Virtual Console Rip-off
 

So I sent Nintendo an email asking about what happens to my virtual console games if my Wii was to break down, and I had to send it in for a replacement. Nintendo sent me a reply stating that any games bought for the virtual console are locked to the console's serial number, and are not transferable or refundable, and that I would have to purchase them again. They told me that I'm not buying the games, instead I am paying for the privilege to play them, and that if i have to exchange my system for a new one, that privilege is revoked. And here I thought Nintendo was an honest company.

Yeah, pretty much.

From what I've read, if your console breaks and you send it in to Nintendo, they'll transfer your games to the replacement system.

Well, technically, they WERE pretty honest about it.

Personally I think the VC is a rip-off in pretty much every way. Ridiculously expensive compared to buying compilation packs, and more limited and restricting than other download services like Steam (and even that has problems).

I'll wait until they can design a system that has fair pricing and the freedom to do whatever you want with the games you purchase instead of being constrained to only being able to play them on a single console and basically being screwed in any number of situations.

You mean they aren't honest by telling you straight out that you won't have your Virtual Console romsgames on a repaired machine?

Actually this doesn't make all that much sense. If Virtual Console games are exclusive to each Wii, how does that make for Wii trade value? That would mean "Wii + x Virtual Console games" auctions would be appearing on ebay.

The honesty part falls on the fact that they've worded the parts about linking your My Nintendo account to your Wii shop account to seem like the games you buy are tied to your account, and not the machine you "purchase" them on.

From what I understand, you're technically not supposed to transfer a Wii over to someone with the games purchased. The games are licensed to the person and not to the console, which means that they expect you to wipe your data when you trade it in/sell it to someone.

As such, Nintendo would probably force eBay to shut down any auctions that include pre-purchased Virtual Console games.

If you log into your my.nintendo.com you'll notice it's your account you added on your Wii Shop.

Your Wii friend code has nothing to do with your VC games. In fact, logging into your account on Nintendo's site will show what games you've purchased/registered. I wouldn't worry.

Well, if you take into account the durability of the nintendo system over the years, as long as you don't stick some sort of explosive inside of the system, you should be good to go as far as lifetime value.

Grail has a point. I don't see Nintendo having any problems with longevity. I still have a launch GameCube that works fine.

I still have a launch N64 that works fine. I know people with working SNESes and NESes.

People talking about "fair" pricing really bugs me. The prices are totally reasonable, IMO. $12 for Super Mario 64? That's pretty sweet, since I can play that game for hours and hours. I think people expecting VC to be a good way to "sample" old games are going to be disappointed. The VC really is a place to re-live and re-play the classics from eras past. Assuming you play the games for a decent ammount of time, and not just 5 minutes, it's a great value.

The other thing is people talking about is the licensing restrictions. Sorry, but this is not Nintendo being "dishonest". This is something that's pervasive throught the software industry. You don't own software. You pay for the right to license it. Look it up, it's clearly spelled out in all the EULAs. Do you know what EULA stands for? End User License Agreement. Yup. You're purchasing a license to use.

Nintendo not wanting VC downloads to be transferrable is perfectly reasonable. This is how things work on XBL as well, and how things work in general. Again, remember, you're purchasing a single user license to play the game. You don't own it.

Also, even at the current prices, I doubt it's terribly profitable for Nintendo. It costs money to maintain servers, buy bandwidth, pay programmers, etc. The problem with distributing things over the 'nte is that as popularity increases, costs can go up quite quickly.

Honestly, I think people have unrealistic expectations, especially after having easy access via ROMs to all these old games. Think about if you couldn't play these games on the computer, and had to drag out an NES to play them, or couldn't even find the cartridge to buy if you didn't get it back in the 80s or 90s when the games were out. If you take ROMs out of the picture, I think the VC pricing really seems quite reasonable.

God, I sound like such a Nintendo appolgist :( But that's the way I see it: I don't think the VC is overpriced.

The main problem I have with VC pricing is that every game from a certain system is priced the same. In "real world" shop situations, you'll see a difference in price between games of different quality. Also, games that have been out longer drop in price.

I think they would be wise to offer "bundle" discounts as well, such as 5 N64 games for only 4000 Wii points instead of 5000 Wii points, for example. Are the prices high enough it's worth complaining about a little? Yes. Are the prices high enough it's worth complaining about a lot about? No.

I will get Mario 64 for sure, and have no problem paying $10 for it. I'll probably also get Bonk's Adventure.

It's not perfect, though. My Wii broke after a system update and now won't ready any discs at all, no matter what I do. Nintendo has yet to respond to the mail I sent them Wednesday, either. :(

I do agree for the most part though about Nintendo's quality. I have a Gamecube I bought on launch day that works PERFECTLY, and my N64 which I got in '97 still works... to a point. I have to blow on it for like a half-hour before it works, but still.

That's true, but pricing them all the same helps the consumer on some games. For instance, an SNES copy of Mario RPG costs roughly $25 used. On the VC it'll be $8 like all other SNES games, and much more affordable. I prefer playing games on consoles rather than emulation, so some of these games are price drops for me. I've been attempting to find a Super Metroid cartridge in good condition for awhile, and the cheapest I've found was $16.

