Wii U VC and Earthbound

[cimerians]

Looks like the Wii U VC is arriving next week:

 

http://www.destructoid.com/virtual-console-and-panorama-view-coming-to-wii-u-251882.phtml

 

 

and Earthbound:

 

http://kotaku.com/holy-crap-earthbound-is-coming-to-the-north-america-vi-474832871

 

 

Now if they can just release a Zelda game on the Wii U and I may finally dive in.

 

Kind of cool that you can play the SNES games and VC games on the tablet controller......

[Austin]

It's about damn time they rolled out the Wii U VC service. Considering the Wii U needs all it can get right now, one would think they would have done this sooner.

 

Earthbound being brought over is good news, too!

[Atariboy]

The Wii U Virtual Console has been around for several months now. Launched with Balloon Fight back in late January and has since gotten Punch Out, Kirby's Adventure, and F-Zero.

 

As for Earthbound, I'm glad if for nothing else that this will silence all the armchair experts out there that proclaimed that this was unreleasable despite appearing as a demo over in Japan on the Wii (Which obviously indicated they were serious about rereleasing it), a port to the Game Boy Advance, and I vaguely recall strong hints about a North American Wii Virtual Console release that obviously didn't pan out (Wasn't it even rated by the ESRB for the Wii?). Not to mention that there's zero indication that the SuperNes original ever resulted in any suits against Nintendo and there was no sign that they licensed any of the IP's that they supposedly utilized that were the reasons why we'd never see it again.

 

I wonder if the Wii will recieve it as well? Beyond some releases from Sega last year on the Genesis and arcade sections it seems like Neo Geo activity is all there is these days on the VC (Which is fine by me since they're finally getting to interesting stuff now that the fighers, Metal Slugs, and such have been gotten out of the way).

Edited April 17, 2013 by Atariboy

[Taskmaster99]

Man....Had I known this slightly earlier....it would have saved me quite a bit of money. Just acquired an Earthbound and paid well for it.

[Asaki]

Just acquired an Earthbound and paid well for it.

 

I paid $80 for mine, brand spankin' new, complete in the box @_@

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

*cough* ...of course, this was back in 1995... ¬_¬ *cough*

[Algus]

So what's the migration like? I have tons of Virtual Console titles and I'd hate to lose them all by upgrading to the Wii U, but I suppose I'll have to in order to buy Earthbound

[xg4bx]

So what's the migration like? I have tons of Virtual Console titles and I'd hate to lose them all by upgrading to the Wii U, but I suppose I'll have to in order to buy Earthbound

 

I think they'll charge a pittance to upgrade the original VC titles to the U VC but as far as I know you don't lose anything you bought if you don't choose to ''upgrade''.

 

Really the main selling point the U VC has over the original is save states, off tv play and miiverse integration. (I'm eagerly awaiting the .30 Super Metroid next month for exactly these reasons).

[Austin]

The Wii U Virtual Console has been around for several months now. Launched with Balloon Fight back in late January and has since gotten Punch Out, Kirby's Adventure, and F-Zero.

 

I'm sure you know what I meant. Not a promotional hand-picked title available each month as they have been doing (currently, four games total as of tomorrow). I'm talking the whole shebang.

 

On a side note, were the "upgrade/transfer" prices always this way? I thought when they announced this option a ways back, that it was only going to be something like 30 cents for NES games, and 75 cents for SNES games, or something along those lines. I could very well be wrong, but I don't remember them mentioning prior to this that it would be a buck at a bare minimum, then more for later generations of titles. I was planning to upgrade all of my games initially, but at a buck a pop, I think I'll pass. Shit, it will be an $80 to $100 investment for me to get all of my old VC titles converted over, heh. Then again, they will only be supporting NES and SNES for the time being, but still..

[Atariboy]

I wasn't nitpicking or at least wasn't out to. The first article linked that was published yesterday made it sound like the Wii U's dedicated Virtual Console was appearing next week. That's what I was correcting. Sorry for not making it clearer..

 

http://www.destructo...-u-251882.phtml

 

I'm in full agreement with you that it's nice to see something fresh arriving instead of re-rereleased content that was already present on the Wii counterpart. Hard to get excited over such stuff so I hope we have many more instances of new content like Earthbound to look forward to over the next few years.

 

As for the prices, I'm not completely sure but I think those are promotional prices available to any Wii U owner to encourage them to support these early Virtual Console releases. I think the transfer prices were always a bit higher since they first announced it. So with these first seven games (As I recall, it ends after Donkey Kong is released in July), it's going to be cheaper to pay the promotional price than it will be to pay to upgrade an existing Wii download to a full fledged Wii U Virtual Console title.

