Hey all, Scott here! I started a petition to force unemployment checks to be given out as 3DS eShop cards, that way nobody has an excuse to not have fun while being unemployed! *angry shouting in background* Now THAT is the happiest looking angry mob I've ever seen! Now why wouldn't they be? They can go on the Virtual Console and buy Mole Mania. I'm a simple man. I love this. Not these. Video game consoles are great, I love em, but it's just needlessly complicated to have like 12 different systems. As time goes on it's just so much more convenient to have all your games, both old and new, on one system. Having a bunch of your older systems plugged in at once is my favorite T-shirt right now, and leaving them all unplugged and in the closet makes it less likely you're gonna play them, you have to pull everything out and find all the cables that go with it just to realize you're breaking out a Sega CD just to play Double Switch. It's a mess! I love the games on these older systems. I want to play them, but having more than like three systems plugged in at once can be ridiculous, and leaving the old consoles in the closet makes it more of a hassle to play. Now, different video game consoles have their own charm to them. Playing games made for the system on the console it originated on just feels natural in some cases, and you do grow a bit attached to those old plastic boxes. But, what if I told you you could play your old favorite games on your new system? Having legacy content on new systems is so nice. Sure, you're probably gonna play the new titles made specifically for that system more, but just being able to play the older games without having to yank out an old console is the dream. It's so convenient to have these older titles available to play on the system you play the most. That even if you don't play the older titles that much, just having them readily available makes it easier for me to sleep at night. Old games on new platforms isn't something they came up with uh, um, I don't know, like four days ago, it's been a thing for over three decades. We can trace re-releases back to old arcade games releasing on the NES, then remakes of NES games releasing on the SNES. SNES games were repackaged on the PS1. Compilations of all different types of old games on the PS2. But with the original Xbox, the entire concept of re-releasing old games changed with the introduction of Xbox Live Arcade. You'd have to pop in an Xbox Live Arcade disc, but then you could download smaller bite-sized titles. Stuff like Feeding Frenzy! And Dig Dug. OH! Yes, classic games were available for download on Xbox. And while this feature of the console wasn't the most well-known, The idea completely ran wild as soon as the next generation consoles came out, especially with the Wii. It had such a large supply of classic downloadable games; all under the title of "Virtual Console", A virtual way to play older consoles. It was such a success on the Wii that Nintendo continued the brand on the Nintendo 3DS, Wii U, and that's it. I have so many memories of the Virtual Console and all three of the systems it appeared on. So let's take a look back at the service and the ups and downs and Urban Champions for $5.00 that came with it. At E3 2005, Nintendo unveiled their next system, the Nintendo Revolution back when people thought it was going to be incredibly powerful and the final name wasn't going to make me f***ing lose it. One of the primary aspects of the system detailed at the event was its backwards compatibility with GameCube games. Yeah, you can use GameCube games so much, they incorporated the feature into the logo itself. I'm really surprised others haven't gone with this design. But not only was it going to be backwards compatible with GameCube games, but all games as well; NES, SNES, and N64 games digitally downloadable via a "Virtual Console" as they put it. This was a major deal. Nintendo home consoles didn't really do backwards compatibility back then. They only really did it with their handhelds. Sure, you could play some older Game Boy games on the TV with some of them and some games were re-released, but, by and large, you had to keep your old systems to play your old games. This way, you could play all the new Nintendo games, play your old GameCube discs, and download titles from all the other systems You didn't need those old pieces of sh*t anymore. It was great The Virtual Console was further detailed at E3 2006 Right around the time, Nintendo officially announced the revolution's real name was You gotta be f***ing kidding me. All these old games were playable with the "Retro-Motes", the Wii Classic Controller's maiden name apparently. I loved the E3 2006 user interface for the Virtual Console. Being able to see 3D renders of the box art, that was a nice touch. When the Wii launched on November 19th 2006, you could hop on the Wii Shop Channel and get to downloading 12 titles in total across the NES, SNES, N64, and Sega Genesis Yeah, even Sega got in on the fun with ultra beast and Sonic the Hedgehog the launch lineup had some of the major games you'd probably Want stuff like Mario 64 and Zelda But they