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The Wii Virtual Console Hands-On
Gamespot has a hands-on with the virtual console for the Wii. From the article: "Nintendo's Wii Virtual Console demo station featured five signature games from system's past: Super Mario Bros. from the NES, Super Mario World from the SNES, Super Mario 64 from the Nintendo 64, Sonic the Hedgehog from the Sega Genesis, and Bonk's Adventure from the TurboGrafix 16. The navigation menu only allowed us to scroll through the five title selection pages, so we didn't get a chance to select and download games to run."
Title should be 'The Wii Virtual Game Menu Hands-On'
This guy's the limit!
Will games be available that were not published by Nintendo or Sega? Like Vectorman?
Post should be "I didn't bother to read the article."
Jesus saves and takes half damage.
Sounds almost as good as a softmodded Xbox.
If you don't know where you are going, you will wind up somewhere else.
No, they got to play the games too.
Jesus saves and takes half damage.
Take 2: Will there be any games by companies other than Nintendo, Sega, or Hudson?
No, they had the games playable there.
If you RTFA, they were able to play all 5 games. They just weren't able to select and download any games that weren't already installed.
(italics mine)
I can't help but think that this means Superman 64 is all out...
-Rob
Biblical fiscal responsibility
Wow, your menu has impressive graphics. What did you use to make them?
On a side note, the script-blocking image is making me type "molest" to continue. How nice.
If you're considering buying an original Xbox to run emulators on as opposed to using the Wii Virtual Console:
An year ago I discussed with friends how Nintendo is going the way of SEGA and soon they'll go out of the hardware biz and port Mario to other platforms.
:)
:) they've all the reasons to be.
Then I wondered why Nintendo chose to throw out the standard controller and move to something totally unorthodox, and thought that's a stupid move.
I also recently laughed about the Wii name and discussed with friends that it'll fail sales.
Now I know, Wii is THE console I will buy the moment it's out, because it provides an amazing value at a lower price and amazing innovation right in your living room.
I may even buy one for my mother and grandmother, cause I always like to push technology down their throat, like any self-respecting geek should, and I think it'll be easier and more fun this time
BTW, did you notice the guy talking on the Sony pressconference sounded pretty depressed after the Wii presentation the previous day
Hudson is behind the TurboGrafx-16. So take this as a good sign for Nintendo's Virtual Console. They also have plans for a return to the console market with several games for the Wii.1 552
http://www.planetgamecube.com/newsArt.cfm?artid=1
Someone makes a retarded comment (grandparent post) and gets modded insightful. Then someone else (the parent) points out the simple fact that the retarded comment is retarded, and that the grandparent should have read the article, and he's modded flamebait. Way to go mods, if you keep up the hard work, you can make digg and fark look intellegent compared to slashdot.
You like playing all games on one machine don't you? This is certainly one of the greatest assets of Wii.
How about this:
Nintendo releases its console early September for the price $200 shocking everyone with a low price and making for an incredible start, Nintendo barely manages to produce enough consoles for all people who wanna buy one.
PlayStation 3 starts selling November, and despite a good start sees its sales quickly decline as almost noone but the most hardcore PS devotees are willing to pay up the hefty $600 price for what is essentially a little better version of XBOX 360.
Sony's meeting huge financial difficulties with pricing and positioning Blue Ray, especially that PS3 turns out to be a massive failure and 6 months later is bought by Microsoft.
Microsoft promises to build on the assets of Sony and tells PS gamers that PlayStation will continue to be sold and supported until further plans are announced.
Nintendo is doing great, but the Sony+MS merger is not something they can go against, Sony+MS start pouring billions of dollars advertising their consoles, a new PSP-XBOX-PS3 interoperability kit is developed and distributed.
Nintendo lacks the hard cash MS has, and soon the innovations of Wii are quickly drowned in the ad campaigns and promotions MS does.
Late 2007, Microsoft buys Nintendo.
Late 2008, a new console is released by Microsoft: the XWiiPlay, which uses an advanced version of the Wii-mote, packed with a standard controller extension, and can emulate all Sony, Sega, Microsoft and Nintendo consoles in existence, including Virtual Boy.
Aaaah... dreams, dreams.
Is the virtual console service free, per-game, or a monthly fee? I haven't seen anything indicating how much this will cost.
I'll form my OWN solar system! With blackjack! And hookers!
Late 2007, Microsoft buys Nintendo.
O rly? Hey Ballmer, why don't you suck my tiny yellow balls?
This fits nicely with previous claims that developers of any size will be able to develop for the Wii (virtual console).
I'll sacrifice a bit of my karma when saying that it should be named " Wiirtual Console" instead.
THIS IS THE INTERNET. PLEASE PICK UP YOUR SERIOUS BUSINESS SUIT AT THE FRONT COUNTER.
It'll never happen, primarily because the DL size would be prohibitive, I would think, but it sure would be cool to play through Ys Book I & II. My spoiled-rotten cousin had a TurboGrafx CD system and all I ever got to do was watch him play and "help" him with puzzles and stuff... Grrrrr.
