Nintendo: Virtual Console games "have not been changed"

YES! I can finally play Final Fantasy I!
I hate all the new sprites that try to dress it up, I want the classic look to it, and the classic challange.

If I remember correctly, Street Fighter 2 for the SNES had online play. Hopefully they keep it in.

$10 for "Super Mario 64"? Worth every penny. You might be getting ripped off on the NES and SNES titles, but the N64 titles are a good deal.

THREE STRIKES UR OUT NINTENDO LOL

are you guys crazy? the gba versions of old nes games add gay and annoying sounds and make mario say "gotcha" in his n64 every sec.

I'M HAPPY WITH THE NEWS!

Blake,

I would just like to let you know that your comment about "charging a buck" was not lost on everyone. I, for one, understood that this comment really demonstrated that the VC is going to go gangbusters and be the next itunes. I don't know why people are attacking you for this comment.

"Damned if you do, damned if you don't. If they changed them, people would complain. If they don't change them, people complain. Just quit your bitching, and enjoy the chance to relive old memories legally."

I couldn't have put it better myself. Either way Nintendo is going to have a bunch of whiny gamers yelling at them. And either way they're going to sell tons and tons of downloaded classics. I personally love that they're not changing anything. It's a huge relief to me. Why on earth would I want them to change the classics? They're some of the greatest games ever made. Graphics upgrades? That's like adding a crappy club beat and some rap verses over the White Album. (Oh damn, someone actually did that!) Or it's like adding terrible computer generated effects to the original Star Wars trilogy. (Remember how we all hated that?) To me, this is Nintendo selling us quality, untouched classics that I can't wait to replay the same way I did as a child. How does that equate to "a less than CD-quality music download"? It doesn't. In fact that is exactly how I've always felt about ROMs. They're free and that's great but they're less than system quality downloads.

I'm sick of having to fight with my old NES to get it working and I'm sick of awful ROMs with horrible reconstructed music that I have to play with a garbage PC game controller. I want the real thing and I want to play it on a Nintendo.

I'm sure all of us would like to have additional features etc to old games,but come to think about it, if all did, how many VC games will we get? Let nintendo bring out the classics first, then they can rework them when there is a healthy supply of games out.

I for one am happy that they are making these games available original and unaltered. Imagine if you went to iTunes to download Pink Floyd's "Wish Your Were Here", only to discover that they had added some funky snare drums and extra vocals or something - people wouldn't stand for it. If I want to buy classic Nintendo game, I want to buy the game that became a classic, not a revised "cover version" of it.

Its really just that quanity over quality metaphor. 10 VC games a month, compared to maybe 2-3 if they were revamped. In some cases it'd be nice, theres nothing more id rather see than my favorite N64 party games to be online (SSB, Mario Party, Mario Kart, etc.), but others id be a waste of time, like #50 David said.

Im tired of seeing my beloved Original Super Mario Bros dressed up by flashy new sprites, and animations.

Spare me the Pixels.

I don't think this is necessarily a bad thing. Think about it. Die hard Nintendo fans are willing to dish out much more than 5$ for their favorite classics on carts. When it comes to the original Nintendo in America that was very glitchy due to the poor hardware design. So, consider this a bargain.

- 46. You're quite deluded if you think everyone is willing to DL their potentially corrupt ROMs from dubious sites, mess around with settings on their emus, and then settle for no/low/less than perfect compatibility with their Nin games.

What? Ive got a whole library of roms and have never had to mess around or anything. I just fire them up and play (lest I beam them to my pda)

I think the point is - if theres no new features to warrent the purchase, why should we be inclined to do it? I mean, in this sense the ipod analogy is flawed, as at least the MP3 can be uploaded to the player and thus offer portability as a feature. Perhaps nintendo will offer a way to put VC games on the DS, which would offer an insentive to get them. In absence of somthing like this, theres just not allure to the VC games. I mean, not even a save feature? Replaying levels again and again might have been where gaming was at when I was a kid, my gaming tastes are now accustomed to a more fluent and less repetative experience. A save feature, at least, should have been included.

And to be honest, theyre shooting themselves in the foot by not offering online play. This feature would be a literally massive draw to the products, with the potential to triple the amount of VC games sold.

Furthermore, this 'staying faithful to the original' speil is, frankly, lies. It didnt bother them with the GBA ports of old games that were the same in terms of content but had a graphical overhaul. There is another, financial reason preventing the games being updated. My guess is that they can release 'deluxe' versions later down the line, with online play and saving etc. As darstardly as such a move would be, i would welcome it, as the possible prospect of playing:

Mario Kart
Bomberman
Worms
Street Fighter
Mortal Kombat
Virtua Racing (?)

et al online with friends and challangers is captivating.

With any luck, the nintendo masterminds will give us a way to have online play and save on wii, AND the same features offered when the same rom is beamed to DS SD card adapter.. The DS couldm sync your saves and buddy lists, so that DS would perform as a fully functioning portable VC - Online play and all!

"Id buy THAT for a dollar!"

