Virtual Console

Virtual Console (バーチャルコンソール Bācharu Konsōru), sometimes abbreviated as VC, is a feature of the Wii that emulates older video game consoles and allows you to play games originally released for those consoles. This feature is supported by the Wii Shop Channel. The Virtual Console currently emulates the Nintendo Entertainment System, Super Nintendo Entertainment System and Nintendo 64, as well as the Sega Mega Drive/Genesis, NEC's TurboGrafx-16/PC Engine, the MSX computer and the Neo Geo home system.

Library history
While the gameplay remains unchanged for all of the classic titles offered for the Virtual Console, Nintendo has stated that some games may be improved with sharper graphics or better frame rates. While the company has stated that the Wii Shop will not be used exclusively for retro games, no original games have yet been made available through the service. As with disc-based games, 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.

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. 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. Added to the Japanese Virtual Console page was a heading for Neo Geo games. They will appear in late 2007 to all regions.

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 acquisition of Rare, but none of the three companies has 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.

Confirmed third-party companies supporting Virtual Console include: Atlus, Namco Bandai, Banpresto, Capcom, Chunsoft, D4 Enterprise, Enterbrain, G-mode, Irem, Jaleco, KEMCO, Koei, Midway Games, Natsume, NCS Masaya, Netfarm, Paon, Rocket Company, Konami, Spike, Square Enix, Sunsoft, SNK Playmore, Taito, Tecmo, Takara, and TOMY.

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.

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 three times 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
Games downloaded from the Virtual Console library are stored in the Wii's built-in 512 MB flash memory, though only less than 400 MB is actually available to the user. Games can be transferred to a removable SD card, but they cannot be played from this external memory. If the internal memory is filled, Virtual Console games can be deleted to create more room, and the games can be downloaded again at a later date at no additional cost. Virtual Console games are locked to the Wii on which they were purchased &mdash; they cannot be transferred to another Wii via an SD card. In the event that a Wii is damaged and the Virtual Console games can no longer be played, Nintendo provides support.

Control
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 also be used. This has meant that the wireless GameCube controller (the WaveBird) has seen increased popularity. The Nintendo Gamecube controller can be used for all Nintendo systems' games, however Nintendo's site claims that it cannot be used with some TurboGrafx-16 and Genesis/Mega Drive titles.

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.

* In some cases, not all buttons are mapped to the Wii Remote or GameCube controller. The game is still playable, but may not allow the player to utilize all of the controls originally provided on the original system's controller.

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 127 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 previously 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 123 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 Turbografx 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 121 titles available for the Australian and New Zealand Virtual Console. All updates so far have been the same as in Europe, excluding Turbografx games, as they were not originally released in Australia. Turbografx games were 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 173 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 rails on the track, the track no longer flashes in black like in the original SNES game.

Some Nintendo 64 games originally required peripheral hardware (which the Wii hardware does not support) in order to use these features, and they play the same way they originally would without the peripherals plugged in. For example, none of the Nintendo 64 Virtual Console games features force feedback, which required a separate Rumble Pak peripheral. Mario Kart 64 no longer supports saving of "Ghost Data," which originally required a separate Controller Pak on the Nintendo 64. However, interestingly, two NES games -- Excitebike and Mach Rider -- made use of a peripheral called the Famicom Data Recorder (not available in the United States) to save data of player-designed tracks and courses; this feature was fully implemented in their Virtual Console incarnations by way of saving the course data to the Wii's internal memory.

Some reviewers have reported that games play differently due to the different controllers. Super Mario World, for instance, has been cited as 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 and the Z button to the L button on the Classic controller, which some reviewers have described to be somewhat awkward.

Hardware differences aside, most Virtual Console games have been released unchanged from their original versions, (although some Nintendo 64 games render polygons at increased resolution). One significant exception is Tecmo Bowl, which originally featured real player names via the NFL Players Association, but because of licensing issues, their names have been removed, and only their numbers are shown. A similar case has occurred with Wave Race 64, which had all of the Kawasaki ad banners replaced with Wii and Nintendo DS banners, because Nintendo's license with Kawasaki expired. One other documented change is in Kid Icarus, whose password system has been altered.

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 game's 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 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.

One 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.