Betagam7

What's this news got to do with the Virtual Console btw?

As for nothing changing in the port, maybe in America but in PAL regioins I'm really rather more interested in hearing what has changed (or rather praying something has)

Hope your'e all looking forward to loads of useless ringtones and wallpapers and once a year about 2 copies of a DS game going up and being claimed within 15 seconds.
Seriously don't get your hopes up if this is run anything like the STARS shop that NOE operates.

Manicfatty,

Regarding the emails you sent, you have to appreciate that nintendo probably gets more emails than Ringo Starr and we all saw his opinions on how difficult it was to cope .)
I wouldn't advocate an email, I'd advocate a physical written letter. I've had some lengthy and honest responses from companies like THQ and Nintendo before when I've used this method to complain because they are usually treat seriously wheras emails can just be deleted and filed under "not received"
While I havn't always liked the answers I've received at least I've at least received credible attempts at justification and therefore been able to publically share them with the rest of the net and embarrass them further

Have any of you actually tried...shock, horror...complaining to Nintendo about it?
complaining here won't solve the problem, in the time most have you have taken to complain here you could have emailed Nintendo themselves and they would have had 102 emails to deal with instead of 102 angry posts here. Just a thought...

@Kelvin

Incidently, just going off your Wizball comments do you actually review the VC version or do you review the ROM?

Yes, completely agree. You don't compare a DS game with an Xbox 360 version. We understand that they're different machines with different processing powers.
Also disagree that all games bar the N64/PS1 generation don't stand up against there modern day rivals.
The original Super Mario Bros is still a better game than some modern day releases.
As Stuffgamer says, classic 2d has aged much better than early 3d with its awful draw distances, creaky cameras and glitchy jagged polygons.
Its the reason casual gamers like my lass can still have a blast with SMB 1-3 but find Super Mario 64 ugly and difficult to control despite loving the smooth perfected experience found in Galaxy.

Speaking as someone who has been around since 1978 and owned alot of C64 games I can see where youre coming from with the nostalgia influencing scores but Id say its a little more complicated than that.
I recently bought Paradroid, one of the games most accused of favourable scores based on nostalgia, after being seriously put off by the video, I decided to give it a chance based on my love of Andrew Braybrooks other classic Uridium.
I quickly discoverd a game that is mesmerisingly addictive and just really great fun. I also bought Last Ninja for the first time and, after some initial frustrations with the controls, found the same to be true of that title.
I owned neither of these games initially so is it just my love for the C64 in general that is colouring my views (it seems unlikely as I found a third previously unplayed download, Cybernoid, to be utterly awful), or could it be that, having taken a chance on them I've simply discovered them to be gems well worth the high review scores they've garnered?

Regarding all the "where are the baddies, this will have no challenge" comments.
I remember people saying that about another game when it first debuted....now what was its name again....Ah yes, "Super Mario 64"
No idea what happened to that game.

@Stuffgamer
"I don't personally care about C64 games (never played them, and most of them don't look so good imo), but I really don't understand how Europe has an entire SYSTEM America lacks "

Maybe that's the attitude Nintendo thinks most Americans will have and that's why you don't get the system.

"So I'm no MAJOR Boogerman fan, but I still call that the best game of the release today"

You can call it that, but it doesn't make it true. Last Ninja 3 blows it to pieces

Could it be that Nintendo is looking at previous sales figures when it comes to what games to release.
This could also explain the delay on SOM as I'm guessing it sold more in America than Europe due to its longer availability.
The C64 was a huge success in the UK, I'm not sure if it was as popular in America so it could be that they are mining a fanbase they know will already exist.

