

 

[RedBoot]

Decent week, but it's pretty damn lame that the Master System = 400 points thing probably isn't happening. I could see it for Wonder Boy since they probably didn't want to obsolete Adventure Island, but there's no reason to up the price on Fantasy Zone, so it's pretty clear that 500 is the default. Kind of kills the impulse buy desires...I kind of wanted a Master System game just to have one, but now I'll probably just wait for Phantasy Star (hopefully it won't be like when I decided to wait for Samurai Shodown as my first Neo Geo game...)

 

[EphemeralDream]

*sobs*

The fact that Nintendo thought it necessary to put ANOTHER system on there, making even more games for them to put up instead of the games they made.

Totally effing inexcusable to have a two-day week without any Nintendo input whatsoever. Seriously, if they started back to three games per week, and two of the games were on a Nintendo system, they probably would run out by Wii 2.

Eh, the non-Nintendo games could benefit more from some new exposure. There's a great deal of familiarity surrounding Nintendo's older games, even with many people having not played said games. I'd love to get more acquainted with the roots of some of the older Japanese developers/publishers, many of which now barely share any resemblance with their older selves.

 

[Speevy]

Wait a minute.

Did someone actually argue that Nintendo, which initially lost favor in the console race by insulating itself as a first party-centric console manufacturer, shouldn't release the games of other publishers?

I think the Wii presents a golden opportunity for the next generation to discover that *shock* there were other systems besides Nintendos, Playstations, and Xboxes.

 

[Rlan]

How many people ARE actually buying shit every week?

I mean, I love the idea of the Wii Virtual Console and update here whenever something cool pops up.. but I haven't gotten around to buying anything since.. New Adventure Island?

 

[Jiggy]

[VC is] soon to be overshadowed by Wiiware

I doubt that. Anybody who knows WiiWare exists would basically have to know VC exists, since the two are next to each other in the shop channel, but VC's great advantage is that it has a legacy of two decades, and games that people already knew they loved. WiiWare isn't going to be doing that, especially without downloadable demos; every purchase is going to be a risk. I could be wrong, and perhaps consumers will be able to look past that, but right now I think VC stands to do better sales-wise.

 

[AstroLad]

How many people ARE actually buying shit every week?

I mean, I love the idea of the Wii Virtual Console and update here whenever something cool pops up.. but I haven't gotten around to buying anything since.. New Adventure Island?

I wonder the same thing. Damn digital distribution; figure it out NPD.

 

[Jammy]

I'm not buying shit every week. I can't remember the last game I bought...

But I do know there was a period of a month or two last year where I downloaded Sin and Punishment, Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels, Landstalker, and Super Metroid. Those with my Gunstar Heroes, DKC2, Star Fox 64, etc. give me hope.

 

[lopaz]

*sobs*

The fact that Nintendo thought it necessary to put ANOTHER system on there, making even more games for them to put up instead of the games they made.

Totally effing inexcusable to have a two-day week without any Nintendo input whatsoever. Seriously, if they started back to three games per week, and two of the games were on a Nintendo system, they probably would run out by Wii 2.

You are the problem. Seeing pretty much the top 10 VC games all being to do with mario sickens me

 

[Jiggy]

How many people ARE actually buying [VC games] every week?

Not every week, especially with the way things have been going lately, but I have averaged about three games per month over the life of Wii. [Edit: And yes, I actually enter my purchases into Excel for confirmation. It's not a number I'm making up.] VC has honestly kept Wii alive for me through all of the numerous periods where no retail games I wanted were being released for months.

I mean, I love the idea of the Wii Virtual Console and update here whenever something cool pops up.. but I haven't gotten around to buying anything since.. New Adventure Island?

If you seriously haven't bought anything since February 19th, 2007, you've been missing a lot of good things. Beyond Oasis, Star Fox 64, Dragon's Curse, Wonder Boy in Monster World/The Dynastic Hero, Legend of the Mystical Ninja, Donkey Kong Country 2, Streets of Rage 2, ActRaiser, F-Zero X, Shining Force, Adventures of Lolo, Super Metroid, Neutopia, Landstalker, Neutopia II, Sin and Punishment, SMB: Lost Levels, Gate of Thunder, Bubble Bobble, Star Tropics, Adventures of Lolo 2, Super Turrican, Lords of Thunder, DoReMi Fantasy...

 

[Shaheed79]

Tons of people buy VC games every week. I bet Nintendo's VC numbers rape the other two services. I could be wrong but casuals love retro gaming.

 

[Speevy]

Tons of people buy VC games every week. I bet Nintendo's VC numbers rape the other two services. I could be wrong but I casuals love retro gaming.

Probably well above PSN, but I can't imagine that anything beats XBLA.

Microsoft just nailed every aspect of its marketing there. Wii owners have very little incentive to even connect to the internet and discover the VC.

