Topic: Digital Wii (and GCN) games a missed opportunity?

Looking at what it's possible for the Wii U to do natively (run Wii games and as shown by the home brewers GameCube games natively as well), I cannot help but feel Nintendo should have put in a little effort to make launching Wii games and GameCube games (albeit with a controller remapping, limiting the use of the analogue controllers to perhaps a mid and full pressing with the two triggers on each side) and made the libraries of these two systems available as digital downloads on the shop. I'd of happily refought my Wii games for this ease of use.

Perhaps I'm in the minority but this seems a big missed opportunity me since the individual games don't need extensive re-testing since the system has a Wii inside it, very little effort to get it up and running (just the launch software and controller remapping for GCN titles). With the GameCube controller adapter launching it bugs me even more.

Anyone else feel similarly?

Gamecube games difintely are a missed opportunity, but not so much Wii games. With some exceptions, Wii games are still readily available, so going digital with those would make things complicated.

Not really - remember that it is discontinued everywhere except US if I remember correctly, so it could help them catch a few bucks without that much effort. I know I would buy few games, even though I don't like that digital content is tied to the console.

Gamecube and Wii games looks too ugly on modern TVs and if released they could have the reverse result, giving even more bad press for the Wii U. Unless there is a way for the Wii U to output the games in a higher resolution like an emulator.

Anyone know if the Wii U runs native Wii/Gamecube codes or if it's separate set of hardware specific for Wii/Gamecube? Maybe they are afraid of freeing the Wii U "power" to be used for Wii/Gamecube because hackers could take advantage of it to access the Wii U and hack it.

The Wii U hardware itself is backwards compatible. The Power PC processor is fully backwards compatible with GCN and Wii instructions. No extra hardware is necessary to achieve Wii backwards compatibility (The SD card is there for Wii mode, but hardly necessary as shown by the Wii Mini and millions of Wii's and Wii U's that never have had their SD slot utilized). This compatibility is also how homebrewers are able to play GameCube games due to the similarity between the GCN and Wii. No emulation is involved.

I don't think unchanged downloadable GCN/Wii games is much of a missed opportunity, particularly when the Wii U can play many of them out of the box already thanks to Wii backwards compatibility. But I'd of liked to have seen more action on the remastering front. Not necessarily with Nintendo's internal studios handling the work since I want to see them working on new content, but via outsourcing to quality 3rd party development companies like we've often seen Sony do with their popular HD remasterings of games like Ico and Shadow of the Colossus while the studio that originally created them works on fresh material.

When it comes to HD remasters, it's rather a shame that so many of the most obvious selections from the PS2, Xbox, and even the PSP have seen such work while the Nintendo well remains largely untapped despite a large catalog of GCN & Wii classics.

Technically so should NES, SNES and GBA games. Plus anyways, we were playing Wii games on "modern TVs" even originally so I don't think that's an issue. If anything Wii games look better on the Wii U than they ever did on Wii. They also look more-or-less flawless when played on the GamePad. I assume the same would be true of Gamecube games given they ran at the same resolution with the same sort of dodgy inputs if not worse inputs.

I feel like technically this should be possible even if it literally boots you into compatibility mode without MiIVerse or any of the other features. Making it so that when "WiiMode" boots it acts like the game download is the disk. Also when people say Homebrew guys have done it? You could do this on the Wii so it's not a shock the same exploits exist in WiiMode. The difficulty for Nintendo is putting the games on the eShop, letting you pay for them and THEN booting into Wii compatibility mode.

I don't care for Wii games as you can still get them easily anywhere - of course there are exceptions but most of them is still available. As for GameCube games, I think they're eventually coming sooner or later, especially now that the controller adapter is out.
I believe the GC virtual console was a plan from the start, but Nintendo got caught off guard by the HD technology and low sales, so most of the resources had to be destined to the new games compartment rather than the VC. The system is "only" two years old, so there's plenty of time to release VC games - in the next two years, they could cover all the major releases for both N64 and GameCube.
Also, considering the demand for GC games and the fact that they can make a lot of money with them for a relatively low production cost, it makes much more sense to release them once the console has a bigger install base.

Manuals?

What about them? It's not exactly a lot of effort to turn them into a digital format.

Nintendo make great games but they're a shambles business-wise nowdays. It's a no-brainer which should already be implemented and an easy money-maker which could be shifting extra consoles.

All i'm trying to say is that there is at least some effort that has to go into these releases.
Effort that probably makes them think even harder about what's the best release strategy.
I mean with the way in which the Castlevania, Mega Man, Donkey Kong Country, Gargoyle and eShop games are released right now i don't really see a reason to complain atm.

I would love certain gamecube and wii games released as digital copies. Fire Emblem comes to mind.

It's not too late for Gamecube Virtual Console, especially with the Gamecube controller adapter.

Fair enough, with the benefit of hindsight I think policy of flooding us with good VC releases during the drought periods with the huge Wii (and GC) libraries probably would have been a good idea over the last 2 years.

I think the main benefit would be for games that have gotten more scarce or had limited release or no release in certain regions (Chibi Robo New Play Control was only in Japan, e.g.). I would also rather not be dependent upon discs and live to see the back of Wii Mode for launching games. Full compatibility with Wii U Pro Controller and Gamepad would also be welcomed by many I'm sure.

And the fully translated Fatal Frame 2 remake from the UK...

I also think Wii games will be on the Virtual Console of Nintendo's next generation home console.

The phrase "missed opportunity" is thrown around so much by Nintendo fans it's becoming an annoying cliché at this point.

Basically if a fan wants Nintendo to do something that they're not currently doing it's a missed opportunity. Do people not realize that Nintendo is a company with a business plan? I'm sure they investigate all opportunities to generate revenue, do their due diligence, and proceed when it makes sense to do so.

When it makes sense in a financial way to spend company resources on porting old games to Wii U, they will begin to do that. Until then they need to focus on creating new content that motivates consumers to buy Wii U. Old content is not going to accomplish that.

Nintendo just needs time to figure this whole "online" thing out.

I do wonder if the proliferation of illegal ROM downloads prompted Nintendo to see a market in selling old games.
They released the Classic NES Series for GBA, but I'm probably not the only one who thought $20 each was a really steep price, as the NES and games were pretty cheap then. The two Zelda games were probably the most expensive of those released in the series, and the original carts were probably like $10-15 each then. I'd definitely have bought them if they bundled them in volumes at least (like almost every other retro collection out then gave you at least a few games each).
A few of them also seemed a bit redundant for the time (like Pac-Man was probably the fourth version GBAs then were capable of playing). Strangely they skipped over Kid Icarus and The Lost Levels (and at least the Japanese equivalent of Metroid was based on the FDS version). Maybe Murasame Castle, but that was probably more obscure then.
Doesn't make much sense, unless ogo was already speaking to them.

It absolutely is a missed opportunity, especially when you consider that it would probably be easier to get a Wii/GCN game up and running than any other VC game because no emulation is necessary - the games run natively on the Wii U.