Wonderful to see the C64 being so well supported. Will definately grab LN3 at some point (after I beat the first one...arrgh those jumps!)
IM2 looks nice but as the first one is so hard to beat I doubt I'll bother.
Boogerman can litterally kiss my toilet seat for all I care. Even without the crappy PAL conversion I wouldn't waste my breath let alone 800 points on it.
Roll on Wizball and other C64 classics. It is a bit worrying that sequels are being so heavily plundered on C64 already. There are plety of grteat individual titles we havn't seen yet (Gribbly's day out)

Australians, just change your region. yes its annoying but you DO have access to the C64 even if Nintendo doesn't want you to think you do

Nice graphical improvements but won't be downloading as I could never beat the original (which I already downloaded).
Great to see the C64 so well supported though

I don't think Fire Pro will come to the west as the only ones that ever have were the GBA games with there heavy palette swapping and as VC games always remain untouched then its unlikely they'll come as "Dink Krakon" would be all over them faster than a "Steam Odin" stunner

It looks like Nintendo is, frankly becoming less and less interested in the VC. Could it have something to do with hosting space?

Both excellent games though. If AKI put out a Wiiware wrestling game with that engine where you had to make every character from scratch as a CAW I'd still buy it and pay 2000 points for it

erm...don't know what firepro you've been playing. I think you're confusing it with AKI's Virtual Pro Wrestling which THQ used as the Engine for its AKI made WWF games on N64.

Fire Pro is a strictly 2D experience on all its formats. It's unlikely to come out in the West though for the same reasons it never did originally.

For me this game represents the most loathsome aspects of the 16 bit console wars.
The irritating, in your face, were so cool and daring, look at what offensive stuff we can do Mega Drive vs the equally repulsive "not on our machine", morally correct and responsible, "we'll be censoring that" SNES.

I bought the S-L-O-W PAL NES gradius and now I regret it as I've a feeling the TG16 version will come out eventually. I wish they'd just give us the option, I'd pay 100 points extra for the 60hz version

Happy birthday, but it would be nice if you would now use your huge userbase to do some positive campaining over the travesty that is PAL vc titles.
Surely you can use your readership as a lever to speak to someone at Nintendo Europe?

did this get an EU release orignally? Will buy it if its a hanabi but not getting it if its a PAL version

Great to see Fire Pro making an appearance. Hope it comes to Hanabi

Whoever thought it appropriate to write about there being only "one notable game" needs to get clued in or think about expanding their horizons

You may also want to take note of the fact that Europe doesn't get weekly VC updates. We get them once a fortnight which technically equates to the same amount as America's one per week.

I assure you you won't regret it. I've got two of them and there also great for 2D fighting games like CAPCOM vs SNK on GC as well as some of the Japanese Hudson remakes like Adventure Island.

Viral/Bass

If you dislike the GC D-pad(and who doesn't) I would reccomend buying the Horipad
http://www.the-nextlevel.com/features/hardware/hori-digital-controller/
It's an excellent Snes like controller with GC face buttons. You can probably buy this, the collection and a freeloader for less than it will cost you to eventually download all the games on the collection. Plus as UK gamers you won't have to put up with the horrible squashed picture and reduction in speed as the collection will run in 60hz full screen lovliness

Two more 50hz border filled disasters. Great effort Nintendo and Sega. Another 1300 points you won't be getting from me.
Hope you're enjoying not spending our money.

I wasn't that impressed with this when I first played it and relegated it to the SD card. However today after completing Donkey Kong Country, Twighlight Princess and Smash Bros Brawl I celebrated by promoting it back to the Wii's internal memory. You have it give it time, don't just give up after a few goes like I did.

I really don't get the whole Mega Man thing. I downloaded the first one and got to the last level but it just didn't seem like any fun.
I don't mind hard games but games that are cheaply hard just leave me cold. This can take its time reaching Europe as far as I'm concerned.
Saying that, the PAL conversion didn't help.

@Pikmin95,

The "Bowsers" in the game (and in the original SMB) are not the real Bowser, just enemies in disguise (which can be revealed by fireballing him to death).
Just as the Princess is only in the last castle so the Real Bowser is too.

I never realised this game was so enourous in block size till I was looking to remove some blocks today. Wow

My initial thoughts.

