Rant: Nintendo Wii’s Virtual Console

If you have a Nintendo Wii, the title probably says it all.  What the hell is the deal with the Virtual Console feature?  Or maybe to be more accurate, I should say the Wii Shop Channel.  For probably a couple months now, I’ve been hoping they’d release the classic alien shooter game, “Contra.”  They have the sequels, “Super C” and “Contra III” so where the hell is the original?  And it’s not just Contra that’s taking forever.

It seems like Nintendo’s really dragging its heels with many games that could do well on the Shop Channel (for those not familiar with the Wii, that’s the internal Wii program where you download games for the Virtual Console).  Every week, they release more games.  But sometimes, it’s only two or three games, and “superstars” seem to be few and far between.  In some recent cases, almost acting as “filler” to delay putting out some good titles, Nintendo has been offering titles originally released for systems like the NEC TurboGrafix 16 or the SNK Neo-Geo.  Even worse, they’ve released some NES titles that were previously only released in Japan.  (If they were so great, why didn’t they make it to the USA back then?)

Honestly, I’ve only downloaded two games.  One was “NES Open Tournament Golf,” which was deleted soon after I realized how completely horrible it was.  (Glad I only paid $5 to download it now, as opposed to the $40 it would have cost when it was originally released.)  The other was “Paper Mario,” which I had been curious to try since I enjoyed “Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door” for the Gamecube, while anticipating the release of “Super Paper Mario” on the Wii. 

Why haven’t I downloaded more?  Nothing else there really interests me.  Sure, they have some all-time classics like “Super Mario Bros.” and “Sonic the Hedgehog.”  But I still have the original SMB for the original NES, I have it as “Super Mario All-Stars” for the Super NES, and I also have a Game Boy version.  Same goes for Sonic: my girlfriend has a Genesis so we can play the true original, and we also have the “Sonic Mega Collection” for Gamecube, which includes pretty much includes all the Sonic games for the Genesis and a few extra titles from some of Sega’s not-so-popular platforms.

And what’s with the pricing scheme?

Seriously, I’m waiting for the day the New York State Attorney General comes out with an announcement about how unfair and deceptive Nintendo is being when it comes to pricing the downloads from the Shop Channel.  You can only buy “Wii Points” in multiples of 500.  If you buy directly through your Wii (isn’t that convenient?) it’s $5.00 for 500 points, $10.00 for 1000 points, $15.00 for 1500 points or $20.00 for 2000 points.  The only other place I’ve seen Wii points for sale is Wal-Mart: $19.97 for 2000 points.

Most of the games cost 500 or 1000 points.  But then you have quite a few games that cost 600, 800 or 900 points.  What the hell are you supposed to do there?  You can’t buy 600, 800 or 900.  You have to buy 1000.  Then you wind up with anywhere from 100-400 points left over.  You can’t get anything for 400 points.  You need at least 500.  So now, you need to buy more points… but once again, you can’t buy just the few hundred points you need to get to 500 — you have to buy another block of 500.  If you don’t want to deal with it… well, Nintendo already has your money, so you lose out either way.

In the end, the Virtual Console is a great idea.  I just wish they’d make it possible to buy points in smaller multiples, and I wish they’d add more titles more often.  And, if I may make a third wish (like there’s some Genie sitting here), I’d love to be able to “try” games before choosing to buy them.  You really can’t tell if a game is any good by just looking at screen shots or even the gameplay video on Nintendo’s website.  One of the reasons I’m scared to download anything “new to me” is because I don’t know if it’ll just be a waste of money, as it was with NES Open Tournament Golf.  Oh, and speaking of Genies, it would be REALLY great if they’d let you use Game Genie codes.  But Nintendo has always seemed to be vehemently opposed to that wonderful, magical device… so I won’t count on it.