My NES and SNES both still work as does my N64 and Cube:)

What's going on here? You rang Nintendo and they just said outloud what it clearly says in the Terms of Service? Well done mate, you exposed them there!

Really? I would think taking all the packaging and production costs out would leave them with pure profit for every game sold. I assume they're already planning on fixing the other aspects by means of other revenue. I mean, imagine if one of the FTP owners here got $5 for every album downloaded...

I'll end up using it sparingly and mostly for games I don't have. I won't be phasing out my trusty SNES or NES anytime soon, but I skipped the N64 and it'll be cool to play catch-up. I'm seriously hoping we'll see some titles that never came over on the original systems...I imagine Nintendo would make a pretty penny off games like the old Fire Emblems and all of those Square RPG's that never left Japan. Bangai-O for 64 wouldn't be too shabby either.

But the non-transferring thing does sound kind of lame...I was assuming it would be more like the games would be linked to an account and if you needed to, you could grab them again. That would make more sense...Maybe link the account with a serial number and have the two be transferable if need be.

The games you are buying are simply compressed ROMs with a DRM protection on it, as such these files can't be transfered since the DRM check would fail nor modified since it would break the hash check. But they can be re-created (aka re-transfered), thus generating a new DRMed ROM, Nintendo won't do it 'cause they want to rip you all they can just like every other company in this industry.

Everytime I hear/read this I crack up to the non-sense it is. I'm paying for this sandwich, but I don't own it, I simply paid for the previlege of eating it :D

LMAO like there's such thing as an honest company in this industry. Next thing you'll tell me that Google does no evil!

VC will ultimately fail simply because you can play these games for free on the PC, free always beats paid for. And if that's not enough, you can play them on PC with much more options, without any restriction and with better quality, plus it's free! Free I say.

"Fair" pricing is determined by other offering in the "market", since the other offering are free and even have better quality, free is the only fair price for VC games. As simple as that.

People have been cursing Microsoft and others in the software industry for years regarding the EULAs and strange licenses that say that you pay for products but it's not yours, then suddenly Nintendo does the same thing in a noticable way and it's alright. :D
I say noticable way because the same license applyes to games, but people tend to associate the price they pay for a game to own the phisical game disk, disk that can be lended (althrough the license doesn't allow it, so much for the good will sharing teached in pre-schools), sold or offered. Take that away and people won't see any reason to pay for stuff and then having no right to do whatever they want it that file, and infact there isn't, it's just plain digital new world rip off.

The only people with unrealistic expectation here is Nintendo who expects people to pay for stuff they can get for free, better and non restricted.

I thought the process of buying games was pretty simple. You buy a game in th store, you legally own the case, manual, and cd. What you do with it is up to you, but you can't legally copy the information on the disc as stated in the EULA.

However when it comes to Virtual Console games, you're paying to download and use the game, not to sell it as it isn't a physical item (much like how you can't sell an xbox with x amount of games saved to a hard drive) and not claim it as your own material.

Doesn't the same shit apply to 360's marketplace?

The only way it's gonna fail is if Nintendo don't update it and let it rot, but I don't see that happening with their weekly VC game additions, as small as they may be. Xbox Live Arcade has been extremely popular and it's been around a lot longer! PlayStation 3's going to feature Neo Geo games on its own service in the near future, I don't think any of them are going to go under. People can download music for free too, yet iTunes music store is thriving.

I know I'd happily bend over for the Virtual Console when Nintendo get Pilotwings 64 up on it. It's one of my favorite games ever. :(

Laugh My Ass OUT!!!

Do you have any ideia of how many terabytes of musics are traded each month? And I say terabytes to go with low numbers because the real number may go over the petabytes!! What are a few misarable millions of downloads on iTunes? Nothing, zero, nada, completely nothing, probably not even 0.0001% of the music downloads.

Sure that Nintendo may be able to get money from the scraps left by those who don't download the entire SNES + MD + N64 Romset, but how many are these? Not many and defenitely not me.

So, because everyone doesn't do it, it's suddenly not a lucrative business venture? That's fucking brilliant.

Now imagine if he had millions of people downloading from him. Servers and programmers and bandwidth all cost money. Remember, these games were originally selling for 40 or 50 dollars.

You can delete the game and re-download it at your leisure, which is way more than the iTunes Store allows. In theory, you could buy everything on VC, even though you couldn't store it all on the Wii at once.

True, but the cost of materials (the carts), shipping, marketing and overall developing/testing expenses are taken out of the equation, so you're left with pure profit on games that made back their development costs many years ago. Which...is smart business, if I do say so myself.

I'm sure if Nintendo has a full network in place, they can handle the upload requirements and still make out in the greens every month by plenty. I'm sure they thought this through and compensated for that.

I'd be curious to see the sales figures and about how much they can pocket of the game fees. Even if they only got to collect 1/2 of each VC game's fee, that's some good side money.

And really...NES games aren't that big. I'm sure even I could upload a million copies of Super Mario Brothers if I had to. At $5 apiece...Man, I'd be raking it in.

Sorry, what I meant was transfer to another console (in the event something happens). I meant make it so you can transfer another serial number to your account.

Exactly the same situation here. I keep hoping that will be one of the next games to be released. I just love the birdman stages where you fly around at your leisure.

