Gaming Why is Nintendo so STINGY with Virtual Console games?

[Edwii]

Like really, in less then a month the 3ds will have been out for 2 years now, and still "relatively" very few Virtual Console games. WHY? We know it can emulate anything from nes-GBA. The few games we do have available are pretty much terrible (never in my life have i ever wanted to revisit original game boy games(asides from pokemon). Most of the best games that were released were for the ambassador program(which I am lucky to have) and now no one else can get them.

Dear Nintendo, put some good games on the VC Like maybe SMB2/3/World, Earth bound, Golden-Sun and:

 

[McHaggis]

(never in my life have i ever wanted to revisit original game boy games(asides from pokemon)

What, you don't like Link's Awakening? Hey Nintendo, release Oracle of Seasons and Oracle of Ages and:

 

[Foxi4]

Maybe because people buy contemporary consoles to play contemporary games? I mean, I don't mind Virtual Console, but I could think of better uses for it, for example releasing games which weren't released outside of Japan, finally translated for our gaming pleasure.

 

[heartgold]

I have a theory that Nintendo is developing multi system purchase playable between the 3DS, Wii U and future systems. Isn't it strange for GBA software to appear on the Wii U and not the portable 3DS where GBA are already available. Now what if 3DS is going to have GBA support too, they are working on implanting a system where you buy NES or GBA games on Wii-U that can be played on your 3DS and vise-versa with a single purchase.

 

[Pong20302000]

we just want to play classics on our new consoles

 

[RodrigoDavy]

Nintendo does this, so you realize that using emulators and downloading roms illegaly is the best option

 

[Hielkenator]

Nintendo does this, so you realize that using emulators and downloading roms illegaly is the best option

????

Anyway the way nintendo distributes games is not by simply using an emulator and loading a game.
They tend to use methods to emulate every game on a separate basis using the consoles hardware wherever possible.
To achieve this it will cost time and money.
For third party games, there are lots of reasons not to re-release some games due to the copyrights.
at least that is what I suspect....

 

[RodrigoDavy]

Anyway the way nintendo distibutes games is not by simply using an emulator and loading a game.
They tend to use methods to emulate every game on a separate basis.

I am pretty sure they don't make a different emulator for every game. They probably only change the settings of the main emulator for each ROM and/or change the code of the emulator a little bit.

EDIT: Btw, you didn't get my point at all in the other post

EDIT2: Regular emulators also have game-specific behaviour for better compatibility in those games

 

[Elrinth]

it's all a long process of licensing. that's why. oh and they wanna be able to keep count on their sales

 

[VMM]

Dear Nintendo, put some good games on the VC Like maybe SMB2/3/World, Earth bound, Golden-Sun

When you say SMB2 do you mean american version or japanese one(The Lost Levels)?
Super Mario Bros The Lost Levels is already avaiable on e-shop, and Super Mario Bros 3 is coming to japanese e-shop soon.
We will probably get SMB3 this year on e-shop too.

Also, there are Kirby and Kid Icarus as 3D classics and SMB, Zelda and Metroid avaible
Also, there are some really nice third-party NES games been released: Megaman, Ghouls and Ghoblins, Ninja Gaiden, Super C etc

 

[Kikirini]

I'm guessing waiting in between gives current titles a chance to sell and the teams a chance to fine-tune the emulators and games.

Personally, I'm waiting for Wario Land 3, and for the Ambassador GBA games to finally get released. I want save states for Fire Emblem, god dammit.

 

[LockeCole_101629]

I've read it somewhere, by releasing old games to new consoles takes same amount of time to make completely new games, even worse since the whole system is different it may took longer since they had to rewrite it from zero, again... this is not on emulation process.

with so much effort to re-release old games to new system they might spend too much money/time for something that less people want.
and while we at it, it also applied to remake edition

 

[ShadowSoldier]

Like really, in less then a month the 3ds will have been out for 2 years now, and still "relatively" very few Virtual Console games. WHY? We know it can emulate anything from nes-GBA. The few games we do have available are pretty much terrible (never in my life have i ever wanted to revisit original game boy games(asides from pokemon). Most of the best games that were released were for the ambassador program(which I am lucky to have) and now no one else can get them.

Dear Nintendo, put some good games on the VC Like maybe SMB2/3/World, Earth bound, Golden-Sun and:

Says you the games aren't good.