also launched it with Wario's Woods and soccer Wario's Woods is an impulse buy at Walmart at best Nintendo Strategy with re-releasing Virtual Console games was always interesting to say the least like Nintendo Themselves didn't release another Virtual Console game after launch until two weeks later, and it was just Donkey Kong Jr. At least the Virtual Console had a lot of third-party support so that definitely helped things out just two days after the Wii's launch TurboGrafX 16 Titles appeared on the shop. Genesis titles were added constantly, and Nintendo was just sitting there squirting out ice hockey and tennis back-to-back But then in Christmas Day 2006 hit and Nintendo finally re-released Super Mario Brothers. It's crazy It wasn't available at launch but it paid for an incredibly smart release on Christmas Day if you didn't download Super Mario Brothers on your Wii that was punishable by Death in some countries as time went on more systems were added Neo Geo Sega Master System even Commodore 64 Virtual Console Arcade was added in 2009, which was supposed to be a place for Old-school arcade games to roam free and instead it was barely supported. NES games got the most love over 90 released here And then at the very end of the line was N64 with only 21 games in total I've sneezed more games than that before the Virtual Console was ridiculously active from 2006 to 2008 But after that not so much Nintendo already put out most of their big titles by the end of 2008 So it was up to the third parties to pick up the pace afterwards for some reason from spring 2012 to summer 2013 SNK put out 25, Neo Geo games many of them Well after the Wii U released some games were delisted over time stuff like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles for the NES SimCity on the SNES. ALL of the commodore 64 games vanished in 2013 The Final Fight games, Yoshi's cookie a few of the Street Fighters, the Donkey Kong Country games disappeared in 2012 And then went back up in 2015 for some reason zombie as as time went on that the Wiis Virtual Console was running out of steam with some D listings and less games being added, but that didn't detract from the overall experience having all these systems represented on the Wii it was magical not only could people relive the childhood memories by playing their favorite NES and SNES games But many could create new memories by playing these classic games for the first time ever I mean the way it was the perfect platform for NES games you look at the Wii Remote and give it a little of this (Going) (Going) (Going) (Almost there) Boom NES controller you have all the buttons there and it feels close enough to work Well since the Wii Remote didn't have enough buttons for a lot of the other platforms offered you would have to use either the Wii classic controller or the GameCube controller the classic controller was pretty great for SNES games but a little cramped for something like N64, and they later re-released the classic controller Pro which was much more appropriate for 3D games The GameCube controller is very similar great for 3d. Ho-hum for 2d torture is consider playing an SNES game on this thing The buttons are all over the place and you couldn't change the button layout for most VC games I think you could do that with Virtual Console arcade titles But I never downloaded any of those most games are pretty faithful to their original releases You're gonna do anything crazy like apply filters or whatever But some of them got a little adding online play to Super Street Fighter 2 on the Sega Genesis I still get chills whenever I hear that you can leave a game and come back to it right where you left off with most titles except for the n64 and Neo Geo games I always felt worried whenever I would do this you don't specifically hit a Save button or whatever you just Leave the game and hope to god when you come back It picks up where you left off some problematic things such as brand names or flashing lights were either toned down or removed entirely Some features were added like being able to save your Pokemon snap pictures to the Wii message board But overall if you were playing a Virtual Console game and you were playing the original release the games look pretty nice Sure, NES games looked a bit dull but they look so organic like you were playing them off an original console. You look at NES emulation now and it's stupid crisp and colorful. But in my opinion, it looks a bit more artificial It doesn't look like it's running off from an original NES. Don't get me wrong. This looks way better, but this looks more natural. Price points of games were pretty fair, but they were fairly standard across an entire consoles catalog. NES games were generally 500 Wii Points, or five bones, SNES and Genesis were 8, N64 10, Turbo Graphics 16 was whatever they felt like that morning. At least they kept things consistent and memorable, it was easy for me to know exactly how much again would cost but still, Mario 3 and Soccer were the exact same price. Ouch. Now they actually offered a few games that never released in North America, which was awesome However, they were more