Yet, Apple makes millions of dollars on this, continues to attract more and more people, and are showing steady, healthy growth. You're completely missing the point here. A lot of people said that if the music was there for free, NOBODY would pay for it online, ever. Yet, clearly millions of people are downloading music, movies, TV shows from iTunes. All of these things were available for free online. So, I'm not sure what your point is other than trolling and typing poorly.

Here's my speculation as to why people like iTunes: Consistent quality. You know that you're going to get 128kbps AAC (which sounds pretty sweet) when you download from iTunes. When you download music from less than legal sources, you often get stuff that's in 128kbps MP3 (ugh) or, even if it's at a decent bitrate for MP3, it might have skips and be poorly encoded. And let's not even talk about tagging.

Same reason for TV shows. The quality of the encode you get from iTunes is stellar -- 480p h.264. Delicious. Many TV ripping groups are doing 320p XviD. I haven't bought a feature length movie from iTunes, but they're also in 480p h.264.

Anyway, going back to Nintendo, I think this also applies to the VC: of course, the games are still exactly the same, but... on an emulator, you're using the keyboard (or a joypad if you feel like dealing with drivers and poorly made pads). VC, you get to use a high quality controller made by Nintendo. Plus, you get to play the games on your TV, just like they were supposed to be -- something always felt weird about playing a SNES game on the computer, to me. Didn't feel natural, somehow.

So basically, stop trolling.

Double Post:
It's a very smart business, defintely. You have free content, and your only costs are distribution.

It wouldn't surprise me if the money they make from the VC is helping to alllow them to set up this network in place in the first place. They haven't done anything on this scale before with online gaming. Online gaming on the DS is a bit different, the cost of starting that up can be recouped from licensing fees from games. Setting up a huge network for millions of online gamers on home consoles is going to cost a ton more money in initial capital than setting up one for people who occasionally play online with their DS.

My main point above was that the VC isn't Nintendo's big money maker, nor is it their loss leader -- that would be the console. The general model for console manufacturers is that you sell the console at cost or take a loss and make the money and profit on licensing fees for people who make games (and on 1st party titles, the markup that normally gets passed on for the licensing fee turns into straight profit).

If something happens to it and you send it to Nintendo, I've heard (and it's been mentioned in this thread) that they will take care of that and set you up with a transfer.

Uhm...what? Free ROMs wouldn't be considered another price in the market, considering that it's an illegal way to play games. Furthermore, you think making the VC games free is the only fair price? That's pretty ignorant, considering the cost of upkeep that Nintendo pays to keep those games online, as well as being able to add new content. If you don't pay for the games, the service won't exist. Won't be a problem for you though, now would it? Honestly, emulation has inflated people's expectations to a disgusting degree. Yeah, I used to tinker with SNES9x in the past, but I would definitely pay to play those games again when they're actually being supported by Nintendo.

Anyway, to contribute, I love the idea of the Virtual Console, but I know I'll only be using it for the big titles on SNES, Genesis and maybe N64. The problem is that I can see myself taking 5000 Wii points and spending them very easily, so I'm trying not to use the service too much right now. Although, I did purchase Sonic the Hedgehog for the Genesis, and it has been emulated perfectly. I'm really impressed with the whole process of downloading these old games.

What's even funnier is that Nintendo doesn't take a loss on their console sales, they make a profit.

It was only Microsoft and Sony this gen that are losing money on their hardware sales.

I assumed they sold them at cost. Go Nintendo.

(Also, the original Xbox was a loss for MS)

You're assuming way too much. The amount of people that don't even know what a ROM is, even among gamers outweigh those that do. There are plenty of people who play games and have the internet and are either highly computer illirate or just plain stupid. Also even people who do know about ROMs may choose not to use them simply because of the fact that they're illegal and not everyone is willing to download something illegaly just because it's free even if they know there is practically no way they will get caught.

Also I would assume with Virtual Console, X-Box Live Arcade, and Sony's thing coming around wer'e gonna see gaming companies cracking down on ROM sites alot. The only reliable ROM site I know of already has been forced to remove everything involving Mario or Final Fantasy among other things.

You're assuming everyone acts and thinks like you which based on every response you've gotten, clearly isn't the case.

On wikipedia there a link to an article stating that as of 2004 (we are almost in 2007 now and the net keeps growing) that P2P traffic ammounts to 10 petabytes of data, let's assume that only 2 petabytes are music. Now what is a few millions when compared to 2 petabytes? In my book it's nobody, but whatever you say.

I dunno, but I know why people like the other alternative better, 'cause it's free.

I use a USB Logitech Precision and it's by far better than any other offering in the PC and console market when it comes to digital pads and it doesn't require any drivers or installation, it's just plug and play. For 3D games I use the MS Xbox 360 controller that was the same quality as a console pad (since it's indeed a console pad). And yeah, playing on a monitor sure feels wrong, after all the superior color gamut and overscan adjustment, the fine control over the image displayed, the progressive display and the digital input will defenitely ruin the SNES experience.

Ok I get it, I'm trolling and you aren't, sorry about that.

You have a point there, while normally gamers are not computer illiterate alot of them can be when it comes to emulation. I'll give you that.

