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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, a video game download service that is currently offered by Nintendo for its Wii gaming console. Described by Nintendo CEO Satoru Iwata as "the video game version of Apple's iTunes Store", the Virtual Console portion of the service allows Wii owners to emulate past Nintendo consoles and purchase games originally released for them (NES, SNES, and N64) and formerly competing systems, the Mega Drive/Genesis, the TurboGrafx-16, the MSX, and the Neo Geo.

Library history

While the gameplay remains unchanged for all of the classic titles offered via the Virtual Console, Nintendo has stated that some games may be improved with sharper graphics or better frame rates. The Virtual Console is region-locked, just as the Wii is region-locked for disc-based Wii games. The Wii Shop will not be used exclusively for retro games although currently no original games are available through the service.

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. This gives the companies a pool of over 200 Sega games from which to choose. 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. Nintendo announced MSX compatibility on September 19, 2006, announcing on February 23, 2007 that the MSX titles Eggy and Aleste will be released in Japan. Recently added to the Japanese Virtual Console page was a heading for Neo Geo games, which will also be coming in 2007 (worldwide) to Virtual Console.

As of January 2007, over 1.5 million classic games have been purchased via the Virtual Console.

On April 27 2007, Nintendo President Satoru Iwata stated that 3.3 million Virtual Console games had been downloaded worldwide.

On June 1 2007, Nintendo of America issued a press release to announce the upcoming release of its 100th Virtual Console title. 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.

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, 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. 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 would be unavailable for purchase due to Microsoft's accquisition of Rare, but none of the three companies have announced this. 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. Midway also plans to bring classic Mortal Kombat games to the Virtual Console.

Atlus, Namco Bandai, Banpresto, Capcom, Chunsoft, D4 Enterprise, Enterbrain, Irem, Jaleco, KEMCO, Koei, Midway Games, NCS Masaya, Netfarm, Paon, Rocket Company, Konami, Square Enix, Sunsoft, SNK Playmore, Taito, Tecmo, Takara, and TOMY are confirmed supporters.

Hudson has hinted that they will release original games to the Wii Shop.

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. Wii Points in the UK cost £7.00 per 1000 when buying them directly online by credit card, and a card with 2000 points typically retails in high street shops at £14.99. In the Eurozone points are €20 per 2000 on a card, or they can be purchased online in the same denominations as for the North American shop. In Singapore it is only possible to buy a 2000 points card for $38, from Funz Centre at AMK Hub .

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), 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.

The Wii Shop Channel has functionality to allow games to be updated. This has been used thrice so far to update Military Madness and Star Fox 64 (in North America and Europe) 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 and control

Games downloaded from Virtual Console library will be stored on Wii's built-in 512 MB flash memory, or on SD cards, though to play these games they must be copied back onto the Wii's internal memory. If the internal memory is filled, Virtual Console games can be deleted to create more room. If the player wants to play those deleted games at a later date, they can be downloaded again at no additional cost. The Virtual Console games are locked to the Wii they were bought on, so a player cannot play their Virtual Console games on another Wii by simply swapping the SD cards. In the event that a Wii is damaged and the Virtual Console games can no longer be played, Nintendo will provide support.

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.

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 Nintendo "Classic Controller" (sold separately from the console) can be used for all Virtual Console games. The controllers from the Nintendo GameCube can be used for all Nintendo systems' games, however Nintendo's site claims that it can only be used with some TurboGrafx-16 and Genesis/Mega Drive titles. This has meant that the wireless GameCube controller (the WaveBird) has seen increased popularity.

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)

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 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	Y
N64	N	Y	Y
Mega Drive/Genesis	Some	Y	Some
TurboGrafx-16	Y	Y	Some

• While Nintendo officially states that only "some" games are compatible, all currently available games for Mega Drive/Genesis and TurboGrafx-16 in all regions are compatible with all three controllers. The official Nintendo statement refers to the differences between the Genesis/TurboGrafx-16 controllers and the Wii Remote.

