GAME CASA .NET

When Nintendo first released the Wii system in November 2006, it included the Virtual Console, and with it the Wii Shop Channel, a place where you could go and download many different video game classics from the 80′s and 90′s.  Nintendo included such titles as The Legend of Zelda, Sonic the Hedgehog, Altered Beast, F-Zero, and Super Mario 64 on the day that the Virtual Console launched.  This begun what became to be known as “Virtual Console Mondays”, where gamers could go to the Wii Shop Channel and find out what new game would be available to download.   For awhile, things were good.  We got to revisit the days of the first three Nintendo Systems, the first two Sega systems and Turbo Graphix -16. Many glorious games were released that took us back to our youth and we could show off to our friends how good we could still rock a game like Tecmo Bowl on a 42″ LCD TV.    Then things changed…

At the start of 2008, the number of well known games that were released on the Wii Shop Channel began to decline. Instead, more obscure titles that seem to come out of the 50cent pile from your local dirt mall flea market began to show up. Unheard of swill like M.U.S.H.A, Dynamite Headdy, Axelay, and Vegas Stakes. Really. A Vegas game to play gambling games I could play for free on yahoo or my Iphone. Not only did the quality of games go down, but the quantity as well. Instead of releasing three games a week for download, it became the norm that only two, and then one would be released on Virtual Console Mondays. This coincided with the release of WiiWare.

The Virtual Console becomes impotent against WiiWare's mighty erection.

WiiWare is being promoted as an avenue for developers with small budgets to release innovative, original, and smaller-scale games without the cost and risk of creating a title to be sold at retail (see XBLA and the PlayStation Store). The development kit costs around US$2000 and developers need to be licensed with and approved by Nintendo. According to Nintendo, the “remarkable motion controls will give birth to fresh takes on established genres, as well as original ideas that currently exist only in developers’ minds”. To that, I say again: Who gives a shit, Who gives a fuck.
Ok, I can’t knock WiiWare totally here. There are some quality games. I must toast the creators of Final Fantasy IV: The After Years for creating a sequel to the SNES classic. And the new versions of Frogger, Excitebike, and Blaster Master are ones to enjoy. But these are the exception. Out of the 196 WiiWare titles made available, most of them provide about as much enjoyment as opening a door. And the WiiWare titles are way too expensive. 1000 points ($10) for WiiChess? Yahoo Chess is free people. Same price for Bonsai Barber, where you pretty much trim trees. Most often the hold up for Nintendo releasing memorable games on the Wii Shop Channel has to do with legal stuff between third party developers. Not a week goes by when someone online asks about Goldeneye for N64. The makers of Goldeneye64, Rare Ltd, are owned by Microsoft. Nuff said. Recently Nintendo has created partnerships with Hudson Soft, Capcom, and Lucas Arts to release titles in the Street Fighter and Super Star Wars series. However, the longer it takes for Nintendo to clear the hurdles with other developers, the more the Virtual Console will go the way of the coin-op game as it gets brushed aside.

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