You think too highly of the people don't you? Or maybe it's just me that think too low of them, regardless of what that I belive that everyone who knows about ROMs and likes old games uses them, it would be silly not to.

The 2 I know just keep growing, one of them even bragged about having an uptime of over an 1 year, but they ask a donation for access to bigger ROMsets. :D

LMAO. Yeah, as if emulators on PC are perfect, let alone better than the original hardware.

Actually I think your expectation that so many people will know about emulation and where to get ROMs is the unrealistic one. Not to mention your mistaken notion that ROMs are somehow better than the originals.

Anyway, I figure all it will take is a little customer backlash or a little bad press and Nintendo will make it their policy to transfer VC games when repairing/replacing Wiis. Or it might even already be their policy and they're just not talking about it.

SNES/Megadrive roms are usually perfect dumps of the originals.

I don't think this is a matter of free roms vs. paying for downloadable content. I think this is a matter of people like to pay for old games they can't get even if they're able to use roms. If I had a Wii, I'd purchase Virtual Console games.

Why? Because they have the classic controller, and because I already know what SNES and Megadrive games I want. Everything is entirely optional, and you don't even need to use the Virtual Console, much like you don't need to use the Xbox Live Marketplace.

If you don't like it, don't use it.

A few million dollars, kid. How much money does your P2P traffic make you?

1. What you get on VC is the same ROMs you get on any ROMs page, the only diference is the VC ROMs have DRM on it and you pay for that.

2. Emulators on PC are not perfect, but so aren't Nintendo's, and when in doubt I'll go with what I know it's good. I dunno about SNES or SNES emulators that much but I know about Megadrive and when it comes to it nothing beats Kega and Steve Snake, not only he's been working on Megadrive emulation for 10 years as he's also a game programmer with a long carrier and actually was part of teams that coded Megadrive retail games.

Now let me see, will I go with a trusted developer with 10 years of emu experience plus even more real world game coding or will I go with god knows who or how or when coded the VC MD emulator? ... Tough choice.
As for SNES I'll leave it alone since I dunno much about it, but I do know that SNES emu's are open source and that weights a lot on my book.


EDIT:
Humm?

2x Humm?

Could you guys explain yourselfs better? I really don't understand what you said. :(

But you haven't even used the Virtual Console service. Is it really so hard for you to understand that some people actually like paying for video games? =| I don't know how much longer this merry-go-round's going to last!

What I meant was:

Pay service (ie. iTunes): Makes millions of dollars.
Free service (ie. Soulseek): Makes approximately 0 dollars.

Can you see why Nintendo would go for the first option? Or, why would any serious company even consider the second?

Also, 10 petabytes of data sounds like a lot, but when you break it down, it's not that impressive. If every P2P dude moves 100MB of data each year (not that much, you would agree I'm sure), you would need 10 million people to achieve 10 petabytes of data traffic each year. This is the same amount of people that have an iTunes account, according to Apple (other estimates are 200 million and 100 million users).

When you can get them for free and better, yes it is. For example, I like turkey even if I have to pay for it, but if I can get turkey with the same quality for free I like it even more and will never buy any turkey again, I'll just eat the free one 'cause it's free. Wouldn't you do the same?


Of course I can see why Nintendo goes with the first option, what I can't see is why anybody would go with it. Check my free turkey analogy up here.


How many user are registered is irrelevant, how many songs were downloaded is, iTunes sold so far 1,5 billion of songs, at average 5Mb per song it's 8Pb and took them 3 years to reach this number, meanwhile only god knows how many songs have been downloaded during these 3 years on the P2P networks. Anyway let's say they are even 'cause since P2P is decentralized no one really knows how much has been download, these 10Pb was a estimate of how much was available to download on all P2P networks in 2004 (or so they say).

Lol not the same thing.
A better anaolgy would be, in order to get the free turkey, you have to vote for the free turkey charity at 3 differet "top charity" websites and then be forced to sit through hentai and offered services you don't want before eating your turkey. But wait, it doesn't stop there. Sometimes your turkey may not even get delivered, the turkey dlivery truck might crash en route. Who knows? Maybe your turkey will fall apart or be hacked up as you eat it? Not only that but you're forbidden from using a knife and fork, instead you must use chopsticks to devour your turkey.

That's what downloading roms is like.

I for one embrace the Virtual Console and I'll gladly pay for it over downloading roms. In fact, I recently deleted all my old roms.

But hey I'm one of those fuckers who still buys CDs and prefers iTunes to bitorrent

Why do I feel as if comparing one downloading service to the P2P network which is accessible over various different clients, inaccurate?

Put it like this. Downloading licensed songs is illegal and is equal to stealing an item from a store. Purchasing the song is legal and is equal to buying an item from a store. Whether you like it or not, people will always prefer the guiltless option which happens to incorporate your next-generation console with all your old favorites, that are easily playable with the classic controller.

You would be surprised just how many people don't know about roms, and how to download games for free. Buying an old console and trying to hunt for an old SNES cartridge would be a chore, in comparison to downloading it on a newly released console that's easily accessible to your common joe.

USB controllers are available for emulators, dude.

