Virtual Console

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Logo of the Arcade subsidiary Virtual Console Arcade

Virtual Console ( VC for short , Japanese バ ー チ ャ ル コ ン ソ ー ル Bācharu Konsōru ) is a brand of the video game company Nintendo . It serves as a collective term for older video games that can be purchased on later Nintendo game consoles as a download and played via emulation .

range

The selection includes games for the following consoles:

system Wii 3DS New 3DS Wii U
Stationary Nintendo consoles
Nintendo Entertainment System Yes Yes Yes Yes
Super Nintendo Entertainment System Yes No Yes Yes
Nintendo 64 Yes No No Yes
Portable Nintendo consoles
Game Boy No Yes Yes No
Game Boy Color No Yes Yes No
Game Boy Advance No Limited Limited Yes
Nintendo DS No No No Yes
Other systems
Sega Master System Yes No Limited No
Sega Mega Drive Yes No No No
PC Engine
(TurboGrafx-16)		 Yes Yes Yes Yes
Neo Geo Yes No Limited No
Commodore 64
(in North America, Europe, Australia)		 Yes No No No
MSX Yes No No Yes
Virtual Console Arcade Yes No No No
Sega Game Gear No Yes Yes No
  1. ↑ Super Nintendo games are only available for New Nintendo 3DS systems .
  2. ↑ a b Ten games for the Game Boy Advance were given away to early 3DS buyers as part of a reward program and are not otherwise available.
  3. ↑ a b c d only available in Japan
  4. ↑ All Commodore 64 titles were removed from the offer in August 2013.

administration

In the Wii Shop Channel acquired games are saved as files via the Internet on the Wii console and stored there in the internal 512 MB memory or on a connected SD card. The graphical user interface ( Wii menu ) shows a newly downloaded game as an additional Wii channel; In addition, since patch 4.0 there has been a separate user interface that provides the channels that are stored on the inserted SD card for selection. If you start a VC game from this so-called SD card menu, the game information is loaded into the Wii cache and then started. In addition to the game, there are also instructions in electronic form that can be called up via the home menu while the game has already started. Saved games are stored in the Wii system memory and often cannot be copied or moved. Which data is saved for a game depends entirely on the individual title or, in addition, the emulated platform: Games with a small RAM memory image can be "frozen" and resumed at the same point; otherwise the usual storage methods in the form of individual saved games are supported virtually. As a result, both storage methods are supported at the same time (e.g. in Super Metroid ). Game files and game saves in the internal memory or on the SD memory card can be managed via the Wii options system menu .

In addition, every Virtual Console user at Nintendo has an account for the Wii Shop Channel . It can be viewed via the Account Movements menu item .

The Settings menu item enables the link to the Club Nintendo account , which manages the stars of the Nintendo bonus program acquired by the user. Stars are awarded as a bonus when purchasing Virtual Console titles.

However, the game titles can only be used on the console with which they were downloaded, which is enforced by technical protective measures on the part of Nintendo. However, it is possible to reload previously purchased games from the Wii Shop Channel onto the same console at no additional cost . Updated games where e.g. B. Errors have been corrected can also be reloaded free of charge.

Should the console become defective so that it has to be replaced by a new console, Nintendo wants to offer a way to make games that have already been purchased usable for the new device. Except for this case, there is currently no way to transfer games to another console, so that it is not possible to resell purchased games.

Input devices

The emulated consoles each had specific game controllers . The differences between these input devices are sometimes considerable. Only the digital control pad ( D-Pad ) invented by Gunpei Yokoi for the left thumb is standard. The number of buttons and additional controls differs fundamentally, however: For example, the Mega Drive controller has a central start button and three buttons (six buttons on newer controllers) on the right, while the Nintendo 64 controller has an analog stick, a fire button for the left hand, a button in the middle, six buttons on the right and two shoulder buttons.

The Wii Remote can be used for NES, PC-Engine, NEOGEO and Mega-Drive games by holding the ends with both hands so that the left thumb is on the D-pad and the right thumb is the Uses 1 and 2 buttons in the roll as a and b button. The Classic Controller offered by Nintendo, which is connected to the Wii remote control as an extension, is more convenient.

In addition, controllers connected to the Nintendo GameCube can be used for all games, with the exception of some of the Mega-Drive and Turbografx games.

With the help of an NES-to-GameCube or SNES-to-GameCube adapter , NES or SNES controllers on the Wii can also be used to play the virtual console titles that can be played with a GameCube controller .

Support from other publishers

So far, 21 publishers have announced that they will support the Virtual Console. Game titles that are associated with high license costs, such as Tetris , are problematic . The situation with games from Rare is interesting : some of the most successful games for SNES and Nintendo 64 come from this developer. Nintendo held up to 49% of the company's shares in Rare for several years. After the company founders sold their majority stake to competitor Microsoft, Nintendo also decided to sell its shares and only the rights to part of the characters remained with Nintendo. It remains to be seen whether, in view of this, pure rare titles such as Banjo-Kazooie (Nintendo 64) will be published on the Virtual Console. Rare games that use Nintendo's own characters, such as Donkey Kong Country, can be published or some of them can already be downloaded.

New translations

Many game titles never made the leap from Japan to other countries because they feared that the costs for translation, localization and distribution might not be recovered.

Since the distribution costs for a publication via the Virtual Console are significantly lower than for traditional distribution via retailers, it can now be economically interesting for some of these cases to publish them outside of Japan.

