Virtual Console Secret Santa!
 

Just in time for Christmas, Nintendo has updated the Wii Shopping Channel to include a gifting feature. As long as you and a friend have exchanged codes, you can purchase virtual console games for anyone on your friends list, as long as they live in the same region. There’s no better way to test out this feature than to have a GFF/Wii Secret Santa exchange!

Right now gifting is only available in Japan and NA, but with luck it will launch in PAL territory this Friday (not that there’s anything official to indicate that, but I’m hopeful, and we’ve got 2 weeks until Christmas). Since gifting is region-locked, I’ll pair up people from the same regions, and if it launches in PAL-land before Christmas, they’ll be able to join in (PAL folks should go ahead and sign up now).

How this will work:

• Participants must be at least level 10 to join, though I reserve the right to Squallify or D-Squallify on an individual basis. If you’re an upstanding community member but not level 10, feel free to sign up.
• When you sign up, post your Wii friend code in this thread, or PM it to me. Also post what region you live in.
• If you want, post types of games you like (don’t mention a specific game you want, though, because that spoils the surprise), and any games you absolutely do NOT want to receive. There’s no need to post what you already have, since Nintendo won’t let you gift something your friend has.
• Spend at least 1000 points but no more than 2000 points. This means you can buy one or two expensive games, or a bunch of NES games; it’s up to you.
• When sign-ups close, I’ll PM each participant 2 friend codes to add to their Wii. The first code will be the person they’re receiving a gift from, and the second code will be the person they’re buying a gift for.

For now, I plan to close sign-ups in one week (12/18). If there are still folks signing up at that point, I might extend it another day or so, but that probably won’t be necessary. Once sign-ups close, I’ll PM out the information, and participants will have through Christmas Day to send their gifts.

Participants:
1. Tritoch
2. Omnislash124
3. Avalokiteshvara/Radez
4. nuttyturnip
5. AcerBandit
6. Identity Crisis
7. Tube
8. Max Biggs
9. Scotty - C
10. Colonel Skills - C
11. Summonmaster - C
12. nazpyro
13. Rat - C
14. Chaotic

[on second thought, money is a bit more tight than I was anticipating, sorry!]

I'm still in. I've been looking for this thread in Community Commons. Where are all the other people who agreed to this idea already?

Sounds interesting....Sign me up....er....that is once I get back to my Wii and find out what my friend code is.

I'm in, you know, provided I meet level caps and what not. =o

Sweet, I do!

Regarding game preferences, I can't really say. Part of the appeal of the vc is that I can try out shit that I never played before, for little cost. I've also been in a nice retro mood, so I'm even enjoying the shit I played way back when. Mario, for instance, is kind of like riding a bike.

Woops, I forgot to post all of the things the OP asked for!

Friend Code: 7718 5677 8179 7406

- I'm a fan of RPGs and platformers mostly, but please don't send me Sonic since I already own the Mega Collection on Gamecube. Also, I already have Paper Mario for N64 and Zelda: Link to the Past for SNES, so I don't want them.

- I don't want any sports or pinball games.

I like how almost none of the folks who commented in my journal have signed up here. Anyway, here's my own info.

Likes: Platformers, RPGs/Action RPGs (I've had my eye on several of them, but haven't bought any), Puzzle

Dislikes: Sports, Fighting, anything available on XBLA

Titles I own in real life (not on VC) that there's no point in buying for me:

I'm totally in. When I get home I'll go look up my Wii code. I AM OF THE U S OF A TYPE O GUY.

I'd like to say that I'm in, but you'll need to give me a day or two to move back in to my house and check on its internet capabilities.

Also, all of my games are back there, and I'd like to make a checklist of VC games that I already own. I'll edit this post accordingly once I move in.

EDIT:

No problem. I don't need your Wii code right this minute, and it's not necessary to post a list of VC games you own. If you try to purchase a game for someone that they already have, the shopping channel kicks you back to the menu to select something else.

I'll go ahead and mark you as participating for now.

Sweet, I'm in on this one.

Friend Code:

Cool Stuff To Get:

VC Games I already own:

Things I don't want:

Special Thanks To:


I don't plan on fully pushing the $20 limit so don't spend more than $10-15 for mine so I don't feel guilty.