:D :D :D :D
That sure is a good one. But if you know the right places you can get your stuff without voting or any other kind of assle, the trick here is to know where to get your turkey :P

Anyway, I just readed a article saying Wii outputs the VC games at 240p. That's very intresting, it would do those dithering effects flawlessly, a thing that's not possible on monitors or Xbox/PC TV-Out without tricks, Kega does it by software but doesn't look as good as a real TV. Unfortunly the Megadrive sound emulation apparently is crappy, I guess Kega wins the first round.

Yeah I have one. It's terrible. The fucking dpad doesn't even work. Can you even imagine playing Snes games with a joystick? It's a sin.

Downloading songs is not stealing, it's copyright infringement, copyright comes from the words copy + rights that means, rights to copy, that is who detain what right to copy the content and how. When you download stuff you are abusing your right to copy stuff, you are NOT stealing. This statement just proves how the media industry has totaly distorted the law in the minds of the poor impressionable youngsters. So dude copyright infrigement is not stealing.

Get a USB Logitech Precision pad, costs 13€ and works like a charm.

You have something that you're supposed to pay for. You didn't pay for it. Not only is it stealing, but it's additionally breaking laws and warranting fines. If you're so keen on your piracy, give us your information so we can submit it to the RIAA.

That's good news, because 2D games look like shit on 480p.

Why would you play it with a joystick? I have a saturn controller for PC which works fine with all games (doujins, touhou series, SNES and Megadrive games) and I think there's even SNES controllers for PC. Not official or anything though.

Someone needs a dictionary:

Verb
to steal (third-person singular simple present steals, present participle stealing, simple past stole, past participle stolen)

(transitive) To illegally, or without the owner's permission, take possession of something by surreptitiously taking or carrying it away.

(intransitive) To be involved in illegally taking possession of by surreptitiously taking or carrying away; to commit theft.

Did you took some kind of possesion from someone when you downloaded you music/movies? I don't think so.



Noun
copyright (uncountable and countable. plural: copyrights)
(uncountable) The right by law to be the entity which determines who may publish, copy and distribute a piece of writing, music, picture or other work of authorship.
(countable) Such an exclusive right as it pertains to one or more specific works.

When you downloaded your music/movies did you ignored that you don't have the right to do it? You sure did but that's not stealing.
(both entries taken from Wiktionary.org)


See kids at home? Copyright violation is not stealing. Whenever someone tries to tell this to you be suspicous, you never know when the media corporations are about :-P

So I sent Nintendo an email asking about what happens to my virtual console games if my Wii was to break down, and I had to send it in for a replacement. Nintendo sent me a reply stating that 'You're movin' with your auntie and uncle in Bel-Air.'

I begged and pleaded with them day after day But they packed my suite case and sent me on my way They gave me a kiss and then they gave me my ticket. I put my walkman on and said, 'I might as well kick it'.

First class, yo this is bad Drinking orange juice out of a champagne glass? Is this what the people of Bel-Air Live like? Hmmmmm this might be alright.

But wait I hear they're prissy, bourgeois and all that Is this the type of place that they send this cool cat? I don't think so I'll see when I get there I hope they're prepared for the prince of Bel-Air

Well, ah, the plane landed and when I came out There was a dude looked like a cop standin' there with my name out I ain't trying to get arrested yet I just got here I sprang with the quickness like lightening, disappeared

I whistled for a cab and when it came near The license plate said fresh and it had dice in the mirror If anything I can say that this cab was rare But I thought 'Man forget it' - 'Yo homes to Bel-Air' I pulled up to the house about 7 or 8 And I yelled to the cabbie 'Yo holmes smell ya later' I looked at my kingdom I was finally there To sit on my throne as the Prince of Bel-Air. And here I thought Nintendo was an honest company.

Oh I don't mean joystick joystick. Lol. I have a Gravis Eliminator Aftershock
http://img.clubic.com/photo/00A6000000047062.jpg
The dPad does not agree with SNES9X

I doubt you will.

I for one rarely illegally download anything. Some music here and there but that's about it. None of the music I download do i archive however, only my own rips (off CD's I own) get archived. Additionally, I've never ROMed because it just doesn't seem right to play all those great games without paying for them. Playing Zelda: OoT in 16x9 is unbelieveably tempting, however I want to pay Nintendo my money so I can get to buy a new Zelda game every couple of years. I support the company, hell the people working at the company, buy purchasing their products as opposed to stealing/downloading/copy-infringing. The experiences that theyve brought into my life are worth my money. If you aren't willing to pay for what some else owns, and for something that is worth $5 of your money, then you are a no good, leeching, cheap-ass son of a bitch.

Want to be a smartass? You're stealing the electronic transmitions that were illegally uploaded. I want to see your argument hold up in court. "Wikipedia says otherwise, your honor. I'm not stealing anything."

Phoenix Wright would be on you sooo fast!

http://img191.imageshack.us/img191/8...jectionwd0.jpg

Phoenix... Phoenix Wright is a defense attorney, though.

Think of it this way...

I am what I'd consider to be VERY computer literate. That means I browse forums every day, check my startup entries after installing software, etc. Being as literate as I am, if I were to even search for a reliable ROM site, it would take a while to find one (check Google....). Heck, the only reason I know ROMs exist is from my frequent forum visits (such as this one). Let me ask you this... how many people, over the age of 30, know what the word "ROM" is referring to? I know MY parents don't... and my dad is almost as computer literate as I am. Now consider Nintendo's target audience. Yeah, seems like Nintendo's got the right thing going here. Plus, show me the day Sega would allow Nintendo to freely distribute Sonic on their console, and I'll just laugh.

