Virtual Console Offers 100 Games, 4.7 Million Sold

GameDaily reports on new numbers from Nintendo, discussing their ongoing success with the Wii's Virtual Console offering. According to the piece, there are now over 100 games available on the service, and some 4.7 Million downloads have been transacted since the system's launch late last year. "Nintendo has been updating the Wii Shop with new Virtual Console games every Monday. The top five downloads worldwide to date have been Super Mario Bros. (NES), Super Mario 64 (N64), Mario Kart 64 (N64), Super Mario World (SNES), and The Legend of Zelda (NES). 'With an Internet connection rate reaching 40 percent, Wii owners have more options than ever to find the kinds of games they love to play,' says George Harrison, Nintendo of America's senior vice president of marketing and corporate communications. 'Beyond the Wii Shop Channel, all types of people are getting connected and checking out the information and entertainment options available on the Wii Menu. Whether voting, creating a Mii or just checking the weather, everyone has a favorite channel.'"

Comments

Blame me.

[MeanderingMind]

I'm one of those morons who ditched their old consoles with the advent of each new one. Now, Nintendo, Sega and the rest get to sell me nostalgia at top dollar.

I've purchased 4 NES games, 2 SNES, 2 Sega Genesis and 3 N64 games thus far. It's not an average, but assuming it is we divide 4.7 million by 11 and get 427,000ish people like me in the world.

Scary, eh?

Re:Blame me.

[AKAImBatman]

I'm one of those morons who ditched their old consoles with the advent of each new one. Now, Nintendo, Sega and the rest get to sell me nostalgia at top dollar.

I have 8 to 10 classic game consoles at home, and yet I have purchased about 6 games from the Virtual Console. There are a variety of reasons for this:

• Convenience - It's a lot easier to boot the Wii and play a quick NES title than it is to pull out the classic console (which you lovingly repaired the pins), snake the cables behind the furniture, and hook it up to the television.
  
• Availability - I never had a Sega Genesis, nor have I ever felt the need to own one. The system didn't have much in the way of lasting appeal, but it did have Sonic. Now that I can purchase Sonic from the Virtual Console, I have even less reason to own a Genesis.
  
• Price - Believe it or not, TurboGrafix systems and games are not that cheap in the wild. $8 a pop is a pretty good deal for many of these games. Especially uncommon cult classics like Military Madness and Blazing Lasers. If the rumors of Nintendo adding Neo-Geo games turn out to be true, the value of the Virtual Console games will go through the roof! (Neo-Geo carts still cost upwards of $30 used.)
  
• Storage - I try to keep my games and systems neatly organized. Playing games on the VC allows me to do less to disturb that order, and can even save me storage space for titles that I don't necessarily want to invest in physical copies of.
  
• Authenticity - Playing games on the Virtual Console feels much closer to playing them on the original system than playing them on an emulator does. Nintendo seems to make an effort to replicate the experience as closely as possible. The NES-style controls of the Wii Remote and SuperNES/Playstation feel of the Classic Controller help heighten that sense of authenticity.
  

Nintendo may not have the most original idea with their VC service, but they've struck gold in terms of its implementation. :)

Re:Success?

[AKAImBatman]

FTA the top five are all Nintendo games.

This is because the Nintendo titles have greater mass appeal than the Genesis/TurboGrafx titles. That does NOT mean that the Genesis/TurboGrafx titles are doing poorly. In fact, Hudson originally announced only 5 TG-16 titles destined for the Virtual Console. Since then they've expanded the list to some of the best titles ever made for the system. This includes: Bomberman '93, R-Type, Military Madness, Bonk's Adventure, Bonk's Revenge, and Blazing Lazers.

While Nintendo and their partners have been keeping hush-hush on a lot of the VC sales data, Hudson's strong support for the VC certainly suggests that they've been having good success with the service. Sega seems to be becoming similarly infatuated with the service.

It's also interesting to note that there hasn't been a strong Nintendo title released for the VC since Starfox 64.

I bet the top ten are as well.

I'm not sure I would be so quick to say that. Nintendo's games will always dominate simply because they dominated back in the day. (e.g. 3 of my 6 VC games are Nintendo titles.) But that doesn't mean that the third parties aren't doing exceptionally well. Sonic, for example, was exceptionally popular back in the day. I would be surprised if it wasn't on a top 10 list.

When 3rd party titles dominate the top 5, THEN we can say they have good 3rd party support.

That, I'm afraid, will never happen. The customers are Nintendo players downloading titles on a Nintendo system, and have fond memories of playing Nintendo games. Combined with the timeless reputation of some of their games, Nintendo's classics library cannot be beat. As I said, though, this does not mean that third parties aren't seeing wonderful sales through the VC.

Anecdotally, I have heard a lot of excitement from friends/acquaintances over TG16 and Genesis titles. (Though the 600 points for TMNT got a big 'WTF?') The only catch is that there's more of a spread between which titles they're interested in. Some like shooters, some like beat'em'ups, and some like platformers. Nintendo's appeal tends to be more universal.