Library history The first few Virtual Console games were released to the
Wii Shop Channel on November 19, 2006, alongside the launch of the Wii. While the gameplay remains unchanged for all of the classic titles offered for the Virtual Console, Nintendo stated that some games could be improved with sharper graphics or better frame rates. In reality, however, many games suffered from drops in frame rate or had graphical glitches not present in the original, and many PAL SNES games ran with significantly reduced borders compared to the original cartridge releases. As with disc-based games, the Virtual Console service was region-locked—that is, different versions of games are provided to different regions, and game availability varied from region to region.
Satoru Iwata stated in a speech on March 23, 2006, that Nintendo,
Sega, and
Hudson Soft were working in collaboration to bring a "best of" series of games to the Wii. At
E3 2006, Hudson also declared it would bring upwards of 100 titles to the Wii's Virtual Console. Additionally, Hudson mentioned that its lawyers were working on acquiring the licenses to games from now defunct companies. Nintendo announced
MSX compatibility on September 19, 2006, announcing on February 23, 2007, that the MSX titles
Eggy and
Aleste would be released in Japan. In February 2007, a heading for
Neo Geo AES games was added to the Japanese Virtual Console page, and in September of that same year, games for that system appeared on the list of future releases, priced at 900 points each. Also in September Hudson announced that games made for the
TurboGrafx-CD format would also join the Virtual Console beginning in October 2007, with five titles to be released for the remainder of 2007 and ten titles for 2008, each priced at 800 points. On June 1, 2007, Nintendo of America issued a press release to announce the upcoming release of its 100th Virtual Console title, which was
Zelda II: The Adventure of Link. Within this press release, Nintendo stated that more than 4.7 million Virtual Console games had been downloaded, at a rate of more than 1,000 titles an hour.
Neo Geo AES support was added on September 18, 2007, for the Japanese Virtual Console, becoming the first addition to the list of consoles since the TurboGrafx-16 was added two days after the U.S. launch. On October 9, 2007, Nintendo announced that 7.8 million Virtual Console titles had been downloaded, and as of December 2007, this number topped ten million.
Commodore 64 support was added on March 28, 2008, for Europe's Virtual Console. and
MSX support was added on May 27, 2008, for Japan's Virtual Console. On February 23, 2009, the first three Commodore 64 titles (
International Karate,
The Last Ninja and
Pitstop II) were added to the North America Virtual Console for the first time. On March 25, 2009, simultaneously with Nintendo's Keynote Speech at Game Developers Conference, Nintendo launched 'Virtual Console Arcade', launching with four titles,
Mappy,
The Tower of Druaga,
Star Force and
Gaplus. On February 4, 2011,
Sega announced that a Virtual Console release of
Puyo Puyo, released in Japan in Spring 2011, is the first Virtual Console to feature Wi-Fi support for online multiplayer. The Wii Shop Channel had functionality to allow games to be updated. This was used to update
Military Madness,
Star Fox 64/Lylat Wars,
Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards (in North America and Europe), and
Mario Kart 64 (in Europe and Australia). Several NES and SNES games released before March 30, 2007 were also given updates in Europe and Australia to fix previous problems with the Wii component cables. These updates are free of charge to those who purchased a previous version of the game. In later years, some games were removed from the service due to their licenses expiring, namely
R-Type and
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, among others. The three
Donkey Kong Country SNES games produced by
Rare were withdrawn for unknown reasons despite Nintendo retaining the rights to them, and were later reinstated after being added to the Wii U eShop.
Sonic the Hedgehog and its sequel
Sonic the Hedgehog 2 were both removed in Japan in 2012. While the games returned to the Wii Shop Channel in 2013, they were removed yet again on October 30, 2015, on the Japanese Wii Shop Channel and Xbox Live Arcade in that region while the 3D Classics versions ported by
M2 were still available on the Nintendo 3DS for download via the 3DS eShop. However, the games would remain available in both North America and Europe on the Wii Shop Channel and Xbox Live Arcade. While these and other removed titles can no longer be found or purchased from the Shop Channel, they remain available to those who have purchased them prior to their removal. Such users may still re-download them on their Wii consoles and even transfer them to a
Wii U system using the "system transfer" tool. Any Wii Virtual Console titles can be transferred to the Wii U and played via its
Wii Mode.