I actually meant the games that I own hard copies of, not the game (yep, singular) on my Wii. Sorry if I was unclear about that.

This sounds like cool beans to me; sign me up. I'm at work right now so I don't have my Wii friend code on me, but I'll update this post with it sometime today. Just to let my future Secret Santa know, I only plan on spending $13-$16 on you, so please don't do differently for me. ^_^

I live in the U.S., and aside from puzzle and sports games, I really don't care what genre the game is. The service should let you know what I already have on my Wii, but some other games I own that aren't on my Wii are Super Metroid, Super Mario World, and Pokemon Snap. Everything else I either don't own, or I wouldn't mind owning again. =)

I'm in, sounds fun.

I already own the original F-Zero X, multiple copies of Ocarina of Time , and Mario All Stars with Super Mario World.

I like side scrolling shooters like Gradius and pretty well anything except for sports.

Man, great idea. Didn't see this earlier, thanks for pointing it out Tube. In so bad.

Friend Code:


Great ideas:


Other good ideas:


Things I already own:


Bad ideas:

Region? Phew! I thought that "different countries" in the update meant Canada and US weren't allowed to exchange with each other.

In.






Now updating post with quality info...

Not region-locked, but country-locked? The Wii just got gayer.

Source

On the plus side, that article says the feature is now available in Europe.

Not a big deal; I'll just have to sort out who's American and who's from Frappe Snowland.

Oh, FUCK that, then.

I think that means Summonmaster and me would have to get each other, and where's the secret in that?

I'm opting out if this is the case. Where's the fun in knowing who got you? Bah.

So? It's not like it's hard to figure out who got you, since you have to input their code, and you could look that up. Besides, when you get the games, your Wii probably says something like "SUMMONMASTER sent you a VC game".

Just get another Canandian or two to sign up.

Ah, thread is here. Thanks Nut-T. /signup

I'm also Canadian, not that it helps much.

There you go, Skills. MYSTERY NOT SOLVED.

I'd like to sign up as well. I'm in NA land and I'll edit this post later with the list of games I have as well as my friend code.

I know off the top I have Gunstar Heroes, Mario 64, Paper Mario, F Zero X, and some other Genesis strategy RPG. I'll also have to check my library since I have hard copies of many of the VC games on my other consoles. I'd say a safe bet for me would most likely be a genesis game. (I have the sonic mega collection for Gamecube though which means I must own a Gamecube to play that game on, and by extention, Gamecube controllers which are also compatible with a Wii. =/)

Do have


Do want

I believe I've solved the US/Canada problem, and I used Skills as a guinea pig. If you live in the US and you try to send something to a person in Canada, you get an error message. HOWEVER, if you go into your console settings and change your country to match, it lets you send. I changed my country to Canada, and was able to send Skills a game. At least, I sent it without any error message, and now I'm just waiting for it to pop up on Skills' machine.

So, once we get started, the Canadian folks will need to change their Wiis over to US temporarily, in order to send/receive their gift. When I changed to Canada and re-entered the shopping channel, I got a warning that I had recently changed countries, and that may interfere with pending gifts, so I think it's best if we all stick to one country.

It's too early to make a judgement call on that, we gotta see if it'll go through first. I still haven't gotten any messages on the matter.

Haha convoluted but let's hope it works. It certainly would not be fun to have even just a 1/3 chance at guessing who got who up here =S

Still nothin'. :(

I'm thinkin' it might not have worked Turnip~

Sorry, haven't been around to finding out my Friend Code....but at last, I found it.



As for preferences. I suppose Platformers, Strategy RPGs (something like Shining Force (I already have this game, btw)), Traditional Turn Based RPGs (e.g. Final Fantasy), or any good multiplayer game that is NOT sports/fighting games.

Sorry I didn't do this earlier. I should have done this earlier.

I'll take anything besides sports games and anything that seems like a petty game that shouldn't be sold for five bucks. I don't care if you manage to give me a game I might already own physically.

This is such a wonderful idea. I hope the selection next year is even better to do this for. =)

At this point I'm just missing Max Biggs and Traumatized Rat's codes. They've had a week to post them, so if I don't have them by noon (my time) tomorrow, I'll have to D-Squallify them.

