I've had time to think about this, and to be honest, I can live with it. Like I said, my only problems with the Wii Mode we currently have is that we are limited to a few Megabytes of virtual system space, and it takes a short while to swap between modes, but as long as my VC and WiiWare games are safe, I'm happy.

Who's to say when Nintendo releases their next console, they won't let us transfer everything over (as convoluted as it was) from the Wii U to the new console like they did the Wii & Wii U. That was pretty generous.

I will say one thing - this Gamepad play featuire - the unique selling point of these upgraded VC games: Wasn't that supposed to be implemented at launch?

Actually the worse thing Nintendo did was to make the funds separate for each eshop. So even if you have enough points to download a game on 1 account but not the other, you have to buy points separately. That's a much worse practice to rip people off. And no one has any right to defend Nintendo for doing this because it's seriously messed up.

I can't understand the complaints here... If you don't want to pay any more for your VC titles then play them in Wii mode (or on your Wii). If you want the additional features, that cost money to implement, then pay the extra dollar or so.

That's... Actually a very good point. I never thought of that.

@Bankai For what it's worth, it's not like Nintendo isn't competitive in the online space simply because of this. If someone never owned a Nintendo system, or at least a Wii, they aren't being affected by this at all. The only people who are really going to care are people that supported VC in the first place, which are the die-hard Nintendo fans or the retro gamers, since Nintendo had virtually no online presence at all before. Yeah, I think they're still lagging behind Sony and Microsoft for other reasons, but not for this. And besides, Nintendo's organization of the eShop (not the content there, but the way it is run and organized is arguably better than both Sony's and Microsoft's stores, especially with devs allowed to make their own price cuts) and the inclusion of Miiverse show that they are serious with online gaming.

I wouldn’t pay to play games I already downloaded on the Wii in this way, the 'extra features' are not worth it (to me).
A transferal system would have provided another incentive to buy the Wii U, but I guess its up to individuals if they want to pay these costs now.

It also means those with larger existing VC collections will be paying more, and I'd guess(I don’t 'know') that these features are added at the level of the emulator, so why not charge a single fee and let people 'upgrade' their existing collections?
At least that way, you wouldn’t pay more for having supported the VC in the Wii years.

The feature would have most mattered to me would be a 60Hz display option, which apparently isn’t supported.

just as the both of you will always be around to harangue them, I'm sure. Can we keep the social commentary to a minimum, please, and focus on the topic at hand?

Yeah...Nintendo really needs to get a working account system running on their consoles.

Actually like I said, I've lost dlc on iTunes due to poor account tracking, and Xbox Live can get pretty crappy if the servers go down or lose stability, especially since it RELIES on it.... THAT's reality. PSN going down for months apparently has been forgotten. We got free games, but still. Maybe people that barrack for the 'weakest' team, can make the 'weak' team 'strong'. I put key words in quotations to cause less confusion about definitions from individuals. Don't have Wii U VC, people are pissed. We get Wii U VC, people are pissed. That's reality. If you want your games to be Wii U VC native, you'll pay whatever it takes.

It's probably not even about the money in this case. The system is probably reliant on an official transaction to upgrade your games. I recall someone being charged 50¢ to confirm parental controls. The transaction seals the deal. You can't just port the games afterall. It takes extra coding, which I knew even before the announcement.

_{I'm serious, drop the social commentary please — TBD}

There is no extra work going into these games. The roms are identical to the roms on the Wii's VC. The only difference is in the emulator, which they made once and then just plugged in the roms. Granted, they may need to tweak certain settings for certain games to get them to work properly, but I would bet that less work goes into getting these games onto the Wii U's VC than the Wii's VC.

@brroks actually restore points are added (which wasn't available until 3DS)

Another point to consider is that only the people who originally bought the game on the Wii's VC are paying more for the extra features. Someone who is buying the game on the Wii U's VC is paying $5 for an NES game (same as it was with the Wii) and is essentialy getting the extra features for free, while someone who bought the game on Wii paid $5 plus the extra $1 for "extra features". I think one way to alleviate people's dissapointment in this, at least for me, would be to allow people who bought the game on the Wii to upgrade their games before the games become available on the Wii U's VC. That would be a nice little bonus for supporting the VC on the Wii.

It doesn't matter. Work is work. You get paid the same amount of money whether you're working on par, or above par. At my old job, I had a 2860% efficiency rate compared to other workers that had a 60-80% efficiency rate over a span of 5 months. We all got paid the same ammount regardless.

Yeah, but that's through the emulator I would imagine.

Well with the WiiU version that you buy for $5 it's already added with the Wii + $1 version they're taking one that had none to have one

or, they could let you have access to the games in question years before they finally become available as Wii U VC titles. sounds like a helluva bonus to me!

Wasn't overly happy with this news myself when I first heard it, but considering they make you rebuy titles on 3DS wasn't that surprised, it has wii mode though so not really a big deal.

Even if it is, I'm sure someone had to playtest every game to make sure it works on that emulator. And there are around 400 games for the VC...

They said they were thinking about doing that but didn't get that far yet. Probably one of the reasons why the VC is as delayed as it is right now.

Nintendo is absolutely NOT making you pay again for VC games you purchased years ago. You can play all your Virtual Console games on your Wii U right now, for free, in Wii mode.

What you ARE being charged for is extra functionality in the form of gamepad play and restore points (and I think Miiverse integration too, but I'm not sure). If you find a title in your VC collection that you'd love to play on the gamepad, or a game you enjoy playing, but is so difficult that restore points are the only way you can make real progress, then yes, you will be charged. But those are significant new features, and it's a little silly to expect them to be given away for free.

You could also level the same argument against the virtual console service itself: "Why do I have to pay for SMB3 again when I already have an NES cartridge of it?"; it's a matter of paying for convenience. Besides, you can always just pick a few of your favorite VC games and only pay the extra fee for them!