Topic: The Wii U's North American Virtual Console hit 300 games yesterday

After the Switch's launch in March I didn't think it was going to happen for the Wii U, but yesterday's additions (Digital Champ: Battle Boxing, Legend of Hero Tonma, Moto Roader) hit 300, nearly five years after the console's launch. For comparison, the Wii's (North American) Virtual Console took 2.5 years from launch to hit 300 games (Majora's Mask was the Wii's 300th, and Nintendo actually created a video hosted on the Nintendo Channel to mark the occasion; who else remembers this?)

Can't imagine we're going to see very many more for the WIi U, though.

Thanks for the heads up. This went without much fanfare.
I guess it's because Nintendo's long working on the Switch "VC".

It's just Turbografx games releasing on the Wii U VC in the last months, and yeah, it's better than nothing, but it's also just KONAMI milking the HUDSON SOFT franchises they bought up last year. KONAMI even took HUDSON SOFT's biggest franchise (Bomberman) and made a Switch retail version.

I think the Turbografx also will come to Switch, that is why it is appearing on Wii U with its low install base. My theory is that the Wii U VC has the same engine that the uncoming Switch VC, so Konami can put its games on Wii U VC and later in Switch only "porting" the data. So they can earn more money since now without waiting to appear to Switch.

I doubt Konami continuing to take advantage of their Wii U TG16 emulator that they first introduced to the public in December 2013, means anything for the Switch one way or another.

All the heavy lifting was done way back then. As long as each game introduction pays for amending its ESRB review fee to include the Wii U and associated costs like running it through Nintendo QA to ensure compatibility with the Wii U emulator while leaving some profit on the table, there's no reason to stop the program. There's no "porting" going on with each additional game that they add, since this is all emulation based.

The programming happened when the emulator was first created. This program may or may not serve as the foundation for a potential Switch TG16 emulator down the road, but that the Wii U is still seeing releases means nothing for the Switch. It serves no benefit to Konami where their future Switch ambitions are concerned if these appear now on the Wii U, since they're going to have to go through all the same steps again to get each of these games out on the Switch.

There's just happily enough interested Wii U fans that they see fit to be continuing to launch these games that Japanese Wii U fans already had access to months earlier. Hopefully that continues for sometime yet, although some of these recent releases aren't going to be strong sellers. Hopefully Konami recognizes that and doesn't hold back some of the remaining major TG16/PC Engine releases after seeing how well something like Moto-Roader is selling (Sales in the hundreds at best, I bet).

Have to wonder why the TurboGrafx-16 games are on Wii U (not that I'd complain, more choice is certainly better) but nothing changed on the 3DS, with it still being limited to four games in the Japanese market only.

That's a bizarre one. I'd love to know the thinking behind that decision, too.

Seems a waste to create the emulator and then barely ever utilize it.