http://ccs.shop.wii.com/ccs/download/00 … 5/FFFD0001

That is, assuming the trick of hacking the online thing works for the third week in a row.

Hm, maybe people doing this on Firefox is why you are having a hard time connecting, XLord?

I recognize, of course, that these are Nintendo classics, but I'd be more psyched if I didn't already have them on my GBA (though the ability to play them without the characters never shutting up is nearly an incentive in itself). Hell, my SNES is still on active duty in my entertainment pagoda... but the save-data batteries, not so much.

I'd just like to see Nintendo either pick up the pace or start releasing rare/never-before-seen (in the US) gems alongside their easily recognizable classics. The downloadable format is ideal for distributing games they once thought were too risky to spend the capital on manufacturing hard copies... so c'mon, get to it!

I can't agree with the criticism against how Nintendo is releasing titles; the system is only two months old and rarely do we get one release a week, nor has there been a week without a release.  The same cannot be said for whatever it is Microsoft is doing with XBLA when often there isn't a release and with only one exception that I recall has there been more than one release in a week (and that one exception was for Ultimate Mortal Kombat because it was released a week early and so there was no release the following week).

There is a huge catalog of games for all those systems, but the only ones being released, at least for now, are those in a region in which it was released before AND only if whoever owns the title wants it released.  I'd like to see some numbers though; as you suggest, there should be little overhead so all involved should be raking in some easy cash here.  For instance, translating the (Super) Famicom Wars and Fire Emblem games shouldn't be that bad...

4*52*5 = 1040 games total.  I'm sure there will be plenty of time for most people's favourite games.  Though, I don't think there's a hope in hell of them putting either of the Star Tropics games out for download.

Seems as if Mario Kart 64 is being released next Monday, according to a new Nintendo press release.  Perhaps Mario World won't be out until the first Monday in February.

Hm, touché, Nintendo... touché.  I'm not complaining though.  Mario Kart 64 is worth it.

I gotta agree with everything you say here.  I might actually buy some of these games for the second, third, or fourth time if the prices weren't so ridiculous, but I already have at least one version of every major NES, SNES, and N64 title on the VC, so I don't want to pony up another $5-$10.  Pricing should be $0.50 for NES, $1 for Genesis, $2 for Turbo Grafx, $3 for SNES, and $4 for N64, IMO.  Note that Sony is releasing PSX games on the Playstation Store for $6 and one of those suckers could eat up more bandwidth than every game on the Virtual Console combined.

Now, if Nintendo started releasing translated versions of never-before-released-in-the-U.S. titles for these old systems like Sin & Punishiment, Mother, Tenchi Sozo, Seiken Densetsu 3, Treasure Hunter G, Dragon Quest V and VI, Star Fox 2 (never released anywhere), Fire Emblem series, Famicom Wars series, etc., then I think the current pricing structure would be worth it.

I guess the key take-away from the VC is that the VC is not meant for hardcore gamers or diehard Nintendo fans.  The VC is meant to strike a chord of nostalgia with lapsed gamers (people who played games in their youth but stopped playing as they grew up) just as titles like Wii Sports and Wii Play are designed to appeal to non-gamers.

As diehard Nintendo fans, we got our Twlight Princess last year and we're getting two new Mario games and one new Metroid game for the Wii this year, so it's not as if Nintendo is ignoring us.  But oh do we love to complain. :-)

Or people who don't hold onto older systems or they break and they don't replace them.  So the VC works for a wider audience, depending on the situation.  I don't think that having the GBA version of games is better than a console version, but it depends on the individual.

As for Sony's PSX games online--- I don't really care.  They are for the PSP only, which is absurd.  I'm always impressed with how well Sony fucks up.  So, their pricing is probably intending to do more business-wise, with selling hardware and such, than it does with expanding its online game-download services, which is rather unimpressive considering.

Say what you will about Sony's idiocy (and you know I agree), but you can't argue that Nintendo must be making a killing (percentage-wise) on the VC titles' current pricing structure.  They consume little bandwidth on a per title basis and the ROMs are completely unchanged.  I do wonder what kind of cut the third parties get; if it's like iTunes where they get the lion's share or like Live Arcade where it's more even between them and Microsoft.

Yeah, those prices should drop a little, although your pricing was a bit... well, too low.  I mean, even if it dropped to a quarter I'm not buying Urban Champions, but I'll happily pay $5 for Punch-Out! (hint, hint, Nintendo).

I hope that Nintendo's cut is minimal, so that it entices more 3rd parties to release more titles.  Apparently, Solomon's Key's sales were good enough for Tecmo to put up another random NES title that also doesn't interest me.  Why not Ninja Gaiden, Tecmo?  And Namco Bandai's Xevious... that's a title that we were all just drooling to get.  Eh, but now I'm ranting...

Speaking of Nintendo's, SEGA's, Hudson's and the third parties' killings, which I'm not arguing isn't (assuming Nintendo's cut is minimal), I really would like to see some numbers---how many of certain titles are selling and how much is pure profit for the companies involved.

Quick question - where are the downloadable games for the Wii getting stored?  I thought it didn't have a harddrive

On its flash memory.

Games are stored in the Wii's internal flash memory, which is 512 MB.  The flash memory is also used for Wii save game data.  It is enough space to store a very large collection of VC games.

I wonder about that.  Do you think all 512 MB are really available for use?  System upgrades don't substract from your available blocks, so either the firmware has it's own dedicated memory or a portion of the 512 is held aside.  Since Nintendo insists on using "blocks" to measure memory, this makes things more difficult, but not impossible.

The Wii starts with a little over 2000 blocks of memory for both save games and channels compined (I verified that this is shared since I have different amounts of usage between channels and save data but the available memory listed is the same for both).

The 2 GB SD card I have for the Wii started with roughly 15,500 free blocks.  Doing the math, that makes a block equal to about 130 KB.  If there are around 2000 blocks to start with on the Wii, that equals 260 MB.  Since I'm doing a lot of rounding here, I'd bet that 260 MB estimate is, in reality, 256 MB, or half of the total system flash memory.

So, it looks like we don't have as much save space as we thought, but that may not be a bad thing if it shows how much space Nintendo is allocating to future channels, assuming that future Nintendo-created channels will use the hidden space and not the visible space like the Opera Browser.

Also, even if space weren't a limitation, the Wii currently only allows 48 channels, so you can't download more VC titles than you have room for channels unless you back up older channels to your SD card to make room for new ones.  Of course, you can't play VC titles off the SD card, so if you wanted to play those, you'd have to make space in your channel lineup and then copy them back from the SD card.  Hopefully Nintendo will either allow more total channels in the future or allow you to group channels together.

I'm STILL annoyed that you can't just put all your virtual console games in one channel... or at the very least group them by system.  I just don't like the interface being all messy.  (Maybe) I'm just anal.

Good point.  I never thought about it that way.  Maybe the 512 is split between VC titles and Wii game saves, so that would reduce the amount you could use on VC titles.

I don't have any VC titles, but this theory should be pretty easy to test.  If VC titles are saved in the Wii's channel memory portion, then it's the same pool that's used for game saves.  Notice that both totals drop when you add something to either.