Nintendo teases two new Virtual Console consoles

I don't know if they would choose the GB/GBC console on the Zelda series alone, but based on previous software sales, GB/GBC games would seem the most likely, not only because of the Zelda games, but because of the Pokemon and Super Mario Land series. The second most likely console would seem to be GameBoy Advance, again because of the Pokemon series, and maybe the Golden Sun series.

But although the Pokemon series has a large following, the issue with bringing it to VC arises with emulating the handhelds' connectivity online. One of the main features in Pokemon games is the ability to trade monsters with friends, but it would not seem likely that Nintendo would add online support to their legacy Pokemon GB/GBC/GBA games on the VC because of the conversion of system link to online connectivity emulation. Base on the current games available for VC and Wii, it seems more likely that Nintendo would decide to develop a new stand alone downloadable Pokemon game with online support for the Wii, and even more likely, a disc version with online support.

Other than that, the most likely console would seem to be SMS with the Alex Kidd series, and maybe the original Phantasy Star. If none of those get picked, I think a more likely choice in terms of download size and graphic fidelity would probably be Arcade games. But unlike XBLA, Virtual Console Arcade games would probably not support online play, but local 2 player co-op is not too bad. They already have Blue's Journey!

yeah. i know they wouldnt choose to make game boy and game boy color games based on the zelda series alone. there are lots of other game boy and game boy color games that it would be based on. i just want to be able to play the zelda games again is all

Original Gameboy and Gameboy colour games would be easier to play with just the Wii-mote sine there are no L-R buttons, but i would love to be able to play Mario kart advance on my TV, then i would have them all :)

I also voted for the 'unrealistic', knowing fully that two downloaded games alone would kill the hard drive space.

Hopefully Nintendo will offer some kind of externally accessible drive in 2008... but I'm not holding my breath. ¬_¬"

Compression now is much better than it was "then" (saturn era, at least).

Textures, CD-audio, SoundFX, all these assets on saturn games can probably be compressed down to between 50-100 meg.

Less than that even.
A typical N64 game is only about 20mb.

Unless there's a hard drive, Dreamcast is not probable, given that most DC titles are as large or larger than Wii's entire internal memory.

The Wii hardware would not be able to emulate a console like the Dreamcast.

"The Wii hardware would not be able to emulate a console like the Dreamcast."

Based on what, exactly?

As far as downloads, not enough space. But it would be sweet for dreamcast disc support.

Yeah, its still never gonna happen.

For those complaining that Dreamcast games are too big...

Ikaruga, a normally 800mb game, is 17mb zipped.

"Based on what, exactly?"


Do you know how emulation works?

If (huge if) Dreamcast games were to ever appear on the Virtual Console, they would be more akin to ports than emulated games.

Not quite as hard as you make it seem. Especially since they have to go through Sega for it, and Sega has all technical specifications and source codes for saturn/dreamcast.

Most emulation is hard because of a) specialized hardware, and b) unknown tech. Since we do not know the exact specifications of saturn/dreamcast, we do not know exactly how hard it is to emulate.

Saturn is only technically impossible because i don't see them taking the time to build a working Saturn emulator (something that is very tough to do)

As others said, you could compress the hell out of the FMV, and use a sound format that is far more efficient than the Red Book format that was standard for the day, and what remains is no bigger than your standard N64 game (well, except for Panzer)

The Wii is unable to render in 4 dimensional space, or utilize the full power of emotional programming paradigms.

Maybe not PS3, but since Sony has less of a use for it now, PS2 support on Wii would be nice. :)

If they start releasing Wii demos they'll be on the Everybody's Nintendo channel along with the DS demos, not on the Virtual Console.

scummvm?

Only to some extent as Scummvm does seem to have its limitations. It would be like a dos emulator or something along those lines.

or the ti-99/4a

parsec ruled :)

They could do that as WiiWare, since it would be uber cheap to distribute, that way they wouldn't have to worry about not turning a profit on a title that is incredibly niche

It's almost impossible not to turn a profit on VC. I mean, how much could it possibly cost? Keep in mind that more than 80% of the VC revenue is pure profit.

...the translation taking so long might explain the delay in smash ! =O

omfg cospiraçy xD

Exactly why i feel GBA is unlikely, as it still sells, and either way you can buy the cartridges to run natively on your DS

I'm playing Fusion now, but Zero Mission was amazing.

By the time they got around to that, fans will have already finished it. I assume you already know about http://mother3.fobby.net/? Progress is apparently going well.

Demon Attack, FTW!

And Sewer Shark. You can't forget Sewer Shark.