 

[Rlan]

If you seriously haven't bought anything since February 19th, 2007, you've been missing a lot of good things. Beyond Oasis, Star Fox 64, Dragon's Curse, Wonder Boy in Monster World/The Dynastic Hero, Legend of the Mystical Ninja, Donkey Kong Country 2, Streets of Rage 2, ActRaiser, F-Zero X, Shining Force, Adventures of Lolo, Super Metroid, Neutopia, Landstalker, Neutopia II, Sin and Punishment, SMB: Lost Levels, Gate of Thunder, Bubble Bobble, Star Tropics, Adventures of Lolo 2, Super Turrican, Lords of Thunder, DoReMi Fantasy...

Oh there are plenty of games I want to play... I just haven't had ANY time at ALL when I've got a backlog of Xbox 360 and XBLA games to get to, plus DS and PSP games.

 

[mollipen]

A game is a freaking game. I personally don't think adding HD resolution to a game and giving it online leaderboards makes it a whole new experience, but that's another discussion for another thread.

My argument was if you were talking VC releases versus any PSN game release, it's completely unfair, because VC games are completely done and just being emulated. It probably takes longer to work out the arrangement for putting a VC title up than it does getting it into a state where it's downloadable and playable.

So yeah, if the Wii "just" gets 2 Genesis games, that's the equivalent of 2 more freaking awesome Genesis HD Remixes or whatever you want to call worthwhile on the other two consoles.

No, it's not. Almost no work must go in to a game to be put up on the Virtual Console. That's a HUGE difference. The amount of time it takes to bring Streets of Rage 2 to the Xbox 360 and to the Wii are grossly different.

 

[Speevy]

So you're not arguing about the quality of VC games, or the fact that they're in standard definition.

You're saying Nintendo doesn't release ENOUGH of them?

Yeah, maybe 10 games a week would be better. Yeah, that's a very sound business right there.

 

[Shaheed79]

No, it's not. Almost no work must go in to a game to be put up on the Virtual Console.

The work is incomparable to making a new game which should be quite obvious to anyone but your statement here is 100% wrong. I suggest you locate and read some testimonies from the VC team. Their job is anything but easy and they don't just "dump roms". Your ignorance on this matter is disrespectful to the amount of work they put on making these games VC compliant. They do a fantastic job and I for one commend their hard work.

 

[GhostSeed]

Love the new thread title. :lol

 

[A Black Falcon]

I haven't played either. If Mega Turrican is anything like Super Turrican, which it probably is, it's kind of like a hybridized Contra/Mega Man with some exploration elements. Nothing I'd give an unqualified recommendation for, especially if you haven't picked up such VC games as--oh, say--Gunstar Heroes, but if you like the genre, there you go.

Mega Turrican is amazing. See my Turrican thread, etc.

I actually just played this through again on Genesis a couple of days ago. Once you're used to it, it's not very hard to finish on Normal... I did need to use two of the three continues you get at that difficulty level, but I beat it. I almost gave up when I got my first game over in the middle of the second alien level... having to start from the beginning of the very long first alien level all over again was disheartening. I did it again, though, and then again, when I got game over again in stage two (though the second and third times I took the short route straight to the end through that first stage and didn't try to collect everything, making it a lot quicker). I guess the game's only real negatives are its somewhat easy difficulty level and moderately short length... though when everything is so amazing along the whole way, that really doesn't matter at all. And I certainly haven't gotten anywhere near beating it on Hard. No continues and you take more damage per hit...

Awesome, awesome game. Such great graphics and music too!

Other than the fact that the two games have completely different levels and mostly different music and a bunch of different enemies and graphics (though they also do share some significant elements), the biggest gameplay difference between Mega and Super Turrican is the beam you get. In Super Turrican, you have a freeze ray. In Mega Turrican, you instead get a grappling hook. It makes for some different jumping puzzles, though the implementation isn't exactly Bionic Commando levels of awesome here (that would have to wait for Super Turrican 2's grappling hook), it's still pretty cool.

And as for "game we won't get but I wish we would", I'll say Universal Soldier (Genesis). Yes, I know the original game (Turrican 2 for the Amiga and C64) is better, but the Genesis version is actually pretty good. I got it not being sure at all as to how good it would be, but it's actually quite good... a significant improvement over the first Turrican (best console version of that one is also on Genesis, but Turrican 2 is just so much better that I'd rather see the second one). I think that the crticism the game gets from many Turrican fans is somewhat unfair... ignoring the graphical alterations, not as good music (though for Genesis music it's pretty darn good), and the removed shmup levels, it's the same game!

 

[mollipen]

The work is incomparable to making a new game which should be quite obvious to anyone but your statement here is 100% wrong. I suggest you locate and read some testimonies from the VC team. Their job is anything but easy and they don't just "dump roms". Your ignorance on this matter is disrespectful to the amount of work they put on making these games VC compliant. They do a fantastic job and I for one commend their hard work.

Hey, as big as my mouth is sometimes, I'm willing to admit if I'm wrong. So there is more work involved than just dumping a rom and calling it a day. My argument that the difference between the work needed for the VC and for XBLA / PSN is great still stands.

(At the same time, though, I'm getting the same experience I would get if I just downloaded a ROM and ran an emulator. I really don't feel like that statement means I should be patting the guys who put together VC games on the back.)

So you're not arguing about the quality of VC games, or the fact that they're in standard definition.