That's also not to mention people like me, for instance. You praise the ability to configure this shit all the way you'd like it, but I don't understand half the shit that goes on, and I can never get the sound and video just right.

Why not, 1)Support Nintendo, sinc I love them, and 2) forego the frustration of setting this shit up?

Plus, your bullshit arguments about copyright and everything don't change the fact that Nintendo and 3rd parties created the game to be paid for. You're not paying. How is this different from stealing? You're splitting hairs about something dumb when the ethics are clear. You just want to validate your thievery with obfuscation.

Fine. Edgeworth, smartass.

I sure do hope that you never did download anything from any of the FTP servers hosted by the members on this site. I mean, that would be stealing too, according to your definition of the term. I won't choose to argue semantics with you, but I sure do hope that your hands are stainless before you start casting accusations about.

I'm just sayin'.

As for the Wii Virtual Console, I will be getting into it. I may not buy an enormous amount of titles, because I still have a sizeable collection for the older Nintendo consoles. Most of the games I care a lot about have been bought and paid for. I might pick up a few titles for the VC that can't be found for a reasonable price, especially if they can't be emulated either. That would mostly be a few selected N64 titles, and it is contingent on Nintendo offering a quality experience. If it's not working quite right, then it's certainly not worth paying for... with N64 titles, there is always the controller to consider too. GameCube controllers are no real substitute on a lot of titles.

Really, my collection contains most titles that I care about that much, and the ones I can't get hold of aren't certain to be included on the VC. So it's very much an uncertain proposition for me right now. I'm not about to pay again for games that I already have on cartridge. I don't see a good reason to.

And I think they are not configurable enough, on the Xbox Megadrive emulator you can take fine tunning one step futher by having per game settings, you can for example overclock the emulated CPU on a specific game to overcome in-game slowdowns, disable sprite limiter in games with a lot of stuff on screen, have different keys configs and even specific image filters on each game for optimal image (particulary usefull on games that rely too much on dithering). And there's even more options that I'm not mentioning, it's just awsome.


Anyway I have a few questions for those who used VC here, where do the emulators come from? I mean when you buy a say, Megadrive game for the first time, what happens? Does the Wii download the emulator and then the ROM? Does it just download the ROM and the emulator is built-in into each ROM (per game emulator)? Or is the emulator built-in the Wii and each game has a specific profile?
What about the configuration? What settings are available to change? Can you do controller remapping (force button changes)? What about image and sound settings like sprite limiters or CPU overclock on MD emulator (awsomely usefull setting)? Also what region (Jap/US/Eur) are the ROMs from?
What about the credits/about screen? Does these emulators have any credits to them? Do you see any known emu author credited in the emulators? Are there any known PC emulation quirks showing on VC emulation?

That's sure is a lot of questions, if anyone can be nice and anwser some of them it would be great.

The emulators are built into the Wii. They arn't made by known emulator authors, they're made by Nintendo because believe it or not, they are pretty good at reverse engineering their own systems.

Well, that wouldn't apply to the Genesis and TurboGrafx-16 emulators, unless Nintendo outsourced those to Sega and NEC.

And I heard bad things about the Majora's Mask emulation in the Collector's Edition compilation, although I never got around to playing it, so I don't know how much truth there is to that.

Then again, maybe they improved their N64 emulator since then. =O

This is true, there's problems with Majora's Mask in the Collector's Edition. It even says so before you begin the game that there's sound misplacement issues and that it isn't your console.

Not only that - It also has serious framerate issues I don't remember existing in the N64 version (for example in front of the clock tower in South Clock Town). I seriously hope that they improved the Wii emulator.

It has freezing issues which never existed in the original game also... which is made far more annoying by the awkward way you save your game (and having to start the 3 day cycle all the way over everytime). ._.;

So they can't be updated? That sounds wierd... any other specific details?

And the movie which shows every Zelda game ever made, then the "Zelda Collector's Edition" logo, is fucking misleading. Why would they showcase all of the Zelda titles and not include them on a collectors edition?

Actually, I believe they were going to include A Link To The Past in Collector's Edition, but they were releasing a GBA version at the same time so they canned that idea.

I don't think you'll be seeing such issues in Majora's Mask when it comes out. I think the problem with Collector's Edition is it's reading it from a disc and trying to access new music or something. With the VC it's straight from flash memory which is probably even quicker than accessing an N64 cartridge.

The way I'm guessing they do VC emulation is one of two ways. One, you download the emulators with a firmware update like the one you got for the Shopping Channel so they're already there when you download VC games which then run on the emulators you have on your system. Two, each game has its own slightly tweaked emulator with game rom that you download. The games do exist as channels after all.

Also, for those that haven't downloaded a VC game yet it's pretty slick. Each game comes with a nice instruction manual that details just about everything in the game that you can access at any time by pressing the home button. I've only downloaded Mario 64 so far but it's perfect.

