Tecmo signs up for Wii Virtual Console

by Joystiq Staff { Aug 29th 2006 at 10:50PM }

Great news has just landed for many old-school gamers: Tecmo has pledged "aggressive" support for the Wii's Virtual Console. For those of us who used to have their own Tecmo Bowl leagues -- complete with individual player and team stats scribbled on notebook paper -- this is a very tasty morsel to pass before our eyes.

Besides side-scrolling football addicts, this could also prove to be a big seller for original Ninja Gaiden fans. The news was part of a financial report that outlined other facts such as a "worldwide simultaneous launch for Dead or Alive Xtreme 2 and a promise to tackle new titles, with Wii's Super Swing Golf Pangya given as an example."

Tags: Tecmo

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

skyrous @ Aug 29th 2006 11:09PM

Original Tecmo bowl on the Wii!

What could sony or microsoft possibly do to compete against that?

ReyBrujo @ Aug 29th 2006 11:13PM

Give me Captain Tsubasa... give me Captain Tsubasa...

Petrie @ Aug 29th 2006 11:13PM

Does anyone else find it as odd as I do, that this announcement has me more excited than any Madden title ever has? Let's hope they add some online play because that would put this one right over the top.

Yoshi Likes Boys @ Aug 29th 2006 11:16PM

That is the sound of a hundred thousand late 20s guys buying the Wii.

Chris Taran @ Aug 29th 2006 11:17PM

Tecmo Bowl + Super Tecmo Bowl = Best Football games -ever- produced.

Yellow Texan @ Aug 29th 2006 11:43PM

Of course, if Tecmo Bowl gets re-released for the Wii, it will probably be the original one (circa late 1980s a/k/a non-Super Bowl and the one shown on this blog entry) without NFL player's name. The reason is that licensing issues with the NFL and its Players association.

Or they could just use the Tecmo Super Bowl engine w/o NFL teams, trademarks, and players. Hopefully, they do that instead. Tecmo Super Bowl was far superior gameplaying wise even though it was super cool back then because it was only the few video games with both real NFL teams and players.

Donald @ Aug 29th 2006 11:51PM

YES! BO JACKSON RIDES AGAIN!!

jay cee @ Aug 30th 2006 12:03AM

now this is the reason i wanted to buy the wii

nootau @ Aug 30th 2006 12:04AM

Now can anyone tell me how Microsoft has not secured as many games as Nintendo has for their virtual console? Xbox Live arcade dates back to the original Xbox (late in its life of course)! I am confused on why Microsoft has not been able to secure AAA+ retro titles! They were doing ok with guantlet and smash tv, then nothing (and no...street fighter doesnt count lol...unless they give me street fighter 3). Nintendo has secured over 200+ titles, from hudson, tecmo, NEC, Sega, Namco, etc. What gives? were they just waiting for nintendo?

reguy @ Aug 30th 2006 12:16AM

@ jay cee

so you mean to say that you are going to spend some 250 dollars because you want to play a 17 year old game? Oh I forgot you also have to buy this game too.

How about an emulator? Its a new comp app that lets you play old games for free, i know i just heard of it too, I hear good things

Screw the wii

hey alex @ Aug 30th 2006 12:21AM

I suspect companies are eager to resell their older titles. And I don't imagine they care if it's to Nintendo, Microsoft, or Sony.

Microsoft seems to have certain 'requirements' to be a part of Xbox live. It's not just a matter of emulating the old game, they're seeking some new content, options, online multipler capability, or new graphics.

I suspect Nintendo is taking a different approach and saying, hey we just want the 'classic' game as is.

idioteraser @ Aug 30th 2006 12:23AM

The reason Nootau may have to deal with Nintendo's virtual console works. Since it seems incredibly adapative at different game console engines it is conceivable it could easily replicate any game from a past console. Rumors have said Sega Saturn games. I expect Nintendo if they are able to replicate other consoles from SEGA or NEC or say NEO-GEO, 3DO, Panasonic CD-i would keep the deals secret until the TGS or even at their launch event.

Imagine the shock that would cause.

Probot @ Aug 30th 2006 12:26AM

Nootau,

Nintendo has secured so many VC games because most of them are going to be from Nintendo. Sega, Hudson, and now Tecmo are the only companies pledging support right now, and they haven't said exactly how many games will be there. Do you have a source for Namco's commitment to VC? I'm sure they'll have their arcade stuff, since they re-release old games all the time and they've always been close with Nintendo, but I haven't heard anything official from them.