You're saying Nintendo doesn't release ENOUGH of them?

Yeah, maybe 10 games a week would be better. Yeah, that's a very sound business right there.

While we're at it, let's tell Apple to stop adding so many songs to the iTunes Store every week, because people are getting confused on what they should buy and we're getting too many options.

 

[Speevy]

(At the same time, though, I'm getting the same experience I would get if I just downloaded a ROM and ran an emulator. I really don't feel like that statement means I should be patting the guys who put together VC games on the back.)

THEN DON'T FREAKING DOWNLOAD ROMS.

Why should businessmen and programmers have to account for this? It's you who think of their work as nothing more than a file, not them.

 

[Firestorm]

Title should stay like this until Sonic 3 & Knuckles is released.

 

[Speevy]

While we're at it, let's tell Apple to stop adding so many songs to the iTunes Store every week, because people are getting confused on what they should buy and we're getting too many options.

Music =/= Downloadable games.

These markets don't work the same way. Publishers don't flood the retail channel with games for the same reason.

When a song is released, the consumer doesn't have to go through a long external information search to determine whether that song is right for them. They have either heard the whole thing, in its entirety, or they know the artist, or they've heard bits of the song (or will hear a preview)

With games, they demand to know what kind of experience they're getting. As there are no demos on the Wii, spreading out releases is absolutely vital. This way, Nintendo can preview the games via their WiiConnect24 feature, let users know what new games are coming out, what systems they're for, along with a brief product description. It also helps in populating the various system and genre categories.

Knowing there's a new fighter added to the VC is much more useful than knowing that 18 random fighters were just released, don't you think? I'm sure SNK or Capcom appreciates that too.

Furthermore, there are so many differences in the reasons people download songs compared to why they download games that I don't even know where to begin. Image, portability (you can't yet put VC games on a handheld and take them with you), and pricing model are just a few of the differerences.

Anyone who thinks the VC should just be flooded with games clearly has no idea how a service with the Wii's userbase, its target market, and its strategic plan should operate.

 

[mollipen]

Anyone who thinks the VC should just be flooded with games clearly has no idea how a service with the Wii's userbase, its target market, and its strategic plan should operate.

If I go to a used game store, what filter do I have for deciding which NES game to buy? Is that store only stocking certain games each week, to make it so I don't have to do any work of any kind on my part? No. They have what they have available, and if they could carry every game that exists for the NES (and every other classic system), they would.

We aren't talking about new games where I don't know anything about them or what to buy. I know exactly what I want to buy for every single system. I know for the same reasons that I know what songs I want to buy from iTunes: I've played them before, I know the publisher, or I've seen previews of it at some point in my life. We aren't talking new games, where they are completely foreign to me and I have to do a lot of research to find out if they're worth buying or not. If Nintendo puts up only two games a week, then the majority of weeks I end up not spending any money at all because neither of those games hold any interest to me. Is Nintendo's business model to get me NOT to spend money?

The reason for the VC to exist is that Nintendo (and through them third parties) wants people to spend a lot of money for classic games instead of pirating them. To me, it seems logical that the way to succeed at that would be to have a large library of games where, when I go looking through the lists, I find a lot of titles that I want to buy. The more games I buy, the more money Nintendo (and those third parties) makes.

Unlike PSN or XBLA, the Virtual Console is not counting on games that need to be created from scratch: the games exist in their entirety outside of the final step of making them VC-ready. You cannot convince me that there is any logical reason to hold off on putting games up on the VC with the exception that at that given point in time, there are no available games due to various reasons.

If the argument for the sporadic additions of games to the VC is that Joe Average may be confused by too many choices, stop punishing me and my ready-to-spend cash because of Joe. Instead of adding two games each week, Nintendo could be featuring a handful of games a week, and accomplish the same thing. Well, the same thing, except also having a lot more satisfied customers, instead of ones that find themselves week after week having no interest at all in the latest VC additions.

 

[Hero]

You can't just dump the entire library on the consumers or else there would be titles that got little to no downloads. At least the weekly thing keeps consumers interested. However, two a week is total crap. Should be at LEAST five.

 

[Narag]

While we're at it, let's tell Apple to stop adding so many songs to the iTunes Store every week, because people are getting confused on what they should buy and we're getting too many options.

At the same time, though, I'm getting the same experience I would get if I just downloaded a mp3 and ran it in iTunes anyway. I really don't feel like that statement means I should be patting the guys at Apple on the back. Well, questions of legality aside.

Unlike PSN or XBLA, the Virtual Console is not counting on games that need to be created from scratch: the games exist in their entirety outside of the final step of making them VC-ready. You cannot convince me that there is any logical reason to hold off on putting games up on the VC with the exception that at that given point in time, there are no available games due to various reasons.

There's content but VC is its own thing. Is it really comparable to XBL/PSN or should it be measured against the rom dumps the other two companies put out? Neither xbox originals nor the PSone games rely on content created from scratch either.

216 VC games, 14 xbox originals, and 21 PSone games.
Whether you or I like the current release scheduling the VC uses, and I sure as hell hate it nowadays, its still far far beyond its competition in available content.