Namco Announces Upcoming Arcade Games

That's great news! I've long wanted to have the arcade version of Splatterhouse. I can already tell I'm going to love this Arcade section of the VC. And I had no idea that Mappy hopped!

i hope capcom jumps the train soon and presents the classic brawling games (alien vs. predators, cadillacs and dinosaurs ...)

This has some serious potential. While VC may have slowed of late, it looks like its regaining its momentum and Nintendo is firmly claiming the title of best online service.

Yeah. the last day has been awesome news for us. VC releases had becoming depressingly stagnant lately with seemingly no relief in sight from the tedious bare minimum games we've been getting lately. I hope we get more than one game from now on.

i hope capcom jumps the train soon and presents the classic brawling games
I was going to say Final Fight and...
...
Street Fighter 2 (come on, it's Capcom they've released it what, 5 times already on the Wii Shop)

Four, Starwolf with Genesis SSFII rumored to come to VC at some point.

This just keep getting better and better!

So whats the dif between the version of splatterhouse and this arcade version?

i love splatterhouse hope it comes out really quick
wheres mrs. Pac-man

@ Objection_Blaster: Just watch a video - Tons more gore!

Holy crap Pac Mania. I loved that game and must have spent an obsolute fortune playing it in the arcades. Ended up buying a port of it for my home computer too.

Taito will also support Arcades!
http://www.siliconera.com/2009/03/26/taito-supports-virtual-console-arcade-brings-puzzle-bobble-to-wiiware/

I'm disappointed Rompers isn't in that list as I love that game to pieces. Hopping Mappy can probably be missed; I tried it on MAME and wasn't really impressed. Wonder Momo in the arcade lacks the questionable cut scenes from the PC Engine version on the Japanese VC, so I'll pass on that, but there's a raft of stuff there.

If the price outside of Japan ends up being 300 points less then I'll probably just wait to see what comes here for a change.

Hopefully more classic IP holders will announce their intentions for the service in the coming weeks.

The possibilities are endless!

Holy crap, Numan Athletics! That's awesome! It's nice to see that a lot of the games on this list (Finest Hour, Knuckleheads, Emereldia) have never been given home conversions in the past, which gives me hope for a much-needed VC port of The Outfoxies (imagine Smash Bros. in 2D and with assassins)

Definitely will get Pac-Mania, now I would also love to see Pac-Land released too, I just loved that game so much!

Now I'm hoping Capcom jump on too, as well as Konami

I hope Midway also jumps on the bandwagon and releases some arcade classics such as Joust, Centipede, Defender, Mortal Kombat etc.

I thought Midway went or is going bankrupt and that they are selling the Mortal Kombat series? I don't who to though or if they have done it yet. But maybe once whoever gets the series, we may see some actual good Mortal Kombat games. Or maybe not.

CYBER SLED FTW

Holy crap, I didn't even notice cyber sled up there, that game is awesome

Not arcade, but Namco needs to give us some Tales of Phantasia, pretty plz Namco, it's been translated.

Wow, that's a lot of games. I need to look into a lot of these Arcade games, otherwise there's no point in calling myself a "True" Gamer. Namco are going to fill up the Arcade section like there's no tomorrow.

On the other hand, ouch for Japan. 800 points a game? That's way too expensive. If it were a couple of games, say one's developed later rather than sooner, that are more powerful hardware-wise, i'd understand but all of them though...

It'll be interesting to see how those sell in Japan.

Namco is good and all, but I'm really hoping for some CPS2 fighting games such as Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo, or any of the arcade SF2 games they're certainly better than the watered-down SNES/SG ports.

Pole Position please.

I'm still trying to figure out what it means by putting coins in the machine to play these VC arcade games. It sounds like a con to me.

I wonder if there's any possibility of light gun games showing up in the Arcade section of the VC? (CarnEvil?? Time Crisis?? Hell, even Jurassic Park would be fun) Or those snowboard/skateboard/skiing games that I remember from the arcade? (balance board)

Probably not. But still, that would be cool.

At any rate, this new update has finally gotten me interested in the wii's digital distribution again!

Wow, already tons of arcade are announced. Splatterhouse on the TG-16 is ok, but the arcade version sounds better,

"Nintendo is firmly claiming the title of best online service."