So far it seems I've been unable to send Skills a game, so I guess I'll have to segregate the Canadians. I still don't think it's impossible, and may have something to do with the fact that I got a new Wii (and a new code), but still had Skills on my friends list. It's too late to test further this year, though.

If it's not too late, I'm game with this. Seems like a nice thing to do anyway.

I'll get my Wii Code up by tomorrow, since I'm having a couple of problems with my router and it connecting to my Wii. Probably the latest will be Wednesday since I have finals tomorrow.

Sure, no problem Chaotic, but please put your number up ASAP. There's at least one person participating that needs to give/receive by Friday because they're going out of town. I'm still missing Max Biggs as well.

Alrighty, I'll do it as soon as I can.

Additional Spam:
Here we go, given it hasn't changed: 3022 0913 7368 6467

PMs have been sent out, and the event is underway. Max Biggs has been removed from contention because I never got a number from him. Even if you don't send your gift right away, please enter the numbers you got as soon as you can so that your Secret Santa can send his gift to you. Let me know if anyone encounters problems.

Had da cool dude already in mah list. Had to put Secret Santa numbers in though so I wonder who is the mystery gift giver. =)

Oh yeah, just finished giving my gifts. Took a bit to find some good ones he didn't have because he didn't list the ones he'd already bought.

Just to remind folks who weren't specific, you may want to list what original games you already have (not on Wii), so you don't end up with a bunch of stuff you already have.

Er, yeah, with the number of games I've bought I should've listed them. Under Nutty's advice since apparently it returns your points to you, I sent back Ocarina of Time, Acer. I really hate to reject a gift, but I've beaten the game 3 times and still have the Master's Quest disc for Gamecube. I don't want you to waste $10 on that. ^^;

Thanks a bunch for Actraiser and SMB3 though! Actraiser especially had caught my eye awhile back. To help out a bit, here's a list of what I've already bought and the top games I've been looking into.



As a few suggestions for games, there's Breath of Fire II, Mystical Ninja Goemon, Wonder Boy in Monster World, Neutopia, and anything else you'd recommend yourself. Again, I feel bad about having to send back Zelda, but I know that I'd never play it. ;_;

Then it's time for an ah do ven cha with the inappropriately named duo: Kid Ying & Dr. Yang! =D

Play some delicious co-op with your broza and try not to kill each other too much. <3

Nutty's lame and will never see my Wii, but I look forward to co-oping with Zeroslash. Fishy fun shall be had! =D

Also, I've sent off my gifts to my Secret Santa recipient. Hope he/she/it enjoys them!

I've added in my wii codes and sent out my gifts also. It's pretty much the same sentiment as Tritoch, general well-wishing and happy feelings to my recipient!

Yaaaaaaay! I got ActRaiser, Ninja Gaiden II: The Dark Sword of Chaos, and Castlevania II: Simon's Quest from my awesome santa! I wonder who it could be. Reveal yourself Santa! =DDDDD

I didn't get a message saying you accepted Ninja Gaiden. =oo I was worried for a minute. Hi Acer. <3

Hi hi hi! =D

I sent replies for all three games. You should get them eventually. =)))))))

ActRaiser is very interesting. It's like two or three games in one! =O

I fear I would have nightmares if I did. One more reason Wii is lame compared to 360. If this were Xbox, you could just log into my 360 with your gamertag and download the games while you're here.

Additional Spam:
Haha, Skills just got the game I sent, which means I didn't have to segregate the Canadians after all. Oh well, next year we'll know, unless Nintendo closes the loophole.

Yay! Sent my games out! I didn't have much criteria to go by, so I went with some relatively obscure games (aka not Zelda/Metroid/Mario/Sonic and any other iconic characters.) Though the third one will probably put some holes in walls.

I'll get my games out tonight... Just got to get another Wii Points card so I could buy a little more for my recipient and actually hook up my Wii and put in the codes.

Also, I updated my list with things I already own.

Sorry for the delay. T_T

I plan to send my stuff out tonight as well. I added the two codes to my Wii last night, but we all know how long it takes for friends lists to update.

Doesn't seem to be that long actually, nutty. I added Ava just a little bit after I decided to send gifts to Tritoch. It was maybe an hour or two later that Ava sent presents to me. I guess it's gotten better.