Xbox Live Arcade showed a lot of old school games at E3. Although most have been released dozens of times by now. Namco Museum games come to mind.

idioteraser @ Aug 30th 2006 12:27AM

reguy funny how you forget emulated ROMs are illegal. Also a lot of people would rather legally buy the titles if they are dirt cheap like itunes song prices. They don't have to deal with setting up the emulator, fugly problems that occur with emulators, awkard play sessions since a keyboard is not a gamepad, you have to find the ROM and lets face it no one wants to deal with viruses or other nasty stuff that is often attached to ROMS. Nintendo may very well throw in quite a number of games with each wii title purchased.

idioteraser @ Aug 30th 2006 12:29AM

Probot you forgot SNK. There is also the mere fact that a lot of game copyrights etc are under different owners and have to be tracked down. So there would be a lot of indivdual agreements that Nintendo wouldn't announce.

reguy @ Aug 30th 2006 12:39AM

@idioteraser

you really like living up to your name dont you? before you make statements like that please be ready to back it up. Now Im no lawyer or hyper mutant chicken but roms are NOT illegal if you own the original game. And im pretty sure 99% of the guys that want to buy tecmo bowl for the wii, bought the game and still have it in a box somewhere. Your next point is that nintendo might make these games dirt cheap, and if i know nintendo they wont be. Then you make finding roms to be the hardest thing in the world. Im surprised you didnt add this, "first you have to get up and go to the computer and touch the power button and wait for the os to boot up and then you have to click your profile and then you have to move your mouse till you find your web browser and then you have to double click." Heres what i do, go to google, type roms, and boom 30 sites pop up.

if i get a wii it will be for the exclusive NOT for something i can already get for free, thank you very much.

Alkaiser @ Aug 30th 2006 12:43AM

This is going to be interesting. Since Tecmo licensed this game way back in the day, is there a loophole that says they can still use the old rosters?

Otherwise, we're going with the fake rosters, which is cool as long as we're using the old rosters, and my '84 Dolphins are still in the game.

Probot @ Aug 30th 2006 12:47AM

I don't think SNK has mentioned Virtual Console support, just that they'll be making games for the system.

http://www.gamespot.com/ds/puzzle/snkvscapcomcardfightersds/news.html?sid=6148756

However, to correct my above comment, Hudson has said they'll have 100 games on VC.

http://www.nintendowiifanboy.com/2006/05/12/hudson-promises-100-games-for-virtual-console/

@reguy,

Roms are, in most cases, illegal. You can never download roms from the internet, even if you own a copy of the game. You are allowed to make a backup copy of a game you own, but it is non-transferable. Plus, putting someone else's game on a website to download is always illegal.

Nintendo has every right in the world to charge us for these games, and they can charge as much as they want. But they're not stupid. They'll charge what they expect us to play. Even with all the complaints about over-charging on the classic NES GBA games, people still baught them. They'll charge about what we'll pay for, or else they won't sell and no one wins.

futurebiblehero @ Aug 30th 2006 1:01AM

I'm usually not for tampering with classics, but it'd be great if they fixed the last level for Ninja Gaiden. Anyone who's ever legitimately beat that game can easily say that Ninja Gaiden's ultra-cheap last level almost revokes it's "legendary" status.

Pat @ Aug 30th 2006 1:13AM

alex,

playing emulators on PC just isnt the same if you dont have a gamepad. Thats why I just play it on my Xbox 1

shhhhhhhhh.

Erik Novak @ Aug 30th 2006 1:15AM

*sigh* never underestimate the power of nostolgia...

GSI @ Aug 30th 2006 2:13AM

@ reguy:

Please change your name to re-tarded-guy. The vast majority of people do not still own copies of Tecmo Bowl.

Plus guess what? Instead of being hunched in front of a monitor, some people like to *GASP* socialize and play multiplayer games with others face-to-face.

epobirs @ Aug 30th 2006 2:43AM

Should just be the first of many. It's hard to imagine a good reason for a company to turn down effortless new revenue on games five to twenty years old.

epobirs @ Aug 30th 2006 3:22AM

#9

Nootau, Nintendo and Microsoft are pursuing different product goals. Nintendo is replicating the experience of old platforms while Microsoft is seeking revivalsof old classics with new features, especially online multiplayer.

Of the two, Nintendo has the easier task. It already owns three major platforms, the NES, the SNES, and the N64, that between them represent a combined library in the thousands of unique titles. The first party products for those platforms that Nintendo owns outright would make a substantial offering. From there it is easy to attract support from companies that own games that also ran on those platforms. Unless they have some objections to how Nintendo structures things, they have little more to do than sit back and collect the payments sales of games whose development costs were paid off many years ago.

Emulating the NES and SNES is trivial. It's been done to perfection on far lesser hardware than the Wii, even at the most conservative of estimated specs for that machine. The N64 is a bit harder but still very doable, especially with full access to all the proprietary details of the chipset. Likewise, the Sega Genesis and TurboGrafx and very easy emulation targets for a modern system. Once licenses to each of those platforms are obtained from Sega and NEC/Hudson, the rest is pretty easy. It's likely both companies granted the licenses at no cost for the opportunity to place their old games for sale on the service alongside Nintendo's.

For third parties it's just a matter of agreeing to contractual terms and vetting an official binary. In the case of games published on Nintendo platforms, Nintendo already has those binaries. It's just a matter of getting permission to sell the games and make payment on those sales to the IP owners. It's easy money.