I wouldn't say that. Yesterday's update has simply finally put it on par with XBLA but with its back catalogue it certainly has the potential to usurp it in the future.

I Wonder what games we'll get here from that list.

Not many of these arcade games ring my bell (or memory) at the moment although I will probably pick up Space Harrier and maybe Rolling Thunder.

Pac-Mania? Nice, that game's a lot of fun. I loved the fact that you could jump in it. Can't wait to play that again. Eventually we'll probably see Dig Dug, Galaga (orginal), Pac-Man and Ms. Pac-Man. I'd love to see some Nintendo arcade games released. The Donkey Kongs, Mario Bros., etc.

Some of these I'll gladly give a look or I'd like to look into further since I've never tried any of these.

Cosmo Gang the Puzzle
Cyber Sled
Dragon Buster
Galaga '88
Hopping Mappy
Marvel Land
Sky Kid - Is this better than the NES version?

I can't wait to see what SEGA plans to release! If they decided to release the rare arcade games such as Waku Waku Sonic Patrol that would be great! I'm looking forward to hearing more from them with their ideas on how they plan to further support the VCA.

Seems like there are a few Pac-Mania fans here. I tried it on Namco Museum Remix and I didn't think too much of it. Maybe I'll play the arcade games on there today.

@Relevant Latty: My thoughts exactly! Many arcade games are eligible to appear, even some newer more recent ones. I know I'm stretching things here but imagine seeing things like Mario Kart GP Arcade on the VC. It's unlikely (although that would be awesome!) but I'm trying to illustrate that almost anything is possible with the VC and especially now with the SD Card Update, we may see bigger games that may have previously been ruled out due to their sizes! (I'm still hoping secretly for Dreamcast games one day. I'd be so happy. But that's another story...)

PacMania,great!

I just thought of something...with these new arcade games, how close are we to 300?

i hope we get all the uncensored splatterhouse arcade games

#35: Just eight.

Well, I mailed Midway (which I've been doing to get a disc comp released for some time) about this and here's the response (to their credit they reply promptly to queries, so start sending those queries guys: www.midway.com use the support mail form):

On 3/26/2009 you posed a question to Midway Support which was noted as inquiry 39485.The question you posed and our response are listed below.

Your Question, Comment or Feedback:
Now that Nintendo has announced the Virtual Console
Arcade for selling emulated arcade games I sincerely
hope we'll be games from Williams, Midway and Atari
games that you guys have the rights for on the Wii!

Don't hold back, let's have it all!

Response:
Thank you for contacting Midway Tech/Customer Support. Please see below for details about your inquiry to Midway.

Hello,

At present we have no information about this, so I cannot confirm whether or not any Midway games will be going on the Virtual Console Arcade or not.
<BR>
Regards,
Midway Tech/Customer Support

Is it true you can always add new credits on every Virtual Console Arcade (VCA) game?
That's like having limitless money / unlimited continues in every VCA game!
Time for some shmup killing!
Is it really that awesome? I haven't bought one of these games. I wanted Emeraldia. Or Killer Instinct.

Well, now we know where Nintendo has been all this time. Maybe now we'll get multiple games in one update.

At present we have no information about this, so I cannot confirm whether or not any Midway games will be going on the Virtual Console Arcade or not.

Well yeah. They're not gonna reveal their plans by e-mail to some guy on the internet - they'll make their own official public announcement when the time is right. You didn't expect them to actually tell you anything did you? Game companies never do in these type of situations.

Do any of these games have co-op that isn't taking turns? My brother and I wan't to play at the same time!

Some other arcade games that come to mind that were much better than the NES versions: Ring King and Ikari Warriors

Youkai Douchuuki

Ooh, great game, bring that over.

Might bring the Famicom port over too, it was quite different, and didn't have any text you really had to read.

Cyber Sled and Starblade are two I can't get on MAME, so I'll be downloading those, definately!

You know what this means? There's another open spot in the VC system list.

The only games that interest me are Splatterhouse and Xevious. Do either have multiplayer in the arcade version?
EDIT: and Rolling Thunder...

Buy the Shaft for the Wii. It's designed with two buttons and a joystick to play your favorite arcade games like they were meant to be played (perfect for the NES Pac-Man port).