To the one Canadian who hasn't added everyone else. (You know who you are)

Get on it.

I agree.

I'm confused. I think I just received my (AWESOME!) gifts from the guy I thought I was supposed to be giving the gifts to.

I just received Ghosts and Goblins, Legend of the Mystical Ninja and Kid Icarus from my secret santa. This is fantastic, because I've never played any of these, which means they're exactly what I wanted. <3 Thanks so much, again!

I'm, uh, just as confused as you are. I'm glad that you liked the gifts, though! =)

No need to be confused. When I did the random selection, you ended up paired with each other. Since that would have been obvious if I sent you only one Wii number, I sent you both my number as a decoy, so you wouldn't figure it out right away.

Interesting, guess I'll just send the gifts and hope everything works out. Whoever the 0093 guy is, just double check before you send gifts to anyone to make sure no one is getting double gifts at your expense.

EDIT: Oh nevermind, mystery solved.

An easier way of doing this would be to draw names in an order.

Person 1 --> person 8 --> person 3 --> person 12 --> person 9 --> person whatever up until the end, who just gets person 1 again.

That way no one gets all "wait what".

Yes, I could have done that. I just used a random number generator to spit out a sequence 1-9, then assigned those numbers to the list in the post 1-9. At any rate, there shouldn't be anymore confusion, because Tube and IC were the only people matched up with each other.

Gifts sent, let me know if they came alright since the second one deducted the points from my account but said "error sending: Wii Connect service unavailable" or something gay like that.

Both of the games are in fact available for download. Thanks for both of them; I can't wait to try them out!

Wait....

0093 0208 5144 2799 (your Secret Santa)

So is this number an actual Wii code or is it completely fake? Because...

No, that one's real. You should have gotten your gifts, as I sent them this evening.

Geez, I didn't think a fake code thrown in would cause so much confusion.

YOU ARE NEVER ALLOWED TO RUN ANYTHING EVER AGAIN NUTTY JEEZ.

Oh no!
I hope that I don't send stuff my recipient doesn't have controllers for :o Unless I didn't read something regarding that in post 1.
In addition, I have a Classic Controller so anything I don't have should be pleasing enough :)

Gifts away. Summonmaster, check your Wii message box for full note. Because not enough space on the gift note.

Yay, gifts sent out and gifts gotten. :3:

Awesome, Streets of Rage. :3:

RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGGEEEEEEEEEE

Also, to my recipient, expect one more game later today. My connection was bugging out on me last night, so I couldn't send over the 3rd game.

Sweet, awesome gifts to wake up to this morning. Got my first TG16 game (Military Madness) and a series that I've neglected for far too long (Kirby's Adventure) and a nice adventure RPG (Wonderboy in Monster World). Awesome stuff. ^.^

I was wondering if it was possible for anyone not to have played Kirby's Adventure, but I didn't see you mention that you had it. Glad you like your gifts!

I look forward to checking out what I got when I get home tonight; I didn't get a chance to look before work this morning.

Gifts confirmed sent and received!

• Bomberman '93 - Perfect for the pyro within you, or me.
• Adventure of LOLOL (or the Filipino grandfather) - I forgot I like puzzle games. This is funness.
• Neutopia - Wanna-be Zelda! I stayed up an extra hour last night to play some of this MADNESS.

RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGGEEEEEEEEEE

D-SQUALLIFIED! :3:

I'm going to send my games out today. I have to add some points first.

I got Ninja Gaiden and Super Mario World from my secret santa. I've never played the former, and I'm always up for another run though Super Mario World (sup RockgamerXIII). Thanks!

I got Galaga, Gunstar Heroes, and Super Metroid from my secret santa. All of them are excellent games so thank you very much. Probably wouldn't have downloaded them myself just because of the hassle of adding points.

Ahahaha. You got my...rather subtle hints. <3

Awesome, thanks dude.

Sin & Punishment and Gate of Thunder GET.

I got Pokémon Snap with specially-added Wii functionality, and Battle Lode Runner, which will be awesome to play since Lode Runner: The Legend Returns is my favorite game ever and I haven't ever tried this version (and too lazy to go find a TG-16 emulator). So I think with this flawless outcome I basically am the undisputed winner this year. Time to dust off the Wii for a couple weeks.

