Virtual Console (バーチャルコンソール, Bācharu Konsōru), sometimes abbreviated as VC, is a specialized section of the Wii Shop Channel, an online service that allows players to purchase and download games and other software for the Wii gaming console. The Virtual Console lineup consists of titles originally released on now defunct past consoles. These titles are run in their original forms through software emulation. The library of past games currently consists of titles originating from the Nintendo Entertainment System, Super Nintendo Entertainment System, and Nintendo 64, as well as Sega's Mega Drive/Genesis, NEC's TurboGrafx-16 and TurboGrafx-CD, and SNK's Neo Geo AES.^[1] Upcoming support for MSX has been announced for Japan. The Virtual Console service has generated approximately $33 million in sales and over 7.8 million downloads.^[2]

Library history

While the gameplay remains unchanged for all of the classic titles offered for the Virtual Console, Nintendo has stated that some games may be improved with sharper graphics or better frame rates.^[3] While the company has stated that the Wii Shop will not be used exclusively for retro games, no original games have yet been made available through the service.^[4] As with disc-based games, the Virtual Console service is region-locked - that is, different versions of games are provided to different regions, and game availability may vary from region to region.^[5]

Satoru Iwata stated in a speech on March 23 2006, that Nintendo, Sega, and Hudson Soft are working in collaboration to bring a "best of" series of games to the Wii.^[6] At E3, Hudson also declared it would bring upwards of 100 titles to the Wii's Virtual Console. Additionally, Hudson mentioned that its lawyers are working on acquiring the licenses to games from now defunct companies.^[7] Nintendo announced MSX compatibility on September 19, 2006,^[8] announcing on February 23 2007 that the MSX titles Eggy and Aleste will be released in Japan.^[9] In February 2007, a heading for Neo Geo games was added to the Japanese Virtual Console page,^[10][11] and in September of that same year games for that system appeared on the list of future releases, priced at 900 points each.^[12][13] Also in September Hudson announced that games made for the TurboGrafx-CD format would also join the Virtual Console beginning in October 2007, with five titles to be released for the remainder of 2007 and ten titles for 2008. They will be priced at 800 points.^[14]

On June 1 2007, Nintendo of America issued a press release to announce the upcoming release of its 100th Virtual Console title, which was Zelda II: The Adventure of Link. Within this press release, Nintendo stated that more than 4.7 million Virtual Console games had been downloaded, at a rate of more than 1,000 titles an hour.^[15]

On October 9 2007, Nintendo announced that 7.8 million VC titles had been downloaded.^[16]

Third party support

Unnamed Nintendo employees have reportedly speculated that licensing issues will be a predominant factor in determining whether a game is available for Virtual Console,^[17] giving the examples of GoldenEye 007 and Tetris as games that might be too expensive to license for the Virtual Console. Tecmo has announced it plans to "aggressively" support Virtual Console by re-releasing classic games such as Ninja Gaiden, Rygar, and Tecmo Bowl.^[18] Tecmo was the first third-party game developer to release a game on the Virtual Console (Solomon's Key from the NES). Since then, Capcom and Konami, among others, have also released titles.

Matt Casamassina of IGN reported that Rare titles absent of Nintendo-owned characters, such as Banjo-Kazooie, would be unavailable for purchase due to Microsoft's acquisition of Rare,^[19] but Rare has hinted the possibility of such titles being released on Virtual Console.^[20] SNK Playmore has recently announced intentions to help support the Virtual Console by releasing the Samurai Shodown series and a few other games to the Virtual Console.^[21] Midway also plans to bring classic Mortal Kombat games to the Virtual Console.^[22]

Confirmed third-party companies supporting Virtual Console include:

Pricing

On September 14 2006, Nintendo revealed that Virtual Console games in Japan would be priced starting at JP¥500 for NES titles, JP¥800 for Super NES titles, and JP¥1000 for Nintendo 64 titles, with points purchasable via credit card or a "Wii Points" card. In the United States, Wii Points are priced at one cent per point (with the ability to buy in denominations of $10, $20, $30 and $50), with game prices of US$5, US$8, and US$10, respectively.^[25][26]

Nintendo president Satoru Iwata has indicated that new small-scale titles could be developed and sold through the Wii Shop Channel at a price of between JP¥500 and ¥1000 (approximately US$4-$9, GB£2-£5),^[27][28] and that free downloads may be offered as a bonus with the purchase of specific Wii titles, similar to Nintendo Europe's VIP 24:7 incentives.^[29]

The Wii Shop Channel has functionality to allow games to be updated. This has been used three times so far to update Military Madness and Star Fox 64/Lylat Wars (in North America and Europe)^[30] and Mario Kart 64 (in Europe and Australia). The Legend of Zelda, The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, Super Mario Bros., Donkey Kong Country and Super Castlevania IV have also been given updates in Europe and Australia to fix previous problems with the Wii Component Cables. These updates are free of charge to those who have downloaded a previous version of the game.