Ooooooooooooo, arcade version of Rolling Thunder. Instant buy for me. It'll be terrific to have that one available.

Why haven't any of these games appeared on the coming soon list yet?

Give me Space Harrier! I loved the Sega 32X version (my 32X broke), and the Master System version won't cut it.

I don't want to sound ungrateful but will Europe get a good VC fix tonight??????

Splatterhouse is an instant download.

I want to see Sonic Fighters.

Sonic The Fighters can be found on Sonic Gems Collection. Otherwise, it's as likely as Tekken.

@ marktheshark: They're only confirmed for Japan at the moment. True, we usually add games announced for Japan which were also released in EU/US, but in this case it's just too many. Maybe we'll add those which are released in Japan next month, we'll find out tomorrow

I have to disagree with you Bass on your #19 comment about Mortal Kombat series. I think Mortal Kombat vs DC was good, along with Deadly Alliance and Deception. I was not too big on Armagedon, because they limited each characters' fighting styles and create your own fatalities sucked.

Does this mean that SEGA may eventually release SEGAsonic Arcade and (like Ferret75 suggested) Sonic the Fighters on the service?

Not that I'm bothered about the latter since it's already in the collection but the former would be interesting to see since the only way to play that game in the UK is to go to the SEGA building in London, and I doubt it'd still be there what with any fan playing it like there was no tomorrow .

Then again that ball rolling system could be easily implemented with the wiimote (if they make the effort.)

Wouldn't it be funny if we ever saw Mario Kart Arcade GP on the VCA?

Why haven't they announced that Super Punch-Out is coming to the VC on monday? Oh well. Maybe they'll release the arcade version of Punch-Out, too!

@Bass XO: I actually didn't expect them to tell me anything; I was just saying, yo there's a new place for you to release your old IP so do it! Hopefully they will!

I'm also hoping we'll see announcements about Taito content, Konami arcade titles, Data East titles and others.

When they say Arcade, is that only counting 80s games or will we see a lot more 90s games too?

@comment #60:
I don't know... but I'm hoping it's true that Super Punch-Out will be released!

Because Super Punch-Out and SSB64 are what I keep obivously telling myself will be released soon; either now or in between April 27, to May 18... which are dates I keep telling because they are likely to come out by then if not?!

Let's hope Nintendo can pull it off & give us first party games more often now!

Also why no first party Arcade titles like Mario Bros or Donkey Kong... or more origonal Pac-Man Namco, or Mrs. Pac-man?!

im ok with this as long as nintendo release other system games too

Party On Dude, these games are already available in their NES form. As I've said, you can buy The Shaft to play them as if they were in arcades. However, if there are some elements missing from the NES version, you can hope for the arcade versions.

Awesome! Splatterhouse again! Oh yeah! Finally the good version!

I think we'll see more announcements in the near future; supposedly Taito is working on releasing both Space Invaders and Puzzle Bobble. As far as eras go, some of the games in the Namco press release for Japan are from the 1990s, so we're not just looking at 80s games.

Everyone should be patient and chill; it's quite possible this announcement will have taken some rights holders by surprise; I'm hopeful by the end of the year we'll have more content than we know what to do with!

@1. Dazza "Rolling Thunder! Oh yus!"

Second that!

If they can get the arcade versions of Double Dragon and Renegade up there, the Arcade side of VC could start challenging the console side for VC catalog awesomeness.

Is Rolling Thunder 2 on the PAL VC? The Megadrive version is spot-on and I've got it from the Japanese VC. The first game is much better, admittedly, but it might tide you over...

Well, there's already some of these games on VC, so I'm not too excited. But, of course, some people are.

"Rolling Thunder! Oh yus!"

Third that!

It's great to see Namco giving so much support for the new arcade service. I love their arcade games! I either own or don't care for the majority of those games, but there's a few in there that catch my eye. Now bring on Ms. Pac Man, Motos, Grobda, and Pole Position!

Mind if I add something here that could be useful now since we have this and the retro channels, and that is ADDING VIDEO for all of these games for those that may never heard of them. Of course, I could just look them up on Youtube (which I did), but it would be a convenience now.