Is Nintendo Giving Up on Virtual Console?

[BanjoPickles1]

I'll be honest, VC was one of my favorite aspects of the Wii. For the first two-plus years, retro enthusiasts had two-to-three games to look forward to. Some decried the erratic quality of the releases, but that was part of the fun for me! I loved that I was finally getting a chance to play a grab bag of old Turbo Grafx-16 games, and I could finally have a NEO Geo collection!

I was initially a bit annoyed when they started paring the VC releases back a tad as a result of WiiWare. It was all well and good when games like Mega Man 9, Lit, Swords and Soldiers, and Lostwinds came about, but I hated that a lot of the WiiWare junk was nudging out one of the main reasons I purchased a Wii.

Anyway.......

The 3DS. I have loved amassing a decent collection of NES games to take on the go. However, there are a few things that worry/irritate me.

1). Worry. Nintendo of Japan hasn't released a single VC game on the 3DS, save for one 3D Classic, since May! That's five months, with no end in sight! Nintendo, in typically tight-lipped form, hasn't said a thing about it.

2). Nintendo of America has adopted this extremely annoying 3DS release schedule for 3DS: one week on, one week off. This is annoying enough, but what really sucks about this is that they will often go even longer than that, and still only release one game!

3). Wii U. Two years in, and three systems to pick from (NES, SNES, and GBA). What happened to the GameCube support that Nintendo discussed during the unveiling? Sega has already said that they have no plans to put their games on the service. Nintendo doesn't even have N64 support for the thing!

I know that this is an extremely whiney post, but I feel like Nintendo is slowly pulling the plug on one of my favorite services on their modern day consoles. Does anybody else feel as frustrated about this as I do?

[BanjoPickles1]

Yeah, the lack of a unified system has been a sour spot with me for a long time. I remember when I got my PS3 and downloaded Final Fantasy VII, I was shocked to find out that I could also download it to my PSP.....then to my Vita! "Ummm, why is Nintendo not doing this?"

I don't think that they're working on something big with the VC. I seriously am starting to believe that it is slowly being phased out. Nintendo is barely doing anything with it anymore, regardless of region.

[ActRaiser1]

Yeah, Nintendo definitely knows how to nickle and dime you to death.  Sony really figured out how to increase sales by offering cross-buys on their games.  Buy it one place, play it everywhere.  That's freaking awesome.

The other odd thing about Nintendo's VC is its odd choice of games.  Urban Champion?  Who on earth asked for that?

It would be different if they went through their entire back catalog and uploaded everything that worked that did not require tweaks or modifications.  For the rest, I can see taking time to optimize the roms / code as needed due to sound issues or graphical glitches.

Lastly, their pricing is too high on random, not all that great of a game to begin with, games.  If they'd lower the price on some, I'd be willing to buy more.

[Astrosmasher1]

I feel for you BP.  I hope the service picks up.   Nothing like a bit of retro.  I was playing the Crapcom collection on my 360 for much of yesterday. 

[BanjoPickles1]

I'm just worried that Nintendo's abandonment of the service in Japan will find it's way here. I can't find any information on it, other than they simply stopped releasing them. No rhyme, no reason. They are releasing two games a month to the 3DS, tops! I'm not expecting them to go back to releasing three games a week, but is it unreasonable to expect a game a week??

[Tron1]

Maybe they're working on putting together collections on cartridges to sell via retail?

[ActRaiser1]

[QUOTE=Tron]Maybe they're working on putting together collections on cartridges to sell via retail?[/QUOTE]

  You're probably right.

[Greisha1]

SNES-2?