Storage

Games downloaded from the Virtual Console library are stored in the Wii's built-in 512 MB flash memory, though less than 400 MB is actually available to the user^{[citation needed]}. Games can be transferred to a removable SD card, and backed up, but they cannot be played from this external memory. If the internal memory is filled, Virtual Console games can be deleted to create more room, and the games can be downloaded again at a later date at no additional cost, or can be copied back over from an SD Card. Virtual Console games are locked to the Wii on which they were purchased — they cannot be transferred to another Wii via an SD card. In the event that a Wii is damaged and the Virtual Console games can no longer be played, Nintendo will provide support.^[31]

Suspending play

Like other emulation software, the Wii Virtual Console enables the user to suspend play of a game at any time. To do this, simply return to the Wii main menu from the game.^[32] Two exceptions to this are the N64 and Neo Geo titles which do not support this feature.^[33] Note that suspending play enables the player to pause the game indefinitely but does not function as a "save state" in that once the game is resumed the user will be able to pause play again but will not be able to return to the previously suspended state.^[32]

Control

Virtual Console games can be played using three different controllers. The Wii Remote itself (turned on its side) can be used for NES, TurboGrafx-16, and some Sega Mega Drive/Genesis games, and the Classic Controller (sold separately from the console) can be used for all Virtual Console games. The controllers from the Nintendo GameCube can also be used. This has meant that the wireless GameCube controller (the WaveBird) has seen increased popularity.^[34] The Nintendo Gamecube controller can be used for all Nintendo systems' games, however Nintendo's site claims that it cannot be used with some TurboGrafx-16 and Genesis/Mega Drive titles. ^[35]

All Virtual Console games have their buttons mapped to the respective buttons on the controllers, however, in certain circumstances users can use X and Y instead of A and B, if the original controller does not have X and Y buttons (for example the NES)^[31]. In certain titles, such as Nintendo 64 games, there may be specific control tailored to the Classic Controller or GameCube Controller. So far, none of the Nintendo 64 titles released have been able to support the Rumble Pak feature of the N64 controller.

With the release of Bomberman '93, it was revealed that TurboGrafx-16 games can support full 5 player games. Since a single Wii can only have four Wii Remotes and four GameCube Controllers connected at the same time, a combination of the two is needed for 5 player games. At least one player has to use a Wii Remote or Classic controller, and at least one player has to use a GameCube Controller. The other three can use either one.

Platform	Wii Remote	Classic Controller	GameCube Controller
NES	Y	Y	Y
SNES	N	Y	Some*
N64	N	Y	Y
Mega Drive/Genesis	Some*	Y	Y
TurboGrafx-16	Y	Y	Some*
TurboGrafx-CD	Y	Y	Some*
Neo Geo	Some*	Y	Y

* In some cases, not all buttons are mapped to the Wii Remote or GameCube controller. The game is still playable, but may not allow the player to utilize all of the controls originally provided on the original system's controller.

Titles

North America

There were 12 titles total of NES, SNES, N64, and Genesis games available at launch on the Virtual Console for the North American region. Two TurboGrafx-16 titles were added two days later on November 21 2006. New releases are on Mondays at around 12:00 PM EST/9:00 AM PST (although they have been released an hour or two early on several occasions^[36][37]) and consist of around 3 games on average. As of December 10 2007, there are 181 Virtual Console titles available, with the list growing weekly as per the above.

Though the Virtual Console lineup initially only covered games that had been released in North America, George Harrison commented in an interview that there was a possibility that Nintendo or other Virtual Console providers would localize Japanese games that have never been released in English.^[38] This possibility was made true, and Japan-only games can now come to the Virtual Console. The first game to be added with such localization was Sin and Punishment from the Nintendo 64 on October 1 2007. While other previous Japan-only titles had been released through Virtual Console prior to this, the first being Battle Lode Runner from the TurboGrafx-16, added on April 23 2007, this and all others were originally written in English and required no localization. Despite the fact others fit the category, the only four titles listed under the "Import" genre are Sin and Punishment, Alien Soldier (although the game was available in North America through the Sega Channel), Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels and Ninja JaJaMaru-kun.