expensive than regular games because they labeled them as imports What the hell are you talking about? You're not importing anything. It's a digital file! Now, I really wanted to get Virtual Console games back in 2009, but the term Wi-Fi was completely foreign to my family at the time I had to do... SO much to damn research as a 12-year-old and I found the Nintendo Wi-Fi USB connector. I told my parents that was the ticket to downloading Wario's Woods DAMN IT. We went to Circuit City and left with this thing. I Knew for a fact it wasn't what I wanted But whatever it was a third-party ethernet adapter for the Wii. We didn't get a Wi-Fi router until a couple months later so I had to awkwardly connect my Wii via ethernet cable each time I wanted to go online. But, it worked! I bought Super Mario Brothers 1 and 3, Punch-Out, Kid Icarus, Megaman 1 and 2, Mario RPG, Donkey Kong Country, there were so many great games I replayed on the Wii Virtual Console, or played for the first time ever. But the Wii did only cover home console games, which was only half of Nintendo's catalog. The Nintendo DSi came out in late 2008 and featured an online store of its own similar to the Wii Shop Channel, but it didn't have a Virtual Console. I always found that odd. They got rid of the Game Boy Advance compatibility with this model of the DS So I thought this would have been a perfect time to force us to buy those games digitally alongside Game Boy and Game Boy Color games. Well, we ended up having to wait until 2011 to do that The Nintendo 3DS came out in March and later in June the Nintendo eShop launched finally bringing Virtual Console to a handheld. Game Boy and Game Boy Color games Finally were re-released if they were so much fun mainly because the 3DS had no games at this point So I was happy to play Super Mario Land and Link's Awakening The games were blown up a bit and looked at dead. Blurry from my liking. Now you could hold select as the game was starting up to minimize the image and it looked much crisper and you also cut this fun Gameboy border you can even use the 3d slider to sync the screen and to make it feel more realistic It's a really nice touch Plus if you hold LR and hit Y you can swap between black and white or the original ass green of the first gameboy model There's a much more responsible save feature now But you still can't map the buttons as you please because of the fad gameboy games use B and a you have to clear them Around the system to play something like a Mario game comfortably Sega Game Gear games were eventually added in March of 2012 (Silence) Oh, yay, I never saw anybody even remotely care about this addition I like that Game Gear games were here, but nobody ever talked about them. NES games were added in February of 2012 starting with the original Super Mario Brothers and I will admit this here the 3ds Virtual Console release of Super Mario Brothers was the way I first beat the game Thankfully with the NES games you can use X as another button for B, which main game is way more enjoyable What's weird? Is that hitting X on gameboy games brought up the virtual console menu with NES? That's not the case, finally Yes, NES games came to the 3DS. Oh wait, I'm sorry new 3DS models only starting in March of 2016 Apparently the CPU of the original 3DS just couldn't handle SNES games That's embarrassing. I don't know this was something where I feel like if they tried a bit harder They could probably get SNES games running on the original 3DS models But they just kind of gave up and went for new 3DS only my main problem with the SNES games on 3DS, though Was when they came out 2016 men I kinda lost interest in 3DS Virtual Console at this point and I haven't downloaded any SNES games through the system up until Now so first impressions are pretty yeah the games don't look too hot But when you go into the settings and turn on pixel-perfect mode, oh my god, the games look so good They look excellent on the 3DS screen because they're not trying to blow up the game or anything They're displaying it in the original resolution and it looks beautiful on a 3ds display. Now this is a fair lineup for 3ds Virtual Console, but one systems oddly missing well Because the 3DS was just NOT I'm needing sales expectations back in July of 2011 The price was slashed from 250 bones to a measly 170 to show their appreciation Towards the people who bought the 3DS instead of paying off their mortgage They offered early adopters 20 free Virtual Console games 10 New 10 Game Boy Advance These were given out to ambassadors for free before Anybody else could buy them now the NES games those were all made available on the eShop eventually the Game Boy Advance Games were only ever available to the early adopters or as Nintendo called them ambassadors I unfortunately picked the 3DS upper-right when the price job so I never got these games The one thing I never understood though was many people would ask Nintendo why GBA games weren't available in the 3DS Virtual Console and they'd always say oh it's hard to make GBA work properly on the 3DS BUT YOU ALREADY PUT GBA GAMES ON THE 3DS. WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?! I