Nintendo Wii Fanboy

There's been a lot of Virtual Console releases this year (been keeping up?), and we were wondering which were among your favorites? We've received Secret of Mana, Super Mario RPG, and River City Ransom, to name a few. So, which sit at the top of your list for this year? Sure, we were hoping we'd have another to consider, but let's not dwell on that.

For many of you, your dream came true yesterday, as one of the most desired titles for the Virtual Console released. We figured it was appropriate to ask about any other games you wanted to hit the Virtual Console, so what are they? What game are you dying to see release on the Virtual Console?

Is the Virtual Console family about to gain another two members? If the above graphic from the Japanese Virtual Console website is anything to go by, we'd have to say: HELL YES. And then possibly head outside to whoop loudly with excitement. After all, surely Nintendo wouldn't have added those tantalizing, enigmatic gray boxes to its site for no good reason? They must be there to accomodate some future goodness.

Digging further around the aforementioned site basically confirms that the MSX will fill one of those slots, but the other? Given the space that would be required for games from disk-based systems and the Wii's 512mb of internal memory, our money is on the Master System.

[Via Go Nintendo]

Any gamer would need a heart of blackened teak to not have a soft spot for Sega, and there's arguably no better home for a dyed-in-the-wool Sega fan than the Wii. Over the coming weeks and months, Nintendo's little white box will be hosting a number of updated classic Sega properties, including NiGHTS: Journey of Dreams, Samba De Amigo, and House of the Dead 2 & 3 Return.

But our appetite for all things Sega is not yet sated! While we've already asked you which Saturn games you'd like to see on the Virtual Console, which Sega titles in general do you want to see reinvented on the Wii? A motion-sensitive Panzer Dragoon, the return of Ulala, and a Burning Rangers sequel top our list.

So, with the VC gift-giving feature coming, we just have to ask -- are you planning on foisting something upon someone? We can't help but rub our hands together in excitement every time the subject comes up. In fact, we can't even remember the last time we were so thrilled at the idea of spending money on other people. What the hell is wrong with us? Now we just need some of the titles we've been turning over (but denied) to hit so that we can prepare to indoctrinate the masses.

What flavor of Kool-Aid will you be shoving down the throats of friends? Or are you more in the "screw 'em, let 'em buy their own games" camp?

As anniversary week winds down, we can't help but wonder: what's next? One good year for a video game console means nothing if it's followed by some not-so-great years. Fortunately, there are many fun things in store for the Wii, so we've decided to create this little guide to show you what exactly there is to look forward to.

But how practical is that? Picture yourself in a year. Will you really want to do that? Will you even want to use SD cards? And re-downloading is twice as bad considering that sometimes, there are just issues with the Virtual Console and downloads don't go through. How often does this happen to you? For us, it's only been a few times, but it's still a problem that could be avoided here ... if we only had a hard drive.

Reggie's recent address in New York failed to tell us much that we didn't already know, though it did throw up the slide you see above, indicating that Nintendo is promising us 200 Virtual Console games in the US by the end of this year. We can probably all agree that the world would be a better place if Pilotwings 64 and River City Ransom were included in that number.

But we digress. See, the folks over at Game|Life did the math, and discovered that would mean Nintendo has only eight Mondays left in 2007 to deliver 34 games. Average that out, and you get 4.25 games a week. Currently, of course, we only get three titles every Monday. So, is this a genuine miscalculation on Ninty's part, naughty marketing hyperbole, or will we really be seeing more retro goodness than normal pumped down our tubes in the coming weeks?

Either way, Nintendo, we are now absolutely holding you to this. 200 by December 31st or you're ripped from our BFF collage. And we do not make such threats lightly.

[Via The Tanooki]

Currently, the Wii barely has chance to make itself comfortable on shop shelves, such is its popularity with consumers. But that's not quite enough for Satoru Iwata and co. -- they want to rule the online roost as well. Problem is, quite a lot of people aren't terribly fussed about checking the weather or catching up on the news on their Wii, and let's not kid ourselves here: as far as online gaming goes, right now the Wii just can't measure up to some of the competition.

Something needs to be done then, something to get more people surfing this series of tubes using Nintendo's waggle box. Enter the firm's latest brainwave, a new Wii Shop feature which allows users to buy gifts for one another, such as a Virtual Console game. The lucky recipient will then receive notice of their present, and can start downloading it instantly from the Wii Shop.

"We think this will be a breakthrough in encouraging customers to spread news of fun games [other than by?] word of mouth," Iwata said of the new feature, which has no release date yet. "We also hope to spur more users to connect their Wiis to the Internet."

Is this the move that gets more people online on their Wiis? Do you envisage yourself using it? Share your thoughts, and we shall listen intently.

Ben Herman, who runs SNK Playmore USA, is almost as excited about Neo-Geo games on the Virtual Console as we are. In a recent interview, he discussed SNK's VC plans and Nintendo's operation of the system in general.

According to Herman, who, of course, can't give details, SNK expects to release "a certain limited number of titles per month," which is enough to have us cheering, because that's a lot more than the N64 is getting. It's also a much brisker release schedule than the Neo-Geo ever had. The best news, in our opinion? Herman is interested in the Virtual Console as a means of releasing lesser-known and niche games.

SNK isn't sure yet whether the Neo-Geo games on the VC will be the AES home versions or the MVS arcade cartridges. We had no idea there was a difference!

Of course, there has to be bad news, and it's kind of big: Herman says that Nintendo is not letting publishers add online functionality to games, VC or retail, and probably will continue this restriction throughout 2007.

Herman goes on to talk about Nintendo's console library, saying that Nintendo has all of the code for third-party NES and SNES games and needs only permission to release them. Which means Konami officially has no excuse for the fact that we haven't played Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse on the Wii yet. Konami, you're on notice!

[Update: added the sad, sad news about online games.]

The Virtual Console is really starting to heat up! We can't believe it, but it looks like American and European fanboys are going to get a great game before Japan does: Namco's gory Turbografx-16 brawler Splatterhouse. This is definitely one of the three best games ever about a masked parapsychology major trapped in a haunted mansion and forced to destroy lots of disgusting monsters with a board, and it's coming sometime in March!

We're also getting Double Dungeons-- but as Turbografx-16 lovers, we're trying to put a positive spin on this news article, and would prefer to talk more about Splatterhouse.

What Turbografx-16 games are you waiting for? We're dying for Blazing Lazers and China Warrior ourselves.

[Via Siliconera]

Game Informer has posted a nice preview of the 2007 I am 8-bit art show, along with some of the art that will be featured. I am 8-bit is an annual art exhibition that celebrates classic videogame culture and iconography, with an emphasis on Nintendo and their NES-era third parties. It's also the source of some amazing game-related art, like the mega-adorable "Mega Man" by Suzuki Shuji. We'd be proud to display any of these paintings, sculptures, or crafts in our own Fancaves.

Just like every year, we'll be gazing wistfully at these previews and cursing our luck for not being Californian or California-adjacent. If you happen to be in the LA area between April 17 and May 12, we urge you to go to Gallery Nineteen Eighty Eight and support the very best kind of fanboyism: the kind that manifests in honest creative expression (fanfic excluded).

[Update 1: changed the preview picture to something friendlier.]
[Via 4cr]