Europe

There were 17 titles total of NES, SNES, N64, Mega Drive and Turbografx games available at launch on the Virtual Console for the European region. The store updates every Thursday at 11 pm GMT (midnight during daylight saving time).^[39] The number of games per update has varied, but is usually 2-3. There are currently 172 Virtual Console titles available for the European Virtual Console.

Though the Virtual Console titles primarily cover only the games that have been released in Europe, Nintendo UK has recently commented that there is a possibility that in the future, Nintendo will localize Japanese and North American games that have never been released in Europe.^[40] Indeed, Hudson have already released three Turbografx games which were not originally released in Europe: Double Dungeons, Dragon's Curse^[41], and Battle Lode Runner. During September 2007, Nintendo contributed Japan-only games to the service as part of its "Hanabi Festival" campaign, releasing games such as Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels and Mario's Super Picross.

Australia and New Zealand

There were 11 titles total of NES, SNES, N64, and Mega Drive games available at launch on the Virtual Console for the Oceanic region. The store updates on Fridays, in Australia at 9:00AM and in New Zealand at 11:00PM AEST.^[42] There are currently 172 titles available for the Australian and New Zealand Virtual Console. The updates are usually the same as in Europe; currently, the only exceptions have been when Turbografx games were first added to the Australian VC from July 6 2007 until August 17 2007^[43][44], and the October 12 2007 update.^[45]

Japan

There were 38 titles of FC, SFC, N64, Mega Drive, and PC Engine games available at launch on the Virtual Console for the Japanese region. Neo-Geo support was added on September 18 2007. The store updates on Tuesdays. There are currently 247 titles available for the Japanese Virtual Console.^[46]

Criticism

Wired's Chris Kohler has protested the disparity between the American and Japanese libraries, both in quantity and quality. ^[47] The difference between the two libraries has since become minimal, and he has changed his stance. ^[48] In addition, Kohler has also criticized the overall release strategy, with a handful of games at the beginning and two or three every week. Kohler also took issue with the Virtual Console's aspect ratio which stretches the 4:3 games when the Wii's system settings are set for a 16:9 television. ^[49] The pricing has also been criticized as too high, especially for the NES games ^[50], given the prices of many of the games available as used and the near-zero costs of manufacture and distribution. It has become apparent, however, that the effort involved in emulating these games can be significant, as evidenced by several serious bug fix updates (see "Pricing", above) and by significant differences in the emulated versions' game features, including added capabilities (See "Differences from original games", below).

Differences from original games

Nintendo has stated that the Virtual Console releases will be faithful to the original games, eliminating the possibility of graphical enhancements, customizable controls, or added online multiplayer features. ^[51] However, for various reasons, the gameplay experience is not always identical to the original. For example, in F-Zero, when the player hits the rails on the track, the track no longer flashes in black as in the original SNES game.

Some Nintendo 64 games originally required peripheral hardware (which the Wii hardware does not support) in order to use these features, and they play the same way they originally would without the peripherals plugged in. For example, none of the Nintendo 64 Virtual Console games feature force feedback, which originally required a separate Rumble Pak peripheral. ^[52] Mario Kart 64 and Wave Race 64 no longer support saving of "Ghost Data," which originally required a separate Controller Pak on the Nintendo 64. ^[53] However, interestingly, three NES games—Excitebike, Mach Rider and Wrecking Crew—made use of a peripheral called the Famicom Data Recorder (not available outside Japan) to save data of player-designed tracks and courses; this feature was fully implemented in their Virtual Console incarnations by way of saving the course data to the Wii's internal memory.^{[citation needed]}

Some reviewers have reported that games play differently due to the different controllers. Super Mario World, for instance, has been cited as more difficult to play due to the GameCube controller's button placement. The Classic Controller remedies this problem. ^[54] The Nintendo 64 controller featured more face buttons than either the GameCube or Classic Controller, so most N64 games released so far have mapped the C-buttons to the right analog stick and the Z button to the L button on the Classic controller, which some reviewers have described to be somewhat awkward. ^[55]

Hardware differences aside, most Virtual Console games released thus far have not changed from their original versions; however, Nintendo 64 games render polygons at increased resolution. One significant exception is Tecmo Bowl, which originally featured real player names via the NFL Players Association, but because of licensing issues, their names have been removed, and only their numbers are shown. A similar case has occurred with Wave Race 64, which had all of the Kawasaki ad banners replaced with Wii and Nintendo DS banners, because Nintendo's license with Kawasaki expired. Other documented changes are in Kid Icarus, whose password system has been altered^[56] and in the previously unreleased-outside-Asia title Sin and Punishment, whose menu commands, and certain in-game text (all originally written in Japanese), have been translated into English. The title screen logo and in-game subtitles, however, have been translated directly from their original Japanese versions.