Technical restrictions

The Virtual Console faithfully emulates the old game titles. However, this can also lead to problems:

No 60 Hz mode and poor PAL adjustment

Games developed for the American and Japanese markets are based on the NTSC television format used there , which works with a frame rate of 60 Hz and a different number of lines. If such a program is scaled down to the 50 Hz standard without further optimization, the game play is approx. 17% slower and the image size is reduced (indicated by the black bars above and below) or even compressed. In some cases, the unoptimized downscaling even has the consequence that music and sound effects run slower than in the original. Games that are optimally adapted to 50 Hz mode usually have no or only minimally reduced image size; the game speed is also less noticeably slower than the original 60 Hz version.

Some games offer the optimal 50 Hz mode described above on the VC (so far, for example, all Nintendo 64 emulations and a few games that were already available with the optimal 50 Hz version at that time, such as the Donkey Kong Country games) . Most of the virtual console games lack the described optimal adjustment - that is why they run much slower and with a smaller image section (for example, all Mega Drive emulations so far only offer an unadjusted 50 Hz, which is even reflected in the sound). Others were only "corrected" by faster game play (e.g. in Super Mario Bros. ), or it was a. most other Nintendo emulations at least remove the sound slowdown and the image size is less drastically reduced. Finally, on some supported platforms or titles, any forms of 50 Hz mode were completely dispensed with and only the original 60 Hz mode was offered. This includes all Turbografx games and most of the titles that are marketed as " import " titles in the Virtual Console (e.g. Sin and Punishment ).

Incorrect picture via component cable

Some modern displays, especially LCD and plasma TVs, and projectors, By connecting via a YPbPr - Component cable some Virtual Console games, u. a. Donkey Kong (NES) or Super Castlevania IV (SNES), do not display correctly, e.g. B. the screen remains dark or only flicker can be seen. It is currently unclear how many of the current televisions are affected.

The technical reason for this is that these games generate a low-resolution LDTV image signal, namely 240p , and the televisions presumably expect a minimum SDTV ( 480i ) or EDTV image signal ( 480p ) via YPbPr component cables .

With the update of April 13, 2007, this error can be corrected for various games.

Pixelated graphics

Classic game consoles mostly only output a resolution that is well below the normal PAL television definition standard. Since the usual TV resolution is now transmitted on the Wii, regardless of the game being emulated, the image is enlarged because the discrepancy between the two resolutions (standard Wii resolution (high) and emulated game (low)) has to be bridged. In some games this fact is less or not noticeable, as the resolution of the game has either been increased (e.g. in Lylat Wars or Super Mario 64 ) or a filter is used to blur the contours (especially with TurboGrafx emulations).

Lack of support for N64 controller extensions

Many titles for the Nintendo 64 offered a so-called rumble effect, which made the N64 gamepad vibrate in certain gaming situations with the optional Rumble Pak. Although at least the GameCube controller is equipped with a similar function, it is not used. In games like The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time , in which the rumble effect was used to draw attention to secrets, this function has a slight effect on the gameplay.

The same applies to the “Controller Pak”, which was used to store game data for some titles. So far, no game has been published on the Virtual Console that requires the presence of this expansion on the Nintendo 64. Smaller Controller Pak functions in Nintendo 64 games previously published on the Virtual Console (such as saving so-called ghost data in Mario Kart 64 ) have also not been used so far. A virtual consideration of the Controller-Pak storage method, in which the internal Wii storage is used for this data, has not yet been implemented.

Control variants

Even if the Virtual Console supports a large number of input devices and variants, there is no free key assignment for these devices, since not every game offers an internal key configuration. As a result, the key assignment based on the original input device (and not the individual game) is always "mapped" identically, so that the operation of some games with some of the supported input devices is very difficult. Furthermore, input via the nunchuk remote combination for a VC game has never been made possible until now, although this input method would offer most of the available titles a sufficient number of simultaneously and easily accessible keys.

Distribution and Licenses

Pricing

The costs of the games are between 5 and 12 euros. Payment is made via a credit account on the console, which can be topped up using a credit card or online by credit card in the Wii Shop Channel . In addition, by registering purchased Nintendo products, points can be collected and exchanged for Wii Points , the internal currency for VC games. In this way, Nintendo decouples the possibility of online purchases from owning your own credit card and at the same time abstracts the costs for possible expansion of the Wii functionality.

Personal right of use

The games can only be started and played on the console on which the license rights were acquired. It is also not possible to copy games to an SD card and then load it on another Wii.

This of course also eliminates the possibility of reselling purchased games, unless you pass on the entire console at once. However, Nintendo expressly forbids this because the right to use a purchased game is linked to the buyer.

In the terms of use, Nintendo requires that personal data and downloads, such as games, be deleted before the console is passed on.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Virtual Console: Secrets exposed ( Memento October 27, 2010 in the Internet Archive ), Computer and Video Games, November 3, 2006
  2. ↑ "Three ways to take control" on nintendo-europe.com ( Memento of the original from January 11, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / wiiportal.nintendo-europe.com
  3. ↑ NES and SNES Controller Adapters for Nintendo Wii
  4. ↑ Chris Kohler: Japan-Only Games Possible for US Virtual Console , Wired , February 15, 2007.
  5. ↑ Some European and Australian Wii Virtual Console games run in 50Hz with borders . Videogamesblogger, December 6, 2006.
  6. ↑ http://www.nintendo.de/NOE/de_DE/news/2007/tauschen_sie_ihre_sterne_in_wii_points_ein_6535.html (accessed on December 21, 2007)
  7. ↑ End customer license agreement (ELV). (No longer available online.) Nintendo of Europe GmbH, formerly in the original ; Retrieved December 17, 2012 .  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.nintendo.de