My Secret Santa gifts are Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine and Wario's Woods. I've been unable to fully download Wario's Woods in one continuous sitting due to Nintendo Error Code messages, but Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine has kept me occupied for quite a while. I'm stuck on Dragonbreath's stage, but eventually I'll get used to the ridiculously fast dropping speed.

I definitely appreciate the gifts! They're exactly what I wanted! =o

Rat tells me he still hasn't gotten his gifts. :(

According to the rules, his Santa has until Christmas to send the gifts, so I can't really say much right now.

On a somewhat related note, my Wii at least is really slow. I downloaded SMW and Ninja Gaiden last night, but I just got the accompanying message for Ninja Gaiden this morning. I never got a message for SMW at all. If I hadn't known to look in the Shopping Channel, I never would have seen the gifts. Gotta love the Nintendo online experience.

Yeah, I know, but he BOLD texted me, see. I just relay the message. =o

Also yes. It sounds as slow as the Galaga thing you sent me. I never got a message for that and only saw it after it popped in the shop channel. How very sage.

You could just go beat up Smelnick, if it would make you feel any better.

This sounds like a prime plan. Violence is the answer to most of life's problems anyway.

You guys have slow response times? That's odd. I thought mine was pretty fast... I got all my messages simultaneously (or at least I woke up to 6 messages), both thank you messages from the gift I sent and the messages that told me that I had received gifts.

So I've received parts one and two of my three part gift. I'll post what I ended up getting after I receive the last part.

Same here, actually. My santa mentioned he was sending a 3rd game, but I haven't seen it pop up yet. No big deal if he didn't, since the other two games he sent were over 1000 points, just thought I'd mention it in case there's a Wii failure somewhere.

Well, I don't think there's a mistake yet. My Secret Santa made it explicitly clear that the games were being sent one at a time and there would be a wait in between each one. Rather clever idea.

Got my excellent third present from my Secret Santa this morning. Galaga '90 is as awesome as I thought it would be.

God damn, ActRaiser difficulty fluctuates like a motherfucker.

YOU THINK YOU'RE GOOD AT PLATFORMING AND DODGING SHIT? NOT ANYMORE YOU AREN'T. OH HERE HAVE FIVE BOSSES IN A ROW. DID I MENTION THE FINAL BOSS HAS THREE FORMS? PREPARE YOUR ASSHOLE FOR A GIANT DICK.

Seriously, how did they think the difficulty for some of these games was acceptable for children? I look forward to building civilization more than platforming which is completely backwards because I fucking hate Sim City.

Good game but god damn it needs some difficulty polish.

Indeed. I felt like I was cheating when I hoarded Source of Magics and got Stardust, but at the same time I thought that I probably wouldn't survive without them back when I played it :o

As a side note, my gift giving isn't over yet! Recipient will receive one more gift to enjoy ;)

I am enjoying R-Type III: The Third Lightning and Axelay, even if they're both somewhat unforgiving. I had no idea Axelay could pull off beautiful graphics and effects like those. As for R-Type, I like how you have to watch out for tiny tiny specks to dodge.

My brother and I actually started playing Ghosts 'n Goblins. That game is a bitch. Can't say it's worse than Battletoads though, because at least there's infinite continues. We played for something like three hours, and managed to just scrap by level 2.

The really awesome thing about the game though was that I could play it with my brother. I haven't actually spoken to him for something on the order of years. Totally mending broken families here. <3

Ok, I got all three games. Um, Bonk III (TG16) and Streets of Rage II (Genesis) are both really fun. We just cleared Streets of Rage II on easy tonight and there will probably be multiple attempts made on Normal in the near future. I played Bonk III for awhile and found the control style to be incredibly innovative and really quite enjoyable to play.

We tried Dungeon Explorer (TG 16). The massive multiplayer element is really fun but the game is surprisingly difficult. We're probably going to take another crack at it with V people for epic amusement. What's the point of playing a game like that with a single person? I didn't enjoy it quite as much as the other two but it is still pretty cool.

(moved from the WRONG THREAD LOL. I guess late at night isn't a good time to post)