Also, what does the future hold for the 3DS portable Virtual Console?
The Virtual Console we all know and love hit the scene a little over four years ago, and since its inception has paved the way for release of 379 titles in North America. Over the past year, however, only 28 titles were published on the service spanning the 10 systems it represents. Compare this to its first full year and you’ll see a striking difference. In the calendar year of 2007, 157 titles of the available 379 were released. If anything is clear, it’s that the Virtual Console has been a bit of disappointment over the past couple of years, providing a small helping of games, with only a few gems littered in. But what does this mean in the grand scheme of the service itself?
It’s hard to say really if the service has been a success or a failure, because it’s unclear what its purpose was to begin with. If we approach it from a couple different angles, it’s of varying success. In the most optimistic of approaches, the Virtual Console has delivered some of the great classics of gaming’s youth.
If we look at the titles available, players can experience the entire mainline Super Mario series, including the original Super Mario Bros. 2, otherwise known as The Lost Levels. Sega’s Sonic the Hedgehog titles have seen release, complete with lock-on technology through Sonic & Kunckles.
Zelda, Metroid, Donkey Kong Country, Punch-Out!!, and a variety of other Nintendo classics have all been made available, alongside third party greats like Street Fighter II, Gunstar Heroes, Bubble Bobble, Actraiser, and many others. There’s something to be said about the representation of these massive titles on the service.
Assuming Nintendo set out to merely provide a platform for other publishers to bring their games to, and for them to release the majority of their standout titles, the Virtual Console has been a great success. Over time, if you’ve traded up for your new console purchases and now want to relive these great titles, the Virtual Console provides a fantastic means to experience these games once again for a pretty reasonable price.
In addition to offering North American titles, Nintendo has released some out of region games, like the famous Sin & Punishment from Treasure and the aforementioned original Super Mario Bros. 2. Without a service like the Virtual Console, experiencing either of those two titles (legally) would be nearly impossible.
In many ways, the Virtual Console as a whole has been a success. If we approach the argument from a different angle, however, things don’t look quite as rosy.
While 379 titles is respectable, it’s hardly a complete representation of what gaming has offered over the past generations. Furthermore, the game selection is relegated specifically to two types of games: the most popular titles of generations past (read: not necessarily the best) and a bunch of shovelware junk that was better off forgotten in time.
Don’t get me wrong, even the garbage deserves a place on the optimal Virtual Console service out there, because, optimally, all games that saw licensed release should have a place on the service. Obviously, no reasonable person should expect to see everything that was ever released come to the Virtual Console, because licensing agreements, multiple holders, and a variety of other legal issues would hold up release of many titles.
Even still, we’ve hardly seen a solid cross-section of games released over the years. The Nintendo 64 is the biggest offender, with a mere twenty titles having released, all of which are titles Nintendo published in or out of the North American region. Where are all of the third party titles? How about all of those first party Nintendo titles that still haven’t been released? I’ve heard excuses about challenges in emulation, but free emulators have been around for years that perfectly represent the N64 hardware, so how can Nintendo be incapable of producing a perfect emulator themselves, as owners of the hardware specifications and all of its related tools?
Many other systems suffer the same issues, with only a few particular third parties supporting the Virtual Console service. As of right now, if I wanted to grab Contra on the NES, or something as obscure as Spanky’s Quest on the SNES, I couldn’t do it.
What might be most puzzling to me is why Zapper-compatible titles like Duck Hunt or To the Earth have not seen release on the Virtual Console with pointer support. Surely Nintendo could’ve created a way to convert pointer input to Zapper data to support these classic titles.
Around every corner we look, it seems that the Virtual Console didn’t quite live up to what gamers expected when the service was originally announced ahead of the Wii’s release. So now, standing on the brink of release of Nintendo’s next Virtual Console service on the 3DS, what can we expect?
I don’t think that gamers should get their hopes up too high, just based on what we have seen thus far with the Wii Virtual Console. Nintendo will release their high profile handheld titles, we’ll see some shovelware from third parties looking to make a quick buck, and many of the unspoken classics of handheld history will fall by the wayside.
I appreciate Nintendo’s effort, and certainly, it will be great to play games like Link’s Awakening and Super Mario Land in 3D, but for every great game released, there will be a line of games that won’t be. With that in mind, enjoy what games do release, and don’t get too worked up over what does not.
Hopefully Nintendo continues to support their Virtual Console service into future generations and over time a wider variety of games see release. As a collector of physical games, it doesn’t matter much for me, but in my dream world, Nintendo will make available more out of region games so that I can experience titles that I wouldn’t have at my disposal otherwise.
What about you, the readers? Is the Virtual Console a success or failure? What does the future hold for the 3DS Virtual Console?
"enjoy what games do release, and don’t get too worked up over what does not"
Great quote.
"I don’t think that gamers should get their hopes up too high, just based on what we have seen thus far with the Wii Virtual Console."
Picking out a good game at random on the VC is probably a better prospect than doing it in a physical store. Or am I wrong?...
What's your answer to Is the Virtual Console a Failure?
I wanted Pilotwings 64 on the VC.
Oh well, at least we're getting Pilotwings Resort.
@Zap
I'd say the Virtual Console on the whole has been a success. I do think that it has been flailing in recent years and I'm not quite sure why. There are still plenty of games out there to release, yet nothing does. Weeks come and weeks go and often the Virtual Console sees no new additions.
To an extent, I'm sure Nintendo is holding back, but I'm not sure that they are actively pursuing publishers to bring new content to the service. I don't run their business so I can't quite say what would be profitable for them, but I'd have to think it's in their best interest to try and sign everyone up on the Virtual Console. Surely, Nintendo makes a piece of the profit, and as has been demonstrated, the effort in releasing a title is minimal because they are nothing more than ROM dumps.
While I do think that the Virtual Console has more or less been a success, it hasn't really lived up to my expectations. I was truly hoping that we'd be seeing a wider representation of games by now and I was hoping that more and more out of region games would have been released. Those are what I'm really interested in.
The trend we have seen completely goes against what my expectations were - I figured by year five of the Wii, the Virtual Console would have so many games released and still waiting to be released, no one could possibly keep up with it.
I'll be curious to see what Nintendo does with the service going forward. Clearly, they have trumped Microsoft and Sony in releasing classic games, so I'll give them the benefit of the doubt and assume there is some Ace up that sleeve.
I wouldn't call it a complete failure, but I believe that most publishers just aren't willing to divert funds to learn if they can still publish a game that came out at least 10 years ago.
Mother 1+2 and Mother 3 for 3DS!
A man can dream can't he?
You know what's a failure?
Pixlbit.
Virtual Console has failed when what should have been an $8-12 download is now a $30 ROM dump getting a 'limited run' at retailers.
Quite simply, I would have brought my Wii for the Virtual Console alone, so if the games are not able to be transferred to the next console then the Wii stays with me forever.
Interesting that you spend your time trolling this failure.
I spoke a little bit about this on my podcast, to sum up what I said, I think the Virtual Console hasn't really been a failure in any sense, especially since it likely inspired a handful of retro-themed games like Mega Man 9 and 10. Still, I have to say I'm disappointed, because there's so many quality titles left off the list of available games, yet we're only seeing a few games released each month.
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