Everyone seems to be missing the point. The Wii is not about an online community, it's about getting all the players in the same room! Nobody this generation is going to beat Xbox Live for online multiplayer. But gathering a couple friends together for some in person multiplayer nostalgia sessions will be what the Wii does best.

Would you believe me this games may not be really targeted at all of you? Why?

-Most of you probably been using emulators since 90's.
-Could care less about paying $5 for an old rom.
-expect an updated game since you are already bored with playing illegal roms you play on Pc, portable emulators, Xbox & Ps2.
-Will try to load roms the very first moment you start your Wii, to see if Nintendo leave the backdoor open for pirates.

This is for gamers who don't know how to do all for free and new players that might want to try the past games. Imagine all the references to the Super Mario Bros sprite in everything from clothes to tv shows just avoided by flashier graphics. There's already Super Mario Allstars for Snes graphics & New Super Mario Bros in 3d.

I would've liked to see at least a save feature on the games that would benefit from it. That was the best part about the Megaman re-releases, you could save without having to write passwords on random pieces of paper. If I had a nickel for every time I lost my password sheet...

It would've also been nice to be able to play through Mario without having to leave the console on. I guess though, that technically you could just wait until SMB All-Stars releases and just play it through that way.

Bitch bitch bitch.

If they changed the graphics then people would be complaining that they altered these classics.

Another total shit article brought to you by Joystiq. The point of the classic games is to play them like they were....idiot.

"That's like charging a buck for a less than CD-quality music download..."
Is this meant as a sly dig at Apple maybe? Specifically, that they've managed to make such a huge success at selling substandard content (less than CD-quality music)?
That's not my opinion btw, personally I like the fact that you'll be getting the real deal and not some lame attempt at an update. Put it this way, if you're shelling out for Star Wars on DVD would you rather get the original version or the crappy touched up remastered version?

This emulation argument is so old and so tired. Copyright infringement/piracy is really only justifiable when there's no available legal option. You stick with whatever you want, nobody's about to burn your house down and put you in jail for emulation.

Personally, I will be purchasing VC games for easily available wireless multiplayer around a TV with my *gasp* friends, and naturally, to finally play these games with a decent D-Pad, since the one on the classic controller looks to be bitchin'. And it really doesn't matter what the 1% of gamers who use emulators think, since the other 99% will go for the legal option for games that they haven't played in years.

You expect some doof off the street to be able to mod his xbox and install an emulator? Besides, anyone who plays oldschool games with that catastrophe of a controller is only hurting himself and deserves what's coming to him. It's a fine business strategy for Nintendo, so give up your "I LIKE MY ROMS" argument. I will be speaking with my wallet to let Nintendo know I fully support the memory of the classics and hope for more accessible retro goodness and hopefully more multiplayer. The sitcom fans who shrugged off bittorrent (which is free) and downloaded episodes of the Office on iTunes saved the show from cancellation.

Having a system which, once these games are available, will be able to, for $18 combined, instantly download (and, Nintendo's already announced that they'll let you redownload if your console is broken or stolen) two of the five greatest games of all time, is an ideal that I'd like to support. I did the same thing for the Game Boy Advance, since the focus of portable gaming was a style of gaming I appreciate and was glad to see kept alive. (Thanks again Igarashi) I'm sorry that you don't feel strongly enough about the REAL age of gaming to whip out a couple dollars and support a true effort to keep the classics alive. Anything that gets me that and a legal system which I can gather around with friends and play Mario Kart 64, 4-player Bomberman, SSBM(&B), Tecmo Super Bowl, and Wario Ware from one box is fine by me.

All of this doesn't matter since the only people who would use emulators as a substitute, like I said, constitute less than 1% of gamers. The other 99% are ripe for the picking; someone can pick up a Wii from Wal-Mart and ask "what should I get for it?" and the door to the greats is wide open and ready to be walked through. A world where you can reply "$8 will get you Super Metroid," ESPECIALLY to those who are too young to have played it the first time, and have them able to experience all the greatest games the way they should be experienced, with a genuine controller, on a real TV, right out of the box with no complexity necessary, reminding people why they fell in love with gaming in the first place, and opening new eyes up to the greatest works of gaming our cultures have ever created, is a world of gaming that I'd like to be a part of.

"Damned if you do, damned if you don't."

Is "do both" too easy an answer? Is there not enough width on the Internets tubing for SNES Super Mario Bros. Classic and Super Mario Bros. 2006?

I would at least like to see the virtual console games maintain their high score settings. In most of the old games those fields were totally useless because they didn't persist. I wonder if VC games are considered to be in a running state at all times so that these values would be saved?

I certainly hope that by the time password protected games come around that they manage to permit the simplified style of saving games that we've come to expect today.

Oh, and don't forget the ruined version of SMB-2 that appeared on the Gameboy Advance. The SNES update was a perfect update, but the GBA version had all sorts of nonsense, flakey scrolling issues, and last but not least: the horrible vocalwork that's found in the modern games.