mainly got behind the original Gameboy titles for the 3DS. I hate those things up around 4 bucks a piece 3 bucks for the simpler games I already replayed a lot of the NES games on the Wii So I don't really buy a ton of them on 3DS Game Boy was just way more interesting to revisit because in many cases this was the first time these games were ever re-released Mega Man & Dr. Wily's Revenge, the Mario Land games especially Mario Land 2 Donkey Kong 94 Link's Awakening the original Gameboy Tetris released which was Awesome, and it was later delisted... But Hey, I got it. The Game Boy Pokemon games finally released in 2016 and they cut around to doing the Game Boy Color games by 2017 and then pokemon crystal in 2018 Just think about that , a Game Boy Color Virtual Console game came out in 2018 Even though I didn't buy a ton of NES stuff on the 3ds They did bring over a few Japanese exclusive games for the first time, at reasonable prices The Mysterious Murasame made castle and Summer Carnival '92 Recca finally made it outside of japan Only on the 3DS not Wii or Wii U just 3DS... Okay moving on to Wii U the system launched in November of 2012, but no Virtual Console was in sight. You can boot up Wii Mode on Wii U to access standard Wii stuff and here you can download and play Virtual Console games. But they were only available in Wii mode. You couldn't play them with the Wii U gamepad or pro controller or anything. It was basically playing Wii Virtual Console games on a Wii on a Wii U eventually in January of 2013 Nintendo announced a traditional Virtual Console for the system if you transfer to your Wii contents over to the Wii U You could upgrade your Wii Virtual Console games the Wii U versions at a discounted price once they were made available They have this promotion going on for the family comes 30th anniversary. Where each month for a little while in 2013 They'd offer an NES or SNES game for 30 cents That was a really cool way to have my bank called me for suspicious activity on my account because what else cost 30 cents Balloon fight was the first release in January and they offered one game a month as a part of the promotion But this was just a soft launch the official launch of the Wii U Virtual Console was on April 26th 2013 and nobody cared the magic of these games being playable on modern systems was kind of gone. These were all games that released via the Wii Virtual Console. There was nothing new here. The Wii U Virtual Console games were a bit more robust You had much more responsible safe space like with the 3ds and you could actually change up the button layout to your liking that was fantastic. You could pull up the manual and flip through that on the Wii U gamepad And play the entire game on the gamepad in general That was a nice feature, but that didn't help the fact that these were still the same games We played on the Wii Virtual Console and even then not even close to all of them Nintendo was just going to slowly trickle out their Virtual Console games all over again like a Link to the Past is great But we already got it on the wheat so bringing it back on the Wii U in 2014 wasn't as exciting or as big of a deal as Nintendo wanted it to be. There was also the problem of the systems on Wii U Virtual Console What systems? Only NES and SNES games were available at launch and then Game Boy Advance games the year after what was asking for Game Boy Advance games on the Wii U I think it's fair to say most were running GameCube or N64 or for Game Boy Advance games to be available for purchase on the 3DS, but NOPE, Nintendo really threw a curve ball with that one. Nintendo 64 finally followed in 2015 alongside DS games That was pretty nice. It was great to be able to finally play DS games on the TV Even if they weren't that fun to play on the TV? It just feels a little awkward, they give you a ton of different display methods but you have to manually change it for each game you play and sometimes, none of them feel that natural. Wii games were made available for digital purchase in early 2015, which they're sometimes referred to as Virtual Console titles, sometimes they're not? But yeah, they offered Wii games digitally. Okay. I can already play these games on my Wii U. Sure, it's nice to have an option to download a game but, not very exciting. And finally, the last system to be offered on the Wii U Virtual Console... TurboGrafx what the f***. The majority of TurboGrafx-16 games that came out for the Wii U... Came out after the Nintendo Switch launched. Now SNES and GBA games looked phenomenal on the Wii U. Really, these games cleaned up incredibly well and looked beautiful through HDMI. So what the hell happened here? NES and N64 games look like GARBAGE. They're washed out and too dark and blurry and not pleasant to look at at ALL! I know I sort of complimented the Wii's Virtual Console and how NES games looked like with it, But keep in mind, the Wii wasn't an HD system and it was from 2006. I liked how the games looked organic but I expected them to be sharper, clearer and just more colorful on the Wii U. DS games look Okay, I don't really think it has anything to