 

[Clydefrosch]

it's all a long process of licensing. that's why. oh and they wanna be able to keep count on their sales

theres not all too much trouble in licencing, at least with their own first party software

I've read it somewhere, by releasing old games to new consoles takes same amount of time to make completely new games, even worse since the whole system is different it may took longer since they had to rewrite it from zero, again... this is not on emulation process.

with so much effort to re-release old games to new system they might spend too much money/time for something that less people want.
and while we at it, it also applied to remake edition

bullshit. if anyone knows how to easily emulate their own consoles, its the people that actually built them.
and if some guys on the internet can create emulators that basically give perfect compatibility, you'd expect nintendo to be able to do the same.
once someone gets behind all the encryption of those files, we will probably see that its basically a rom + emulator for every vc download.


i'll give them one thing, gba emulation probably is a little more work than the older consoles, i guess they really have to go and tweak settings there. but as for everything between nes and snes, they could send those out in dozens if they wanted too.
but they dont want that. its bad for the sales.


however, if they remake a game, yes thats different. pokemon heart gold and soul silver probably took about as much money as every other nintendo game to make after its out of its idea stage. however, theres a lot of things falling out again, developement didnt take as long probably, because most of the story, maps and pokemon were already there and didnt need any developement.

similar with black and white 2, there was a lot of work saved by reusing the old region.

so yeah. remakes cost money, but virtual ware, that is pretty much a money printer.

 

[Sychophantom]

Sometimes it has less to do with emulation and more to do with both quality control and making sure there aren't any exploits found.

Emulation is probably the easy part, but what if the save file to that emulated game could be used to launch other things? Or look at the Wii, and how you can inject other roms into certain VC games..... They probably want to make sure that doesn't happen again.

Nintendo does not want another situation like the DS and Wii, so they're locking down as much as they can. Call it a vicious circle if you will. The more you try to hack, the stronger they try to make the next system or firmware. Rinse, Repeat. Lather if you will.

 

[LockeCole_101629]

ooh rage...
if everything you said was as easy like you said... games gradually will have no value, since virtually can be easily made by guys on the internet, does it making it better?
I don't think so.

You are talking about emulation process.
if you want Nintendo releasing emulation software on official hardware it's not going to happen.
we already have technology for it, it's called computer, and most of it are FREE.

if you think about it this is why we don't have exclusive games anymore, since everyone (since you've said it)in the end want their games available on any device they use.
it's not just for 3DS but general gaming environment.

This whole backward compability is started by SONY with their PS2 over PS1 games
and Nintendo making same mistake.

again this is my opinion, I don't really care if you agreed or not.

 

[the_randomizer]

Nintendo does this, so you realize that using emulators and downloading roms illegaly is the best option

That's what I did on the Wii, I hacked it to play ROM files-- I mean I'm not satisfied with Nintendo refusing to renew copyrights and/or release certain games on the VC.

 

[Issac]

I've read it somewhere, by releasing old games to new consoles takes same amount of time to make completely new games, even worse since the whole system is different it may took longer since they had to rewrite it from zero, again... this is not on emulation process.

with so much effort to re-release old games to new system they might spend too much money/time for something that less people want.
and while we at it, it also applied to remake edition

You probably think of the 3D classic games that were released for the 3DS. Those had to be rebuilt from the ground up because it was hard to use the existing game when adding 3D features.
Virtual Console does not cost the same nor takes the same amount of time to release as a completely new game.

 

[LockeCole_101629]

I didn't said or think about it. I said I read it somewhere (wish I could remember where I read that)

 

[VampireLordAlucard]

ooh rage...
if everything you said was as easy like you said... games gradually will have no value, since virtually can be easily made by guys on the internet, does it making it better?
I don't think so.

You are talking about emulation process.
if you want Nintendo releasing emulation software on official hardware it's not going to happen.
we already have technology for it, it's called computer, and most of it are FREE.

if you think about it this is why we don't have exclusive games anymore, since everyone (since you've said it)in the end want their games available on any device they use.
it's not just for 3DS but general gaming environment.

This whole backward compability is started by SONY with their PS2 over PS1 games
and Nintendo making same mistake.

again this is my opinion, I don't really care if you agreed or not.

Just a couple points to make:

1. You may not realize it, but Virtual Console is a Nintendo programmed emulator, bundled with a ROM. It's proven. Exactly the same technology as fan-programmed emulators found online. There is no porting, or reprogramming the games involved.

2. Backward compatibility goes WAY back before the PS2. The Atari 7800 could play Atari 2600 games back in 1984.