Reports have surfaced stating that when the Virtual Console version of Punch-Out!! is played on HDTVs, it suffers from a lag in controls, which significantly raises the difficulty level compared to the NES version.^[57] This may be due, however, to the way these reporters' systems have been set-up. Some HDTVs are known to have upconversion lag when connected via composite, which may be the case here.

PAL issues

With the launch of the Wii in territories using the PAL television system, it has become apparent that in most cases the games supplied for the Virtual Console run in 50Hz mode and in their original unoptimized state. Unoptimized PAL games run roughly 17% slower than their original speed in 60Hz and have borders covering the top and the bottom of the screen. Setting the Wii console to 60Hz mode does not force the 50Hz game into 60Hz mode (as is possible on emulators and modified PAL consoles).

All currently released Nintendo 64 games are partially PAL optimized, resulting in full screen games (although still running in 50Hz and locked to the original slower gameplay speed). This optimization was not the case for the original cartridge versions of Super Mario 64, Wave Race 64 or Mario Kart 64, making the Virtual Console versions superior in that regard.

Additionally, some Super Nintendo games are also partially PAL optimized with reduced borders but still retaining the slower run speed of the original PAL release (Super Mario World, Super Probotector and Street Fighter II).

A select few games were already optimized in the original release to begin with, and are thus just as fast as their 60Hz counterparts this time around (The most obvious examples being Donkey Kong Country and Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest).

Turbografx games are the only Virtual Console games to actually run in 60Hz on PAL Wii systems; this is because the game data was never changed for release in PAL territories, the original hardware itself performed the conversion to a 50Hz signal.

One example of a poor PAL conversion is seen in the Virtual Console release of Sonic The Hedgehog, which retains the slower framerate and borders of the original PAL Mega Drive version,^[58] despite the fact that the GameCube release Sonic Mega Collection allows PAL users to choose which version of the game they want to play.

Recently, during Nintendo's 'Hanabi Festival' campaign, certain titles that were never released in Europe are being added to the Virtual console. Some of these games, namely the Japan only titles such as Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels, are run in 60Hz only, thus keeping the original speed and gameplay. A small reminder is shown when previewing the game's channel. Interestingly, these games can actually be played in both PAL60 (480i) and 480p modes. This makes these releases look significantly better on Progressive displays such as LCD TV's. The fast moving sprites in NES and SNES games generally create a significant amount of interlace artifacts on such displays that the 480p option resolves.

PAL games over component

Initially, some PAL Virtual Console games would not display correctly on high-definition televisions when connected via the component lead. However, starting with the April 13 2007 update of the PAL Virtual Console, certain newly added games, such as Punch-Out!!, support the "Wii Component Cable Interlace mode." This is a temporary fix to problems with various Virtual Console games being played over component cable on HDTVs. The mode can be enabled by accessing the operations guide of the game, and (with the Nunchuk attached) pressing the buttons Z + A + 2 simultaneously. A sound is played if the mode is enabled correctly. Several older games also have updates available to enable the feature, such as Super Castlevania IV. The mode can be disabled by using the same method, but with the button combination Z + A + 1 instead. A full list of games supporting this mode is available at nintendo.no ^[59], an English version can be found at vc-forums.com^[60].

Game sharing

On December 10 2007, Nintendo started a gifting feature in North America. This enabled Wii owners to puchase games in the Wii Shop Channel and give it to someone on their Wii Friends List, assuming that person has not already purchased the game and has their console set to the same country.^[61][62]

More systems

Many gaming publications and consumers have called for games from additional systems to be added to the Virtual Console library, particularly from the Sega Master System, citing the popularity of games like Alex Kidd in Miracle World and Phantasy Star.^[63] Nintendo released Neo-Geo titles onto the Japanese Virtual Console on September 18 2007, becoming the first addition to the list of consoles since the TurboGrafx-16 was added two days after the U.S. launch.^[64][65]

References

External links

• Nintendo - Official Nintendo of America Website
• Virtual Console - Official Virtual Console site
• TurboGrafx-16 Virtual Console - Hudson Official Virtual Console site