Virtual Console
The Virtual Console is a discontinued line of downloadable video games for Nintendo's Wii, Nintendo 3DS, and Wii U video game consoles. The Virtual Console game library consisted of games previously released on past consoles and were generally run in their original forms through software emulation and purchased through the Wii Shop Channel or Nintendo eShop.
On Wii and Wii U, the Virtual Console's library of past games consisted of titles originating from the Nintendo Entertainment System, Super Nintendo Entertainment System, Game Boy, Game Boy Color, Nintendo 64, Game Boy Advance, and Nintendo DS, as well as Sega's Master System, Genesis and Game Gear, NEC's TurboGrafx-16, and SNK's Neo Geo. The service for the Wii also included games for platforms that were sold only in select regions, such as the Commodore 64 and Microsoft's and ASCII's MSX, as well as Virtual Console Arcade, which allowed players to download video arcade games. On the other hand, the Virtual Console on Nintendo 3DS had a smaller library consisting of NES, SNES, Game Boy, Game Boy Color, Game Boy Advance and Game Gear titles.
Launching with the Wii at the end of 2006, Virtual Console titles had been downloaded over ten million times as of early 2008. The distribution of past games through the Virtual Console is one of Nintendo's reasons for opposing software piracy of old console games. On January 30, 2019, the Virtual Console service was discontinued on the Wii, with the closure of the Wii Shop Channel. On March 27, 2023, the Virtual Console service was discontinued on the Wii U and Nintendo 3DS. Purchased titles remain playable.
List of Virtual Console games
Japan
There were 38 Famicom, Super Famicom, Nintendo 64, Sega Mega Drive, and PC Engine games available at launch on the Wii Virtual Console for the Japanese region. The Nintendo 3DS Virtual Console launched with 7 Game Boy and Game Boy Color titles. New Virtual Console software is added on Tuesdays and Wednesdays at 2:00 pm JST and there were a total of 659 titles for the Wii, 244 titles for the 3DS and 466 titles for the Wii U available.North America
There were 12 total NES, SNES, N64, and Sega Genesis games available at launch on the Wii Virtual Console for the North American region. Two TurboGrafx-16 titles were added two days later on November 21, 2006. The Nintendo 3DS Virtual Console launched with 4 Game Boy and Game Boy Color titles. North America saw its first release of Commodore 64 games on the service on February 23, 2009, and its first Virtual Console Arcade games on March 25, 2009. There were 398 titles for the Wii, 172 title for the 3DS and 267 titles for the Wii U available.Though the Virtual Console lineup initially only covered games that had been released in North America, George Harrison indicated 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. This later came to reality, and former Japan-only games have appeared on the North American Virtual Console. The first game to be added with such localization was Sin and Punishment for the Nintendo 64. While other previous Japan-only titles had been released through the Virtual Console prior to this, the first being Battle Lode Runner from the TurboGrafx-16, added on April 23, 2007, this and all others were originally written in English and required no localization. Despite the fact others fit the category, there are currently 25 titles listed under the "Import" genre with 1 removed: Sin and Punishment, Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels, Ninja JaJaMaru-kun, Alien Soldier, DoReMi Fantasy: Milon's DokiDoki Adventure, Puyo Puyo 2, Bio Miracle Bokutte Upa, Dig Dug, Gley Lancer, Super Fantasy Zone, Break In, Star Parodier, Cho Aniki, Final Soldier, Digital Champ: Battle Boxing, Gradius II: Gofer no Yabou, Bomberman '94, Detana!! TwinBee, Wonder Boy III: Monster Lair, Pulseman, Secret Command, Street Fighter II: Champion Edition, Castlevania: Rondo of Blood, Ironclad, Ufouria: The Saga and Monster World IV. Furthermore, at least two import titles were released without any English translation, and thus only Japanese text is available in these games while Monster World IV was fully translated to English.
PAL region
A total of 17 NES, SNES, N64, Sega Mega Drive and TurboGrafx titles were available at launch on the Virtual Console in Europe and 11 titles for the Oceanic region. There were 385 titles in Europe and 384 titles in Australia and New Zealand for the Wii, 168 titles for Nintendo 3DS and 258 titles for Wii U available.Though the Virtual Console titles primarily cover only the games that have been released in Europe, Nintendo UK has 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 such as Super Mario RPG, which was released on the European Virtual Console on August 22, 2008, after being unreleased in that region for 12 years. In March 2007, Hudson released three TurboGrafx games which were not originally released in Europe: Double Dungeons, Dragon's Curse, and Battle Lode Runner. Five Hanabi Festivals have been held since, releasing former Japanese and/or North American exclusive titles.
