As we all know, we can't backup our VC games, at least not in the sense that it will work on a replacement console. Sure if the Wii breaks and you get a replacement, you can call Nintendo to transfer the license. But has anyone ever considered what will happen in the distant future, when games get pull off the shop channel that have been on there for too long (let's say 10 years from now), and your system dies, not just one or two of your downloaded VC games, but ALL of them will be lost forever if Nintendo discontinues the download service. It's terrible that game companies are so fixed on making money and preventing piracy that they don't take these little things into consideration. It's pretty messed up to not let the people who give them money to even backup their games.

At that point I think piracy is fairly justified... Hopefully that won't be a problem for a good long time though and by then perhaps copyright law has caught up with technology (in a good way).

First off all let me clairify what you just said in your first post @Don!

I'm saying this in all honesty:
Nintendo should've thought about all of that sooner when they released the Wii & the VC service... for we all know what might happen if a Wii gets damaged & you have to somehow get her games back that you downloaded!

That's the real big shame right there; for its Nintendo's fault completely there! The other shame thing is if people knew how to take care of their video game systems... even if they don't always last that long!

Also the Wii is barely old anyways; for its almost 3 years old!

Perhaps by that time we'll have an external back-up system for our games?

I'd imagine that the VC / downloadable titles won't end on the Wii, and that there will be some method to access what you've downloaded on future consoles.

this makes me wonder what Nintendo has up there sleeves for their next system (no controllers? all motion-based interactivity!?!?)

What makes you think that Nintendo hasn't taken this into consideration? I guarantee you that they have. The successor to the Wii will also offer a download service and I'm sure that you'll be able to transfer all the games from your Wii to the new system. This is also why Nintendo hasn't released all of their triple-A titles for the Wii VC - they want to have some good ones to release on their next system too.

Nintendo would be foolish to not continue the VC on the next system. It's basically free money for them to put thier old games up for download, why would they not want that? And if they don't transfer over to the new system, there would be a lot of angry customers, which could mean a lot of people wouldn't buy the new system. The VC was pretty much the main reason I bought my Wii.

A side question that is kind of related here, do you guys think the next system will be backwards compatible with the Wii/Gamecube, or do you think they will only let you donwload those games through the VC? I know I would be pretty upset if I couldn't play my Wii/Gamecube games on the new system. What do you guys think?

Wait wait... can't you back up and play all your downloaded VC games on an SD card now? I'm confused

i have a feeling that they will give up the Gamecube compatibility, but wouldn't some Wii games be difficult to port to a new system because of the control schemes?

You'll probably be able to transfer things like you can between Rock Band 1 and 2 for 360 and PS3-read: pay a small one-time price!

You can only play the games saved on the SD card on the system that the data is copied from. Othewise, anyone could just take extra SD cards and copy games downloaded on the Wii at a friend's house and take it home and play it on their Wii systems without having to pay for it. People would be selling loads of SD cards of copied VC games off Ebay. The incompatibility with another Wii for copied games on SD card is designed to prevent just that.

i have a feeling that they will give up the Gamecube compatibility, but wouldn't some Wii games be difficult to port to a new system because of the control schemes?

That all depends on if Nintendo changes the control scheme on the new system. I couldn't imagine them going back to a basic controller again after this. Maybe something totally different? But if Wii games are backwards compatible on the new system, then Gamecube games would be too by default, as they are basically the same system.

My Wii broke after I first got it back when it came out under the warranty and they had to replace the mother board and the disc drive. But yeah I think it's pretty easy for them to switch over everything I was able to download all my games again. Except all the Mii's I made I couldn't edit them anymore and my Wii code changed. But yeah as long as you register it in your name it should be fine. But that makes me wonder if I ever wanted to sell my Wii how do I unregister my name from that system, ah but how would they know I erased them off the Wii unless they release another channel that would erase all the games before you sold it knowing you'll get another Nintendo down the road for example the Wii 2? I don't know but I have over $250 on VC alone and I would never sell my Wii, but I know people that have. I guess I would have to sell it at a higher price. Could you imagine someone selling a Wii with all 300 games on it? Wow that's alot of money. I'm sure there will be someway to switch everything over to the next system when the time comes, let's hope anyway.

Don,
Regardless of whatever Nintendo pulls out of their ass to deal with this however many years down the line: I'd like to point out that my NES from 1989 still works.

I cannot see this being a big problem honestly. I think it's more likely your optical drive will bite the dust and then you'll have a nice big library of stuff on SD card. I suppose if you spend all your waking life playing different VC/WiiWare games you might hit the read-write limit on the built-in flash, but by then you might be able to get the internal flash swapped out by Joe's Planetary Game Salvage, LLC.

There's also the possibility that once the Wii is retired Nintendo could put out a blowout firmware update to allow for direct play from SD or the system would be opened up to support USB storage so the internal flash would become irrelevant.

The point is that this isn't worth worrying about right now and shouldn't affect your buying habits. Nothing is forever, not your CDs, your DVDs, your HDs or your carts so stop fretting and just enjoy the system. I would make sure to have a big enough SD card that you can download everything to rather than rely upon having the service; maybe for the paranoid have a backup card which shouldn't be difficult to populate now that you can download directly to SD (actually that's not a half-bad idea!).