I expected nothing less from the folks who tried to sell us a no-frills Excitebike and Castlevania on the GBA for 20 FREAKIN' DOLLARS!

I really don't understand how adding leaderboards and online multiplayer for games like Bomberman and Contra constitutes "ruining the classics."

Are all you people commenting on this article so blindly loyal to the big N that you won't admit that it'd be a nice improvement to be able to play games that you download via the Internet with your friends, via that same Internet? Come on, please. How could you say you'd rather have local multiplayer only, rather than both local and online? You're all crazy.

I'm actually holding off buying a Wii for now simply because the online capabilities look so weak. I really like some of the stuff they're doing with online channels, the virtual console, etc., but to have an online console in this day and age without having online multiplayer for any titles is just bizarre. Hopefully they'll get on board with this at some point during the life of the console. I can't see myself paying more than $125 for a game console that I can't play with my far-flung friends.

On xbox arcade, they offer the games with the enhanced graphics and you also have the option to play with the original. Why couldn't nintendo do this with some of these games. Xbox offers the choice, I'm sure nintendo could. Offer super mario bros. with enhanced visuals or have the option to play the original.

Meh, I'd expect no less from "Online gameing is just a fad" nintendo.

*Alex: "If Nintendo changed the VC games then there would be people saying "Why couldn't they just leave it like it was?", people wantteh original, not a remix. It was a good move by Nintendo to do nothing new on the VC games."

Yeah, we all know there's no way to let people choose what graphics/feature set they want to use. When most PC games are remade (notable examples include "Star Control: The Ur-Quan Masters" and "ZDoom"), they usually give you many options to play the game as it originally was, or include various gameplay tweaks, graphics filters, and so on. Why don't console companies do this? Because... it would cost them money. Oh no!

What about ORIGINAL Virtual Console titles? Isn't selling the same old games over and over against what Wii is supposed to represent? Where are all these amazing Indie titles that were supposed to make VC a coder's paradise? Is Nintendo going to monopolize VC for themselves for the first year?

I can't believe how fat and lazy Nintendo is being this generation. This is not the Nintendo I used to love so many years ago. If you buy a new game machine, you expect new games.

And Nintendo fanboys thought playing Playstation games on the PS2 was absurd!

@ #62
"..... as at least the MP3 can be uploaded to the player and thus offer portability as a feature. Perhaps nintendo will offer a way to put VC games on the DS, which would offer an insentive to get them. In absence of somthing like this, theres just not allure to the VC games. I mean, not even a save feature? Replaying levels again and again might have been where gaming was at when I was a kid, my gaming tastes are now accustomed to a more fluent and less repetative experience. A save feature, at least, should have been included."

The mp3 comparison is an apples to oranges comparison. iTunes and music DL services did NOT introduce portability. Ppl were enjoying their mp3s on the go before those services b/c they filled their MP3 players units with music they got off of p2p and college/university dormitory networks. DL services just gave ppl a legal and safe place to get their music (altho some would argue not necessarily better than the illegal ways, but that's another argument entirely). Otherwise, mp3s were always on the go.

As for what extras VC offers for many ppl, it gives them the convenience of:
1) having all these consoles available in the Wii rather than having to hookup an NES, SNES, gene, TG16, and n64 to the TV, or swapping out the hookup cables
2) Yeah, you could go to Ebay for these games as low as $0.01.
But...
a) availability....you have to find them online or at a EB/GS. Something the VC isn't too strong about with it's low # of titles available. However...
b) save time....it still takes longer for a cartridge to be shipped over or for someone to look around stores than for the game to be DL-ed
c) u have to store 500+ physical cartridges/CDs

That's Y others will appreciate the VC. For those who use emus and ROMs, an NES emu IS relatively simple. However, as much as I don't like to think of ppl as simpletons, I must remind that there are ppl who can't do simple PC tasks like software maintenance, use basic utilties without instructions, or even load up a bit torrent. There's no chance in hell they'll be able to tweak an emu the way they want.

I will confess a save feature is nice. Something I have appreciated. However, if you throw this argument in, then all the adults will also argue that you should be able to save anywhere in their PS3, Wii, and 360 games like Final Fantasy series, GTA series, Halo, Mario, etc. It's just waaay too much time to replay parts of a game over and over again from a designated save point. After all, if emu programmers figured out how to implement save states for old school consoles. It's definately do-able in modern/nex-gen consoles

5-10 bucks eh? I'd buy NES games for $2, SNES for $5 and N64 for 7 and that's it. 5-10 for even NES means I'll play my utterly sweet Nester DC SE till the end of time, or my modded xbox, etc.

"That's like charging a buck for a less than CD-quality music download..."

No, it's not. It's like charging a buck for a song that was previously only available on vinyl and making it available for you to play on your newest piece of hardware. Where's the problem?

LISTEN!!!

All I want is to be able to download Virtual games with 2 player simultaneous play like the original Contra or Double Dragon II and play with my friends that live in other states online.

IS THAT TOO MUCH TO ASK FOR??????