That game was so mesmerizing at the time. The music was some of the best ever composed for a game, in my opinion. I'm tempted to buy a copy of the disc from ebay just to rip the music... I recall with the TGCD games, the game data was track one, then all the rest were redbook audio. It sure would be cool to play through it without trying to get a working TGCD system together.
I wonder how much they will charge for each game. If they priced it rather low, $5 or less, a lot of people would buy them legally. Lets face it Emulation wont go away, and the only way to find some of the old games is to either search flea markets or download them off the internet. Miyamoto is like the Steve Jobs of the console business and the Picasso of game design.
Maybe they're saving that one for an April Fools joke.
> My Xbox could play all of those games and many more. In fact, my Xbox can play more NES and SNES games than the Wii will every be able to play. Even better, its been capable of doing this for at least 3 years now.
So what? PCs have been doing that for more than three years now.
Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
Some people think "legally" matters.
Tell me, do you believe in supporting developers, or would you rather game publishers and developers only target demographics who are less likley to pirate their products, like the Madden set?
Touch everywhere, even when inappropriate.
This is the same reason I don't purchase used games if I Can help it.
However, Lumines Plus (for PS2), Lumines 2 (for PSP), and Lumines Mobile (for mobile phones) are distributed by a unit of The Walt Disney Company, which (unlike most other software publishers) has lobbied Congress for copyright term extensions. If I want Lumines Plus (and not some homebrew clone), I have to either buy from Disney or buy used. I'd rather buy used, so as not to support Disney.
I log on, select a game, buy it legally, and play it. Simple.
Either that, or you find that your favorite titles are not available on the service.
The common myth in the US stems from USC 117 Section 17. It allows for owners of software to make a single backup copy. The purpose of this dates back to the 70s or 80s when software was distributed mostly on volatile magnetic storage mediums. People like to pretend that it extends to ROMs too, but in fact, not only is it not true, but case law (See Atari vs JS&A or google it) contradicts it.
Atari v. JS&A covers backups from carts onto carts. It does not cover backups or "adaptations" from carts onto another medium using a copier, which are both explicitly permitted (17 USC 117(a)(1)) and implicitly permitted (Sony v. Universal, interpreting 17 USC 107).
You can buy a copier off of Ebay, www.tototek.com, and many other places. Use Google.
ToToTEK may be helpful for people who want to copy Super NES, Sega Genesis, or Game Boy Advance cartridges, but it fails it for NES Game Paks. Which Google keywords should I use if Google buy nes copier and Froogle nes copier fail me?
It is easy to find the older versions of these games in used game stores, Ebay
If one does not have a suitable used game store within bus distance, then one must use eBay. How can I distinguish the old version of MechAssault from the new version (after bugfix but before Platinum Hits) based only on the item description on eBay? Are most sellers willing to look for an item number and answer truthfully?
1. "Everyone" is made up of: Nintendo fanboys who will buy the console even if it were named "Happy Happy Fun Console", and those that think the name "Wii" is funny enough, and mock it incessantly on Slashdot.
2. Obviously, Wii is for the first set of people.
3. Nintendo is actually using the name "Wii" as a maturity test. They are using "Brain Age" technology to determine a person's maturity level by the number of penis/urine jokes made by people in the second set. Penis jokes identify a maturity level of roughly 10 years, Urine jokes - 7 years.
4. Everyone knows Nintendo consoles are for kiddies, so the Wii is suited to members of the second set as well as the first.
The Wii is for Everyone.
Q.E.D.
A member of the gaming press fiddling with the interface to see old Mario games listed but unplayable via a previously announced download option turned "throw out the standard controller and move to something totally unorthodox, and thought that's a stupid move" into "amazing innovation"?
"I may even buy one for my mother and grandmother, cause I always like to push technology down their throat, like any self-respecting geek should."
I'm sure you're the top of the list in grandma's will, what with the back-to-back Christmas gifts of KnoppixToasterOven & Sanyo 9" disk earrings.
Feeling so good natured I could drool
There is nothing illegal about playing your NES and SNES games on your Xbox.
Charity for game developers who make you re-purchase games that you still own in a different format? Give me a break. I mean, if you had software that you paid for on floppy, but your new PC only had a DVD player, would you re-purchase all of your old software in DVD format? That is just stupid. Copy your software to a new format and run it on whatever hardware is capable of running it.
You really think developers will get money from that? Will I get a royalty from a game I wrote 10 years ago published by a company that no longer exists (Acclaim)? Yeah, right!
There is if you don't own the original cart.
And if the person I originally replied to owns every rom on his Xbox then I'm Richard Stallman.
Is this service limited to the consoles supported at release or will the Wii be able to emulate other consoles in the future too?
Personally, I'd be waiting for SNK Neo Geo support. Though I believe the NG is still somewhat alive.
The current range of systems doesn't really attract me personally, but if they can support the NG, I'd buy the Wii. I'm sure there will be others for whom different types of console emulation would also strike a chord; Lynx, Game Gear, Master System, Game Boy, NG Pocket, perhaps even the really old consoles such as Oddysey, Atari 2600 or semi-consoles such as MSX(2) or C64GS cartridges.
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