It's very interesting how they do controller configuration because they do it on a game to game basis hence the lovely instruction manual. For Mario 64 L, Z1, and Z2 are the Z button. I was worried they'd have trouble with N64 and Genesis games but I think they'll be fine as long as their configurations make sense.


My only gripe with the Virtual Console is the games I want aren't out now. The selection we got was rather slim. Also, who's to say they'll be releasing all of their games at the rate they're going. 3rd parties are a big concern for me. Most of them are signed on but I've heard no plans of what they'll be giving us. I'd like them to go all out but will Capcom be releasing all their Megaman or Megaman X titles when they already have compilation games out there? Will we be getting all the Castlevania titles? Will Square-Enix hold back giving us Chrono Trigger or Secret of Mana because they're assholes? I mean people want to download these games but it seems that for whatever reason companies want to play coy to the idea of giving us the good stuff and instead deal out their small titles that we don't really care about. That's the impression I'm getting. I'm waiting for good news but it's taking a while to get here.

Oh and what of the great games we never saw? Secret of Mana 2, Earthbound 0, Starfox 2, Sin & Punishment. There are games that never made it out here or weren't even released. How much trouble would it be to get a translation for these games and is Nintendo even that cool to put forth the effort. What is so terrible about having new games from the classical era that noone got to play before? I'm going to be a pessimist and say Nintendo doesn't have the balls to do such an awesome thing.

Speaking of original games, with 512 mb of limited sectioned out space how are original games for the VC going to work? That's pretty limiting. Since the VC can't access SD cards to play games you can forget any spectacular downloadable games like Konami's Castlevania Symphony of the Night that XBL will be getting. The VC has an incredible amount of potential but I worry about its limitations. It will be interesting to watch how it all plays out.

So yeah these are the things I think you all should be more concerned about and not something petty like the prices of games.

Yeah, I read that at Wikipedia. I'm playing it through right now (to bring me into the right mood for TP and to shorten the waiting time till December 15th :)) and have reached Woodfall Temple so far, without any crashes.

Just as you said: They still make profit from "A Link to the Past" and the "Oracle" games. I wonder why they included the first two titles, though, since they were released as NES Classics for the GBA. Maybe a re-release was not planned at that time.

When you start OoT or MM, the whole ROM is loaded into the GameCube's memory. Then, every time you access a new area the map data is loaded into the memory, additionaly. This works fine for OoT since it didn't use the Expansion Pack to process more complex areas found in MM. There's only one minor issue in OoT: The swapping of the prerendered backgrounds at Hyrule Market.
As said, the map data in MM is a lot more complex due to the use of the Expansion Pack and the GameCube can't handle swapping them immediately since the whole ROM is loaded into its memory, too. Maybe Wii will be able to do it (its RAM is more than 3 times bigger than the GC's).

Okay, I stand very much corrected.

In any case since you are actually paying to download these games I don't expect anything less than perfect emulation from Nintendo. The Collector's Edition was just a freebie to those who had preordered Wind Waker so hey.

Just what I thought. After all Nintendo has a reputation to lose. And they sure will use some of the earnings from VC games to improve the emulators.
I just hope they'll make previously unreleased (in PAL regions) games available - localised or not - and update existing games with bugfixes, new dialogue, missions and graphics. That'd make me more than happy but chances are low it'll happen... :(

So it looks like Star Soldier was released yesterday on VC. Though i'm not
planning on DLing it, just seeing new contents makes me happy for some reason!
I wonder if they plan to release the original Smash Bros. (N64). I really liked
it a lot.

by the way, here's the original text from the email:

Message(#7623-000344-4365\5936583)

Hello and thank you for contacting Nintendo,

Unfortunately if you have purchased Wii Shop content, be it Virtual Console titles or new Channels, we are unable to provide refunds or replacements as you are essentially purchasing a license to use the content on the Wii which you made the purchase. In order to use any content on a new Wii, you must first purchase a new license for that system. You can quickly and easily purchase a new license by ueing either a prepaid Wii Points Card, VISA or MasterCard.

The quickest and most convenient way to get a working system is to set up an Advance Replacement. Under this program, we send you a replacement system directly. The directions that accompany the replacement console will explain how to make the exchange and send back your nonfunctioning console and to us in the same box, at no charge to you.

All that is required is a valid VISA or MasterCard number to secure the return (your card will not be charged unless you neglect to return your original system). You would then contact Nintendo's Consumer Service Department by calling 1-800-255-3700. Representatives are available to set up your repair between 6:00 a.m. and 7:00 p.m. Pacific Time, seven days a week.

If you do not have a credit card, getting your console repaired is still convenient and free. You may set up a standard repair by visiting the Customer Service section of our website (www.nintendo.com/consumer). Once there, select the Wii icon, scroll down to Repairs and follow the directions.



If you have additional questions or concerns, please let us know!!

Sincerely,

Nintendo of America Inc.


Nintendo's home page: http://www.nintendo.com/
Power Line (Automated Product Info): (425) 885-7529

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From: (removed)
Posted At: 03:41:47.000 11/24/2006
Posted To: Nintendo <nintendo@noa.nintendo.com>
Subject: Webform: Wii > Channel Support / Assistance

I have a quick question about the Virtual Console. If my Wii was to break down and i was to recieve a replacement, would my virtual console games transfer over to the new wii with my account, or would i lose them all?