I don't like the "aliens" they look like woodlice, worms and maggots. There's none of the Geiger influence the original had. They should have called this "insect crush"
Secondly the WiFi mode seems to be very bad at connecting. you have to wait three minutes for it to find another player (it usually only finds one) and then it sometimes crashes whikle setting the game up.
I'm also not impressed with the scoreboard. you have to load up the scoreboard every time you want to look at it (with more tedious waiting time while it connects, instead of the always there stats of Mario Kart Wii) and as stated its absurd that you can't so much as enter different initials if a different player is playing.
The story mode is a bit of a waste of time and I'm not sure why they bothered with it.
Sounding negative I realise but the game is actually quite a bit of fun but there are so many basic errors in the presentation that I can only give it a 7/10

There was an online petition which attracted 3000 signitures but online petitions never work.
The only way I think Nintendo would change is if it was pointed out just how much money it was losing through its stubborness

I'ts a shame that we'll probably never see the ending to Shenmue now, although in this era of downloadable games you'd think they'd port both games to Xbox live arcade. They could even ressurect the Shenmue passport with a service like that and if the 2 games sell wel enough they could surely finish it off with a third installment.
The game was ridiculously expensive to produce at the time but surely not anymore. You have the engine and the music already in place.
I actually prefer the PAL DC version to the xbox as I prefer the Japanese voices to the Western dub, although there is a sort of surreal kung-fu movie feel to the voice acting in the original.

If you look on the title screen it actuaklly says "reprogrammed by Sega"

Bear in mind that the Xbox only has Shenmue 2. I would recommend you picking up a cheap DC and playing volume 1 first. There is a bonus DVD with highlights of part 1 on Xbox but its not really the same as playing it. Shenmue 2 is also available for DC but only in PAL regions.
Not to mention that the DC is an awesome console in its own right up there with the SNES as one of the best library of games of all time. You definately won't regret picking one up.

Did you ever get a response?

Although it would be nice, the speed issue really doesn't matter as much for most games (unless were talking about F-Zero or Sonic et al) but the borders really stick in the throat. Why do some games get optimised to remove borders and yet ones like Wave Race that REALLY need it don't. I own Wave Race on cart but would gladly have bought it again on VC to play at 60hz with out the huge borders. In fact I was really excited about the prospect of buying several old games again for this.
However I now feel so insulted that I'll just play the ROM on my Xbox. I own the game legitamately so in my mind I'm entitled to play it the way it was intended.
Its disgraceful that a game you can purchase legitimately should be so inferior to one you can download illegally. Imagine the DVD industry being this backwards, where the DVD's you download illegally are perfect and the ones you buy in the shops filmed on camcorders from the back of a cinema and you can quickly see the luncay of the situation at Nintendo HQ

"Hey, Betagam7, whats the deal with "Chips" and "Crisps"?"

The deal is that those things have different names in every country and theres no crossover wheras Football is Football everywhere but the USA. So why do we have things being branded "soccer" outside of that country and Game Boy "color"s in the UK?

Not trying to have a go at anyone here, just the stupid company's who market as if eveyone was American. Take your own example and imagine you woke up to a world of "chips" and "crisps" and totally different spellings and see how annoying it would rapidly become for you.

Now feel free to tell me that you "could" care less to really get me on a rant

Stuffgamer1: No I was just agreeing with Adamant that for that price even a game you only play for 10 miutes now and again isn't bad value. (I forgot about Cybernoid for C64 though, that and Dragon's curse are the only times I feel like I really should have had another pint!)

Also, everybody really should buy Shenmue 2. Not for Space Harrier but because its great! I own the DC and Xbox versions and I'd probably buy it agai for Wii or Xbox Live just to try and convince them to finish the story!