Control Virtual Console games can be played using different controllers. The
Wii Remote itself (turned on its side) can be used for
NES,
Master System,
TurboGrafx-16, and some
Mega Drive/Genesis and
Neo Geo AES games. The original and the pro versions of
Classic Controller (sold separately from the console) can be used for all Virtual Console games. The controllers from the
GameCube can also be used for all games on the Virtual Console, except for some multiplayer TurboGrafx-16 games that use the GameCube controller for the fifth player. As a result of this, the wireless GameCube controller (the
WaveBird) has seen increased popularity. All Virtual Console games have their buttons mapped to the respective buttons on the controllers, however, in certain circumstances, users can use X and Y instead of A and B, if the original controller does not have X and Y buttons (for example the NES). However, Commodore 64 titles use a pop-up "virtual" keyboard, which can be toggled on and off by pressing the "1" button on the Wii Remote, and are only used to set up the game and are not for input during gameplay.
Titles Storage Games downloaded from the Virtual Console library can be stored in the Wii's built-in 512 MB
flash memory.
Wii system software versions 2.0 and later allow Virtual Console and WiiWare games to be moved from the console's internal memory to a removable
SD card and then back to the same console. Wii Menu 4.0 added a new menu to run channels from an SD card provided there is enough free space to hold a copy of the channel in internal memory. If the console runs out of memory, the SD menu will offer to move other channels to the SD card. Virtual Console games are locked to the Wii on which they were purchased—they cannot be transferred to another Wii via an SD card, although it is possible to purchase games in the Wii Shop Channel and send them as gifts to people on their Wii Friends list. This procedure does not work across regions and it has been reported that purchased titles cannot be sent to users from other countries either, even if they are on the same region. In the event that a Wii is damaged and the Virtual Console games can no longer be played, Nintendo will provide support (if the serial number or console e-mail name can be provided). Also, if a Wii owner transfers all data on their console to a
Wii U, the ability to download those titles from the Wii Shop Channel, along with all save data currently on the Wii, is transferred.
Game saves and save data Game saving is functional and intact on the Virtual Console for all games which originally had a save feature on their cartridge. Saved games are saved to the Wii Internal Memory and function exactly as the original cartridge did. A game that in its original cartridge form did not have any form of save feature will not have any save game feature on the Virtual Console (though depending on its original system it may have the suspend feature as described below). Most first-party N64 games used internal cartridge memory for game save data and thus will save properly on the Virtual Console. A select few first-party and nearly all other N64 game cartridges utilized the extra memory capability of the
N64 Controller Pak. Saving of data to the Controller Pak is not supported by the Virtual Console, so for those games which used this feature, the save feature will not work properly in the Virtual Console. An extreme example is that of
Mario Kart 64 which uses internal cartridge memory for progress and save game data. Consequently, all progress is saved properly (since it was saved to the cartridge itself) but one of the features in Mario Kart 64 (saving ghosts for racing at a later date) will not work, since that particular feature utilized the Controller Pak, and the option to copy data to the Controller Pak won't function in those games.
Suspending play Like other emulation software, the Wii Virtual Console enables the user to suspend play of a game at any time. To do this, users simply return to the Wii main menu from the game. Two exceptions to this are the N64 and Neo Geo AES, titles which do not support this feature. The N64 will allow play to be halted by returning to the Wii Menu but will require the person to start from the title screen to continue playing. Note that suspending play enables the player to pause the game indefinitely but does not function as a "save state" in that, once the game is resumed, the user will be able to pause play again (overwriting the suspend point) but will not be able to return to the previously suspended state. The suspend feature will not be available if the user resets the Wii with the reset button on the front of the console during gameplay. Further, if the Wii loses power during gameplay, there is no further suspend state, nor will there be a way to restart from the previous suspend state. There are some exceptions, however. Arcade games released by Bandai Namco feature an updated menu and when reset during gameplay, the save state will be saved before the console is reset.
South Korea releases There were 10 titles total of NES, Super NES, and Nintendo 64 games available at launch on the Virtual Console for South Korea. The store updates irregularly on Tuesdays. There are
40 titles available. Depending on the game, they are playable in either Japanese or English.
Super Mario World is the only game that can be bought in either language. Companies currently supporting by publishing games are
Bandai Namco Entertainment,
Hudson Soft,
Irem,
Konami,
Nintendo,
Taito and
Windysoft.
Taiwan and Hong Kong releases Since Nintendo of Taiwan and Nintendo of Hong Kong never offered a Chinese version of the Wii console in Hong Kong or Taiwan, they have released Japanese Wii's in that region and by hardware extensions, the Japanese Virtual Console is also available for customers in Taiwan and Hong Kong and like other regions are able to buy Japanese
Nintendo Points cards at certain retailers. ==Nintendo 3DS==