Revolutionary: Virtually Complete Collections
Every Tuesday, Mike Sylvester brings you REVOLUTIONARY, a look at the wide world of Wii possibilities.
Today marks the long-awaited release of Metroid Prime 3: Corruption, and no doubt many of you have been refreshing yourself on the precursors in anticipation. If you've been visiting Wii Fanboy or perusing the Wii Shop (as you should be!) lately, you've surely noticed Nintendo's been running with the "Metroid Month" thing, and has released the cartridge-based console predecessors of today's big Wii release. With the Wii featuring being backward compatibility with Gamecube software, the sudden realization that I can have entire series of Nintendo's long-running franchises on one system has put me in a euphoric daze.
Another one of the many ways Nintendo has chosen to distance themselves from the competition is in putting a marketable focus on support of their back catalog. More than that, they've given up virtual shelf space to the catalogs of their former rivals. It's remarkable when you consider that some of these games are twenty or more years old, and you've got them in the same box that you run the latest and greatest stuff.
As with Metroid Prime 3's preview channel, we hope and expect to see other famed series which are lined up for Wii sequels getting a retro refresh on the Virtual Console. It's too late to serve Super Mario Bros., SMB2, and Super Mario World on the Virtual Console as appetizers to Super Mario Galaxy's main course, but Super Mario Bros. 3 and Super Mario All-Stars have yet to grace the Wii Shop. There's a few other Mario platformers that haven't made it to the VC, either (but I'll come back to that later). You can imagine the same treatment for upcoming titles like Smash Bros. and Mario Kart, though it's painful to think we may have to wait until next year to play the original Super Mario Kart on the VC.
Getting back to the subject of the week, it's extraordinary that we can play so many Metroid games on the Wii, but Nintendo's had a history of overlooking the IP. We didn't get a Nintendo 64 update to the series because they didn't realize there was any interest in one. The clamoring of fans around the world went amongst the deafening silence of the Japanese audience, which didn't receive it as warmly as other territories. And while five games spanning four generations may seem like a lot for our Wiis to support, the Gameboy and Gameboy Advance sequels are nowhere to be found while browsing the Wii Shop.
The late Gunpei Yokoi, creator of both the Metroid franchise and the Gameboy line of hardware had a design philosophy that
is very much alive in the Wii. By utilizing inexpensive, mature and developed hardware components, devices could be mass produced easily and sold at affordable prices, thanks to economies of scale. Also, the inherent familiarity with the hardware softens the boundaries when developing content for it. His most celebrated creations deserve a place on the console that so strongly honors his creative legacy. Gunpei Yokoi's Super Mario Land would also continue to add to its already astronomical sales figures if introduced to the Virtual Console lineup.
That's just the tip of the iceberg. Hundreds more NES, SNES, Genesis, and TG-16 games are on track to be brought to the VC. The Neo Geo is still due to drop its catalog on it, and it's all but inevitable that we'll see the Gameboys represented at some point. Without a doubt, the Wii will have the largest game library this side of the PC platform by the end of this generation.
What games are you waiting to grace the VC and complete your one-console collection? Leave us a comment to share your musings.