As some of the earliest VC releases, the "Crush" series has built up something of a hardcore following on VC thus prompting Hudson to knock out this new Wiiware version. There are alot of people excited about it (not least me who's just finished wracking up 160 Million points on the old one)

Not sure how anyone can complain about the pricing of 500 pointers. Its just over the cost of a pint and you'll get alot more out of it.

As for IGN; 7.5 for DoRemi Fantasy??. Iv'e heard nothing but awesome praise for this game and if I wasn't on a complete one before you buy one policy to try and regulate my gaming I'd have snapped it up. Not least to support 60hz gaming.

That excuse about the portable TV's might have been worthwhile if little Johhny had complained when nintendo released the 60hz only Majoras Mask on N64 and the gamecube collection not to mention its Hanabi import range.
There's only one excuse for Nintendo: Laziness
There's only two excuses for the consumer: Apathy or ignorance

I personally relish the "new experience" of playing Waverace 64 as it was meant ot be played but they couldn't even be bothered to fix the borders let alone the speed. Disgraceful

They could have started with a library of 200 games but then the question is who would have bought Urban Champion (and many others).
I think that this is what Nintendo was thinking, how does it shift the dross if there's over 100 AAA titles burying it from day one.
Of course the answer is not to release dross in the first place but then as we've seen with Space Harrier, what does and doesnt constitute dross tends to polarise peoples opinions.
It works the other way round though, companies don't want competition for their AAA titles. Hudson would have wanted a big launch of Alien Crush Returns (which I know you rate only as a remake but is a big title to Hudson and many consumers) so Nintendo quietens down the VC schedule to tempt more people intospending there Wii points elsewhere. After all, Nintendo wants to encourage development of Wiiware, it already has VC.
Wii points is Wii points to these companies and its daft to ignore that simply because you personally are only interested in VC.
I'm not saying I don't prefer VC either (I think my collection is about 30/1 VC over WW) but I can understand why they do what they do.
Now if they'd ONLY released Space Harrier period this week then I think people would have had a reason to be a bit miffed.

Personally I'd be happy (although not thrilled) with one game every week, if only Nintendo et al would bother themselves to properly convert it for the PAL format! I've given up on anything Sega now (dissapointing when you consider the Dreamcast pretty much pionee...er championed 60hz) and the minimal work Nintendo does to some N64 and SNES games just about scrapes them into contendership.
The Hanabi festivals are pretty much the only time they can guarantee any more of my money and that's rather sad.
The Americans may be huffed about only getting Space Harrier, but at least they got it running at a halfway decent speed! Your game isn't arcade perfect but our game isn't even console perfect!

Capitalism is the economic system in which the means of production are distributed to openly competing profit-seeking private persons
For the means of production see Nintendo's VC service (as in this case distribution fills in for the lack of physical production with virtual titles) and for the profit seeking persons see the various publishers...Sounds like Nintendo's running of the VC service to me...although yes, I should have said "championed" rather than pioneered, but I can see how one small mistake clearly renders everything else I've said as redundant!
As for being off topic, far from the case. There's no point asking a question (repeatedly), i.e "why arn't we getting more games" if you arn't prepared to look at the bigger answer, which in this case is "you are...they're on Wiiware"
When there was no Wiiware then you might have had a reason to get annoyed with one game (although I really don't see why, Nintendo doesn't owe you anything...this isn't a subscription service and as we know, its merely opening up the means of distribution to whoever wants to lay their cards on the table, regardless of whether they want to use its means of distribution to put out good games or bad)
Just because those who run this website choose to run it and WiiwareWorld independently doesn't alter the fact that Nintendo treats them as one downloadable gaming product. I could set up a website about Ringo Starr and moan about why he doesn't sing on more Beatles songs, I could then say that any answers involving John, George or Paul were off-topic as this was a Ringo only site but it wouldn't stop them BEING the answer.
While Nintendo groups them together then its going to keep pulling that old (whoever pioneered it) capitalist trick of maximising profit by staggering their releases (in both quality and quantity).
Incidently "expressing my opinion" and "Stirring up lively debate" is exactly what I'm doing despite you attempting to paint me as the 2nd coming of Sarah Palin (who I despise).
Look up "Straw Man Argument" in your online dictionary...