Wii
Library history
The first few Virtual Console games were released to the Wii Shop Channel on November 19, 2006, alongside the launch of the Wii.While the gameplay remains unchanged for all of the classic titles offered for the Virtual Console, Nintendo stated that some games could be improved with sharper graphics or better frame rates. In reality, however, many games suffered from drops in frame rate or had graphical glitches not present in the original, and many PAL SNES games ran with significantly reduced borders compared to the original cartridge releases. As with disc-based games, the Virtual Console service was region-locked—that is, different versions of games are provided to different regions, and game availability varied from region to region.
Satoru Iwata stated in a speech on March 23, 2006, that Nintendo, Sega, and Hudson Soft were working in collaboration to bring a "best of" series of games to the Wii. At E3 2006, Hudson also declared it would bring upwards of 100 titles to the Wii's Virtual Console. Additionally, Hudson mentioned that its lawyers were 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 would be released in Japan. In February 2007, a heading for Neo Geo AES games was added to the Japanese Virtual Console page, and in September of that same year, games for that system appeared on the list of future releases, priced at 900 points each. Also in September Hudson announced that games made for the TurboGrafx-CD format would also join the Virtual Console beginning in October 2007, with five titles to be released for the remainder of 2007 and ten titles for 2008, each priced at 800 points.
On June 1, 2007, Nintendo of America issued a press release to announce the upcoming release of its 100th Virtual Console title, which was Zelda II: The Adventure of Link. 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.
Neo Geo AES support was added on September 18, 2007, for the Japanese Virtual Console, becoming the first addition to the list of consoles since the TurboGrafx-16 was added two days after the U.S. launch.
On October 9, 2007, Nintendo announced that 7.8 million Virtual Console titles had been downloaded, and as of December 2007, this number topped ten million.
Games from several new past consoles were added during 2008: Master System on February 26, 2008, for Japan's Virtual Console; Commodore 64 support was added on March 28, 2008, for Europe's Virtual Console. and MSX support was added on May 27, 2008, for Japan's Virtual Console.
On February 23, 2009, the first three Commodore 64 titles were added to the North America Virtual Console for the first time.
On March 25, 2009, simultaneously with Nintendo's Keynote Speech at Game Developers Conference, Nintendo launched 'Virtual Console Arcade', launching with four titles, Mappy, The Tower of Druaga, Star Force and Gaplus.
On February 4, 2011, Sega announced that a Virtual Console release of Puyo Puyo, released in Japan in Spring 2011, is the first Virtual Console to feature Wi-Fi support for online multiplayer.
The Wii Shop Channel had functionality to allow games to be updated. This was used to update Military Madness, Star Fox 64/Lylat Wars, Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards, and Mario Kart 64. Several NES and SNES games released before March 30, 2007 were also given updates in Europe and Australia to fix previous problems with the Wii component cables. These updates are free of charge to those who purchased a previous version of the game.
In later years, some games were removed from the service due to their licenses expiring, namely R-Type and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, among others. The three Donkey Kong Country SNES games produced by Rare were withdrawn for unknown reasons despite Nintendo retaining the rights to them, and were later reinstated after being added to the Wii U eShop. Sonic the Hedgehog and its sequel Sonic the Hedgehog 2 were both removed in Japan in 2012. While the games returned to the Wii Shop Channel in 2013, they were removed yet again on October 30, 2015, on the Japanese Wii Shop Channel and Xbox Live Arcade in that region while the 3D Classics versions ported by M2 were still available on the Nintendo 3DS for download via the 3DS eShop. However, the games would remain available in both North America and Europe on the Wii Shop Channel and Xbox Live Arcade. While these and other removed titles can no longer be found or purchased from the Shop Channel, they remain available to those who have purchased them prior to their removal. Such users may still re-download them on their Wii consoles and even transfer them to a Wii U system using the "system transfer" tool. Any Wii Virtual Console titles can be transferred to the Wii U and played via its Wii Mode.