 

You sure have a large library of VC titles. Might be worth it though for a superior presentation on an HDTV even though I can see how the cost could add up quickly. And if you've already made the transfer, upgrading when available is the only route to be able to play Virtual Console games in their original aspect ratio in HD unless Nintendo impliments a 4:3 switch for Wii Mode someday. Going to be a long road before even half of your content is on the Wii U so the sticker shock shouldn't be too bad. And I bet a good chunk of it never experiences a Wii U release (So far they've only talked about NES, SNES, GBA, and as of yesterday N64).

Edited April 18, 2013 by Atariboy

[Algus]

So if I understand it right, I can set the Wii U to "Wii" mode and play all my VC stuff? But it's only games I pay the transfer fee for that get Wii U perks?

 

That sounds pretty good to me.

 

Now the question is do I finally treat myself to the Wii U or the 3DS...

[Atariboy]

If you've transferred your Wii DLC to your Wii U, you can access all your Wii content at no charge from the Wii mode. The free transfer requires both consoles to be present, an SD card I believe, the transfer app downloaded on at least the Wii and probably the Wii U, and an internet connection for both consoles (Although not simultaneously). After following the instructions just switch over to Wii mode on your new console and access your content just like you always did. And the same limitations apply. So no taking advantage of Wii U controllers, the extra storage options of the Wii U, etc.

 

As for upgrading them to Wii U releases, you have to pay a small fee. And of course you can only upgrade when there is an upgraded version already available in the Wii U's Virtual Console store. But hopefully in time many of the big hitters will fall into that category. I'm sure most of the 1st party content is a guarantee after a few years.

 

The benefits of upgrading to the Wii U version are things like button remapping options, the ability to stream gameplay to the gamepad's screen, support for Wii U specific controllers (While maintaining Wii controller support), presumably improved emulation that corrects some past flaws, fully featured save states across the board (Versus the suspect state feature several of the Wii emulators had that couldn't be reloaded), and an improved HD presentation.

 

You lose access to the Wii download in Wii mode after doing the upgrade. And of course the transfer to Wii U will wipe clear your original Wii of that DLC.

Edited April 18, 2013 by Atariboy

[cimerians]

Just saw this statement and I was wondering what a Mii-Verse community is. Is it like a forum or something on the Wii U? Just not familiar with what Mii verse is I guess.

 

"It just seems like there's a lot of Earthbound supporters inside of Nintendo and inside of Nintendo of America," Trinen said, "and there's been a real big desire to try to bring this back for people that have been longing for it for a very long time. And so, we're just really happy that we've been able to do it. And we're gonna do it on Wii U, where it'll… because it's gonna be a Virtual Console game, it'll have its own Earthbound Miiverse community. Which is gonna be, I think, spectacular."

 

http://kotaku.com/maybe-the-earthbound-delay-wasnt-really-for-music-lice-476434126

[Atariboy]

I'm not a Wii U owner but I don't think you're too far off. It's a community where people can say what's on their mind and interact with each other (At least that has been my impression). And while I doubt it's nearly as big of a deal as Nintendo would like to think it is, it does sound nice. For those playing on the competition, we're used to not being isolated since we're regularly interacting with those on our friends list. But there hasn't been much system-wide community interaction and the only time strangers are really encountered is by meeting them in online multiplayer. So I suppose Nintendo saw one of the few holes with their competitor's online networks that they could perhaps address with their much more limited and primitive online features and it led to Mii-Verse.

 

Just to correct a typo to clarify my earlier post, I meant to say suspend state feature when I was talking about the Wii U's Virtual Console's improved save state feature compared to the more limited implementation on the original where you could suspend your game and come back later on some of the emulators.

 

Instead, I spelled it as suspect.

Edited April 20, 2013 by Atariboy

[Austin]

Yep, Mii-Verse is like an open forum where you can write short posts (or draw pictures). People can then like or comment on your posts, or follow you. Each game has it's own Mii-Verse section, so you can post to the Mii-Verse while you are in a game. A lot of games will have built-in Mii-Verse support (Nintendo Land is a perfect example), and you can set an in-game option so Mii-Verse posts about the game constantly show up before and after rounds in each mini-game. I think it's a pretty cool form of online interactivity. It's not as big as something like Facebook, but it's not quite as simplistic as something like Twitter. What I've seen people do is post their high scores (you can apparently take a snapshot of your gameplay screen, something I haven't figured out how to do yet), and I think that is pretty cool!