do with the emulation quality It's more so the fact that I don't think DS games aged that well visually now the way you did get some cool VC Releases EarthBound finally got rereleased That was a big one and famously skipped the Wii Virtual Console even after a wada name dropped at e3 2005 the idea of a single device transporting us back to the first Excitebike, EarthBound Should make us all feel young again But it finally came out For two dollars more than the standard SNES games. Okay, but not only that earthbound beginnings Finally got a release outside of Japan. That was awesome $2 more awesome than your standard NES game Duck Hunt and a few other like gun NES games got re-released for the first time the Virtual Console versions using the Wii remotes pointer there was some good stuff but it was few and far between and when they actually started to put out more interesting games a lot of people including myself Just lost interest. They had a major problem with scheduling these games for release We already replayed most of these games on the Wii they weren't exciting anymore But they still drip fed as these things over a period of four years For some reason Mario 3 was announced for a Virtual Console released in August 2013, and it came out in April 2014 How the hell did Mario 3 get delayed also, they never released Yoshi's cookie. They said they were gonna release it and they never did Well that was it Virtual Console brand ended with the Wii U I understand getting rid of the name just because it doesn't really mean much anymore Now that doesn't mean classic games aren't being sold on modern Nintendo systems Of course They are Nintendo offers both older games as full-blown releases or as a bonus for signing up for their online service Third-party companies either release their old games through Nintendo's classic games app or on their own either through collections are just simple eShop releases However, I think it's fair to say I miss Virtual Console even considering all of its problems Oh, yeah, getting collections of old games mostly makes it so you end up paying less for all of them I really Loved the uniformity of the Virtual Console games the fact they all had similar Icons on your menu made it feel much more like they were actual games apart of your actual collection It was a much simpler method of releasing older games than how they're released now either have to buy compilations with a bunch of You might not even want or they're overpriced or they're a part of a subscription service and because of that games release Incredibly slowly because it's probably more complicated of licensed games for that Virtual Console was easy to understand and it was fun to discover old games that you might not have played or rediscover old favorites however I'm inclined to say the service peaked with the Wii in almost every console you could have wanted what's offering with the 3DS and WiiU There were always Auto missions. Why did Genesis and Master System never come to the Wii U? Why did it take so long to get n64 or even turbo graphics 16? Why didn't GameCube games ever come out. If I lied to me that Nintendo wasn't trying enough with the Wii U Virtual Console and in some cases the 3DS as well and we see that continuing today with the Nintendo switch They spend an entire year just re-releasing NES games while with the past three systems, they were reselling the same NES games. And because of that... Nobody cares anymore! The nostalgia for NES games has completely flatlined! There is still some great NES stuff out there, but the amount of love for the system isn't growing as much as it was in 2006. N64, GameCube and Wii era games are the big nostalgic moneymakers right now. The people who grew up with those systems are old enough to want to play them again. But NES games are way easier to re-release! That's why we're mainly getting them. I miss Wii Virtual Console era because it didn't feel like Nintendo made up excuses as to what they will and won't re-release, and now it feels like they say: "Oh, GameCube games are so hard to re-release! Here's Wrecking Crew, you'll like that!" All and all, even if the service got worse with each console that it appeared on, I'm gonna miss the Virtual Console. Even if Yoshi's Cookie never came to Wii U. Am I the only one that cares about that? GENERAL POPULATION! Do you give a sh** that Yoshi's Cookie never made it to Wii U Virtual Console? General Population: NO! Scott: You heard it here first folks!
Not being able to move your digital purchases should be a crime. Nintendo has warped ownership into reoccurring purchases.
Man Switch's online subscription fucking pales in comparison to VC. 2-3 bad NES games a month feels like the world's lamest consolation prize.
I do hope that they re-introduce the Virtual Console, but tie game purchases to your Nintendo Profile. Even if its a "from here on out" situation, not losing your entire retro library every 5 or so years/being able to play a game from your 3DS or Switch would be nice, to put it lightly.
I might be biased though, I never purchased a Virtual Console game, so I wouldn't lose anything should they reset again.