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The Wii's Virtual Console gets tons of people excited, as gamers across the world eagerly wait to see what new (old) games are released every week. Some people don't care; they still use their old consoles, download emulators and ROMs, or just have no interest in older games. However, these people are the exception, and a majority of Wii-owners fervently anticipate the weekly bounty. My question is: why? Why is the VC so popular, and why do players get so excited about it?
Some games have been remade and ported one too many times—Final Fantasy, I'm looking at you. Ocarina of Time, as another example, has gone from the Nintendo 64 to the Gamecube and now to the Virtual Console this week. This third incarnation has received an explosion of attention throughout the Internet, and will likely sell many copies. It may be considered the greatest game of all time by many, but why are so many people willing to dish out $10 for a game that is so easy to acquire in many other ways? Why are players willing to pay to download games like Super Mario Bros and The Legend of Zelda that they can find in so many other incarnations?
One advantage that the Virtual Console has over emulators and old consoles is that it consolidates all of your games into one small white box. Another advantage is that, by using the Classic Controller, players can adjust to one comfortable position to play games from systems with less amiable controllers. And of course, unlike emulators, the VC is completely legal and worry-free; you don't have to worry about your Wii getting a virus, yet.
On the other hand, emulators have their advantages as well. Save states, which allow a player to save at any point and return to that point whenever he or she wants, are extremely useful, although most would consider using them to be cheating. Another helpful emulation tool is the fast forward key, which speeds up games and makes some slow RPGs a breeze to play through. Emulators can also be used to examine the code of a ROM, dissemble layers, and dissect the graphics and sound in many cool ways. It should be noted, however, that I do not condone illegal emulation at all, and I don't encourage that anyone pirate games in any form, but wouldn't it be great if the VC had as many options as an emulator does?
I have yet to buy a single Virtual Console game on my Wii, mostly because I've played all of its offerings that I have interest in. However, I'm still very excited about it for a solid reason: the potential it provides. I'm waiting for small developers to release new and unique homebrew games directly to my Wii for a nominal fee. I'm waiting for Nintendo to take advantage of the Wii's connectivity with the DS so VC games could potentially be made portable. I'm waiting for games that never made it to the U.S. to come here with new translations and maybe even updated with cool new features.
I might be waiting for a while, but I have a renewed faith in Nintendo's ability to do innovative things and make the consumers happy. They recently released a new channel for the Wii called "Everybody Votes," which allows for instant and direct polling of Wii owners throughout the world. The Wii also features Internet and Weather channels, allowing for a constant stream of information, similar to the PC. Unlike Sony and Microsoft, however, who claim that their consoles are basically personal computers because of strength, Nintendo aims for versatility and wide variety of games in its computing. If the Wii keeps going the route it should, the VC will make available loads of freeware and shareware, homebrew games, and various options for enhanced gameplay. While the Virtual Console is great now, it could and hopefully will be much, much better. Nintendo has a very powerful beast on its hands, but how they will use it all we can do is wait and see... and vote!
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