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That's about how I feel. That's why I'm waiting till at least I get my income tax returns next year before I buy a Wii. I'm mainly buying the Wii for VC since I no longer have a working NES or SNES and I never had a Genesis. Titles I'm really hoping for are Dragon Warrior 1-4, Breath of Fire 1-2, Super Mario RPG, and Secret of Mana.

Oh and incase anyone is thinking of saying "Hey some of those are available on Gameboy". I hate handhelds.

Super Mario RPG is actually already confirmed, but the rest are just vague hopes at the moment. DQ 1-4 haven't been released since the Game Boy Color and PSX I think, so they have a pretty good chance. Square may be looking to rererelease them on the VC since Dragon Quest VIII attracted a lot of new fans to the series in the US. Secret of Mana would be very awesome, but BoF 1-2 I kinda doubt. They were both released for the GBA, and Nintendo may still be hoping for sales.

Hmm. I noticed that they released Star Soldier on the Virtual Console last night, but when did they add Ecco the Dolphin and Golden Axe to the Genesis section? If they add three games a week, I'd be pretty surprised (and equally delighted). Anyway, just downloaded Ecco and it plays great. =) Wonder if I can finally beat this game.

The flaw with that idea is that they're discontinued now. Nintendo can't really make sales on something you can't find brand new anymore.

So are you or are you not able to play multiplayer on VC games with other folks that have them? That's probably the ONLY thing that will get me into it.

If you're wondering if you can play them online against other people, then the answer is no as of now. Nintendo has stated that they plan to release periodic "updates" to their VC games, so we'll see if they implement online play at some time.
However if you're wondering about normal multiplayer, then yes, that is definitely available. In fact, you can play a 5-player mode in Bomberman '93...

Oh, are they? I was thinking BoF2 was still available, but maybe not. I never really looked into those since I wanted to beat BoF1 on my SNES first.

Just a little update on that issue: I'm at the fourth dungeon now and the game crashed once, upon entering the warp crystal as Zora after defeating Gyorg again. The screen faded out and that was it.
Hope that'll be adressed in the VC emulator.

CONCLUSION: Played the game through. Two freezes total. One mentioned above and the second one on Termina Field after putting of the Goron's Mask and putting on the Bunny Hood (luckily just at 7AM on the first day).

Well the only games I will pay for would/will be the ones not released here, Like Seiken Densetsu 3 , radical dreamers (aka Chrono Trigger 2 :P ) and all those games just released in Japan or that were unfinished. And 4 player N64 games, that are not as fun if you play the on the pc.

UPDATE: Looks like there IS a way to transfer your bought VC games to a replacement console. I found this on the Something Awful forums:

can ya really trust SA?

I trust JazzFlight in his information-gathering skills, so yes.

Point being is these are replacement systems they're doing it for. If you were to get a new Wii. Maybe you really wanted a black system which might come out in a year or so then they probably won't lend the same service to you if you wanted to put your virtual console games on the black system. Perhaps if they managed to link your MyNintendo account to your Virtual Console games and then only allow those to be downloaded on the Wii that is currently registered to it.

As far as I know, they do. When I log into my account, it shows my games, and among those are those that I bought on the VC.

On an similar note of ripping off, reports are coming that the European VC games are all "PAL BORDERS AND SPEED DOWN'D" with the exception of Super Mario 64.

Of course, this wouln't be an issue for anything other than Sonic 1 as that game has always been craply ported to PAL since it's release 15 years ago.

Some casual gamers will be glad of this. I was round a friend's house yesterday trying to show them some of the prizes of my collection. No dice. Their TV doesn't do NTSC.

Besides, it's no worse than we've always been used to. Yeah it sucks, but I'll stick with my imports then. There are very few titles I will need from the VC in any case. The ones that are important enough to pay money for, I already did.

His TV just doesn't support PAL60, though most of the TVs can display that standard nowadays (ok, it doesn't support NTSC either, but that's not the problem).

It's a shame that Nintendo doesn't go all 60Hz for the VC games. I won't pay for a single one until it's assured that they'll be running smooth.

These games were actually American PS1 and PS2 imports, so I had thought that the problem was actually NTSC. I also took my consoles around, ya see. His TV is not recent. It's a 21" 4:3 TV that must be the better part of 8 years old, and wasn't expensive when purchased. I just forgot to take that into account.

Actually, with some degree of messing around I got a picture out of it... but it was in monochrome. Kind of takes away from the experience just a little.

Ah, then it lacks NTSC support, you're right. :) I thought you were talking about GameCube games.
Surprisingly my TV supports both PAL60 and NTSC although it's pretty small and about seven years old (it even has only Mono sound), yet the newer bigger TV of my aunt can only do PAL60 and has the same monochrome problem with NTSC games you mentioned above. It seems that TVs which are able to handle PAL60 can also display NTSC signals without color whereas TVs not supporting it will flicker terribly on both standards because they most likely can't display the 60Hz framerate.

Nevertheless: If there are enough complaints about the issue Nintendo will probably reconsider its raping the PAL market with crappy localisations from the last century.

figgres, it's the casual gamers that once again rain on my prade. :/