Microsoft doesn't have a backlog of old console platform to draw upon and less interest in just offering the old games as is. Games on XBLA are more likely to offer modes with updated graphics as well as online features, ingame accomplishments, and other Xbox Live oriented features. The XBLA library is necessarily smaller but also features much entirely new content alongside the classics.

While Microsoft doesn't have that set of old platforms with huge libraries to draw upon, their position in the software world gives them a big advantage in attracting very small, often first time, developers. The recently announced XNA initiative to allow amateur developers to very inexpensively create Xbox 360 games and distribute them freely via Xbox Live is something Nintendo cannot readily match.

Every company will seek to make offering that best suit their history and market position. Sony will draw upon the PS1 and PS2 in various ways. Sony make a similar offering to Microsoft by making the PS1 a semi-open platform for amateur developers to create game but without most of the limitations of the old Net Yaroze product. The resulting games could be hosted on Sony's online competitor to XBLA. Budding game developers get access to an old but serious platform and Sony gets a bunch of downloadable content for PS3 users for the small price of opening up a platform no longer worth the trouble of guarding.

That is just one possibility. Sony isn't going to sit still while the competition dominates the online console content market.

idioteraser @ Aug 30th 2006 4:11AM

In regards to 18 many copyright lawyers will tell you the backup clause could be interpreted by a court to mean the copyright holder not the end user. In fact the copyright law doesn't say the end user, the writers and law likely took the backup clause to be for archivel purposes of the company producing the music/software not everyone. You have to remember the copyright law for software and music are written long before easy to copy tech came along.

Most software companies will tell you making a copy of a game is not legal nor necessary. Just keep track of your stuff.

Dusty @ Aug 30th 2006 6:06AM

When Ninja Gaiden for the Xbox was being made, Tecmo had an online poll asking what system fans wanted the game to be on. The Gamecube was winning by a lot but they were just teasing us all along.

Martin @ Aug 30th 2006 7:47AM

reguy, it is illegal to download and play roms on an emulator.. What more.. according to the laws the legal copies that everyone is allowed to have actually are supposed to be copys that can be played on the system they were intended for... not on a computer. Read the laws before you spout out garbage...

I do wonder how they will do the NFL license though. Honestly, though should be able to keep it if it is the original game (otherwise every game out there that isn't madden would have to be pulled off of game shelves.) The thing about that is that it means the game cannot in anyway be updated or it makes it a new game... playing through the internet by the Wii tunnelling the control for 2 players could be possible but it would have to be done through a program outside of the original game.

Nintendo's King @ Aug 30th 2006 7:59AM

SNK Playmore has recently announced intentions to help support the Wii Virtual Console too.

H-QB @ Aug 30th 2006 8:12AM

I'll just say this about people who say "Nintendo/Microsoft/Sony are charging people for games that people could easily get a rom for" ...

You're a gamer who doesnt support the industry that provides you with the games you're playing.

Having said that though, i wish i wish they have Shining Force 1 and 2 ... that would be so cool.

idioteraser @ Aug 30th 2006 9:46AM

There is a river city ransom game for the gba. I don't think a lot of people know about it. http://www.gamespot.com/gba/action/rivercityransom/review.html

Todd H. @ Aug 30th 2006 9:51AM

Score 1 for the Wii. This won't be the reason I'll buy one, but it's just another factor that's making the Wii a nice second option to the 360.

Todd
http://www.proxbox360.com

hoos30 @ Aug 30th 2006 9:52AM

Thanks epobirs. That was very enlightening.

ManTan @ Aug 30th 2006 1:20PM

Ok, maybe I'm missing something so someone help me out. I will very likely have to pay for these old school NES games or I can emulate them for free on my PC. I know it's not technically legal and all but besides that, where is the advantage?

KrazyIan @ Aug 30th 2006 1:40PM

Doh! It should be Tecmo Super Bowl instead of just Tecmo Bowl, since the Super edition was just more goodness packed in.

SuicideNinja @ Aug 30th 2006 2:20PM

I'm actually starting to question if I'll care about the virtual console.

I can run NES ROMS on my PSOne and PS2...and I still have the Ninja Gaiden series for the Super Nintendo. In fact, I played Super Mario 2 on my PS2 the other day. We still have our NES's and several dozen games, but it's so much nicer to play on a newer controller and not have to switch cartridges. If we ever find the Powerpad, that might be a good reason to actually use the NES (USB adapters are 'spensive).

I think N64 games will be my only interest in the Virtual Console at this point.

Nintendo's King @ Aug 30th 2006 3:53PM

SNK Playmore has recently announced intentions to help support the Wii Virtual Console too.

Dr.Swiss @ Aug 30th 2006 5:12PM

As long as I'll eventually get River City Ransom, I'll be happy.

And yeah, I have roms up the ass for my comp, DS with flashcart, and my Palm LifeDrive.

Am I still going to buy games on the VC? Hell yes.
You can get a MAME emulator to play acracde games on your comp, why don't you go bitch at the XBLA users.