Whether or not this site is about VC releases is frankly irrelevent if were talking about Nintendo's strategy, particularly in the US.
Nintendo groups Wiiware and VC releases as the same thing in America, releasing them on the same day.
The fact that you may prefer VC over Wiiware is also, frankly, irrelevent to Nintendo's strategy. The top and bottom of it is that Nintendo releases downloadable games for its console each Monday in the USA. This week you got three downloadable games with a good selection of variety in genre.

Manicfatty: I'm afraid you've rather missed my point over the disc based releases. Even if they didn't take years to develop and were all developed in the same time period (lets say some super Shigeru does them all in a week) Nintendo still wouldn't release them all on the same day for the same reason it doesn't with VC releases.
It spreads them out so that, instead of forcing people to choose one or two titles due to time and economic factors, people will be more inclined to buy one after the other.
How many of you have bought a VC game that you normally would have ignored if the games you "wanted" were all available. I bet almost every single one of you...

You may find this strategy to be annoying and infuriating, I'm not disagreeing with you on that point, but get this: It's called Capitalism.

America pioneered it, as I remember, so I'm afraid you might have to get used to it.

sad for them, I'll just play them on Xbox live instead...or another way.

Bass. Explain to me why you think Nintendo owes you 2 VC releases a week?
You ask why Space Harrier couldn't be accompanied by "another game" but as I stated in my original post, IT HAS BEEN,
Alien Crush Returns did not come out for a different platform. It was a big name release for Wiiware that came out ALONGSIDE Space Harrier. I don't know why you are ignoring this and choosing only the reference HSH in your post.
You ask "what's wrong with variety". This week Nintendo has released a 3D space shooter, and alien themed pinball title and some sort of home design sim.
Sounds like variety to me...or is your Wii incapable of downloading Wiiware. The way people react on this forum you'd think it was a different system.
I don't see people complaining that Nintendo didin't release Super Mario Galaxy, Mario Kart Wii, Smash Bros Brawl and Twighlight Princess simultaneously so I don't understand why people think the policy should be any different on VC. Nintendo knows that some games are duff ones that wouldn't sell well if facing stiff competition but it still has a duty to its publishers to try and sell them as best it can. It's not a case of "burying" minor games, its a case of trying to give them some space to breathe.
Similarly Hudson, putting out a major release, more than likely asked for some "quiet" competition to increase sales of their own game. Its doubtful Sega asked for the same for a relatively minor earner like SH

Is it me or do people who post here have some fundamental lack of understanding on the concept of not flooding the market.
You all seem to be of the opinion that Nintendo should be pumping out 3-4 VC titles per week on top if 2-3 Wiiware games.
Sorry but businesses don't work like that.
ACR is obviously the title Nintendo wants to promote today so it slips out a minor VC game as catchup to ensure more people go for it.
In case you havn't noticed there's a credit crunch going on. People din't have money to download 5-6 AAA titles per week.
Nintendo times the releases to ensure that the big hitters have room and arn't overcrowded.
The only reason we got so many games in the first year was to build up the library. Its the same reason Nintendo doesn't release 100 VC games per week, or release them all at the same time.
Its called maximising profit. Welcome to the real world people...

Hang on a minute, so Nintendo can find it within itself to bother commenting on an obviously unavoidable emulation problem but it doesn't feel like it needs to explain its disgraceful 50hz , bordered games, policy!
Unbelievable!

(watches video)

Tell you what Warren, I'll tell you my name when you can spell "Decide" properly.

Haha, the usual great translation then!

Always wanted to play Ogre Battle when I first had my SNES. Hope its gets a Hanabi release.
Although I really, really hope Enix will look at releasing Soul Blazer, its the only one of the trilogy I never played.