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) and consist of around 3 games on average. There are currently 106 Virtual Console titles available.

Though the Virtual Console titles initially only covered the games that have 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.. The first game to get this treatment was Battle Lode Runner for the TG16, which had never been released in North America, which was released on April 23, 2007.

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 Friday at midnight Central European Time (1 AM during daylight saving time). The number of games per update has varied, but is usually 2-3. There are currently 101 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. Indeed, Hudson have already released three TG16 games which were not originally released in Europe: Double Dungeons, Dragon's Curse, and Battle Lode Runner.

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. There are currently 77 titles available for the Australian and New Zealand Virtual Console. All updates so far have been the same as in Europe, excluding TurboGrafx-16 games, as they were not originally released in Australia. TurboGrafx-16 games will be added to the Australian and New Zealand Virtual Console on July 6 2007.

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. The store updates on Tuesdays. There are currently 140 titles available for the Japanese Virtual Console.

Criticism

Wired's Chris Kohler has protested the disparity between the American and Japanese libraries, both in quantity and quality. The difference between the two libraries has since become minimal, and he has changed his stance. 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. The pricing has also been criticized as too high, especially for the NES games, given the prices of many of the games on eBay and the near-zero costs of manufacture and distribution.

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. However, for various reasons, the gameplay experience is not always identical to the original. For example, in F-Zero, when the player hits the black walls on the track, the track no longer flashes in black like in the original SNES game.

Nintendo 64 games downloaded to the Virtual Console do not feature rumble feedback, including Star Fox 64 which originally came packaged with the Rumble Pak, and The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time which also utilized the Rumble Pak. Mario Kart 64 no longer supports saving of "Ghost Data," which Nintendo says is unfixable due to "unavoidable technical reasons." One other documented change is in Kid Icarus, whose "secret passwords" are no longer supported.

Some reviewers have claimed that games play differently due to the different controllers. Super Mario World, for instance, is more difficult to play due to the GameCube controller's button placement. The Classic Controller remedies this problem. 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, which some reviewers have described to be somewhat awkward.

Hardware differences aside, most games have been released unchanged from their original versions. One significant exception is Tecmo Bowl, which originally featured real player names via the NFL Players Association. As the players have since retired (and thus no longer in the Players Association), their names have been removed, and only their numbers are shown.

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.

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, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 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).

Some games (example: Super Mario Bros.) were changed to compensate the drop in framerate by adjusting the games inner logic (i.e.: characters running faster)

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-16 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.

A particularly obvious 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, despite the fact that the GameCube release Sonic Mega Collection allows PAL users to choose which version of the game they want to play.

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, including Super Castlevania IV and Super Mario Bros. The mode can be disabled by using the same method, but with the button combination Z + A + 1 instead.

Languages

This section does not cite any sources. Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Virtual Console" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (May 2007) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

In the European Virtual Console some, but not all, games are available in the languages they were originally published in. Some games are multilingual (as they were in their original form, such as Super Mario 64), others are available in multiple versions (for example, The Legend Of Zelda: A Link To The Past). The Wii's country setting decides which version will be available for download. If a user wants to download more than one version, he is charged once per version - that is, the French version of The Legend Of Zelda: A Link To The Past is considered a different game from the English version.

Some games are not available in languages which they were originally published. An example for a game not available in all of its original language choices is Kirby's Adventure. The NES game was published in a fully localized version in Germany, but only the English version has been made available for users connecting to the Wii Shop Channel, with a German country setting, at the time of the game's Virtual Console release.

See also

• Software emulation
• Wii Menu
• Xbox Live Arcade

References

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External links

• Nintendo - Official Nintendo Website
• Virtual Console - Official Virtual Console site

• Nintendo consoles
• Multi-emulators
• Nintendo Entertainment System emulators
• Super NES emulators
• Nintendo 64 emulators
• Sega Mega Drive/Sega Genesis emulators
• TurboGrafx-16 emulators
• MSX emulators
• Wii