In an online presentation broadcast on Wednesday morning, Nintendo went for broke: In an effort to energize its hardcore fans, it announced a handful of new Wii U games – and a huge volley of vaporware.
To be sure, the games that Nintendo actually showed off for Wii U looked like a whole lot of fun. There's the sequel to Xenoblade Chronicles, the fantastic Wii role-playing game that Nintendo had to be cajoled into releasing in America. A new Yoshi game in the gorgeous art style of Kirby's Epic Yarn. A high-definition remake of The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker. And the return of the Virtual Console classic-game download service, with a reasonable upgrade path for those who bought the games on Wii.
But Nintendo clearly sensed that this would not quite be enough. Wii U is currently in the midst of a software drought: Third-party software makers are releasing very little of note in the wake of the console's November launch, and although Nintendo had plans to release many games before the end of March, recent delays bumped all of them except Lego City Undercover (yawn) out of the so-called "launch window," which now seems like a particularly apt term because you can see clear through it.
So Nintendo fired all its vaporware cannons, talking up games it wasn't ready to show. The Tokyo team is working on the follow-up to the Super Mario Galaxy series, which will be playable at E3 Expo in June. And so will a new Mario Kart. The Legend of Zelda team is working on a Wii U game that will slaughter some more of the series' sacred cows – it'll be non-linear and have multiplayer features – but won't be playable at E3. Neither will Super Smash Bros., but now we know it'll apparently be shown in screenshot form at the trade show.
Blowing these announcements out now in such rapid fashion, and with nothing to show, might be de rigeur for other game publishers but isn't really Nintendo's style. Making this overwhelming series of announcements now has a pretty clear message – Wii U might be boring now, but don't sell it since there's a lot on the horizon. Just how far on the horizon, who can say? Just because they're showing these games at E3 doesn't mean any of them will be out before Christmas.
With Sony and Microsoft surely announcing and possibly releasing their new consoles in 2013, Nintendo needs to make Wii U's future look as bright as possible, as soon as possible. Hence the vaporware avalanche this morning. And, facing serious pressure to increase its digital game sales, Nintendo talked a great deal about downloadable classics, too.
Virtual Console, Upgraded
If you're a fan of playing classic games on Nintendo machines, you should be energized by what Nintendo showed this morning. We've known for a while that it would eventually re-release Virtual Console downloadable classics on Wii U, but we didn't know until today how it would work. The details Nintendo provided seem to illustrate a much stronger commitment to the service than I would have guessed.
This spring, Nintendo will launch a system update for Wii U that will put Virtual Console games on the eShop. Games from the Nintendo Entertainment System and Super Nintendo will be available, as well as games that originally appeared on the Game Boy Advance. Other platforms have yet to be announced. Nintendo will not simply roll out the entire library all at once; games will be put onto the Wii U eShop individually as they port them to the new system.
The Wii U downloads will have new features: You can create "restore points" that allow you to save games in progress. You can configure the controller button layouts for each game. Each game will have Miiverse social networking integration. And yes, you can play the games on the Wii U GamePad screen.
The Wii U games will cost the same amount of money as the Wii downloads – $5-6 for NES games, $8-9 for Super Nintendo. But if you've already purchased the older versions, Nintendo has an upgrade program that will cost you significantly less: $1 to upgrade an NES game and $1.50 to upgrade a Super Nintendo one. And honestly, that's a far better deal than I expected. Nintendo's got to charge something for this upgrade, after all, to cover the development cost of the new version.
Of course the best scenario for consumers would have been to have all of the Wii games run natively on Wii U with GamePad play. But if that's not going to happen, then a greatly reduced upgrade price is the next best thing.
But that's not what makes me think Nintendo is gung-ho on reinvigorating interest in Virtual Console. This is: While the official launch of the service won't be for another few months, Nintendo is rolling out a "trial campaign" in an attempt to get as many players as possible downloading the classics. For the next six months, it'll release one game per month for the absurdly low price of 30 cents each. After 30 days on sale, the games will revert back to their standard $5-9 price point.
The games in the promotion for the U.S. aren't just afterthoughts, either: Balloon Fight, F-Zero, Punch-Out!!, Kirby's Adventure, Super Metroid, Yoshi and Donkey Kong would probably be pretty big sellers at their normal price. At 30 cents each, Wii U owners are nuts if they don't buy them. Balloon Fight is available now.
Clearly, Nintendo is hoping for far more from Virtual Console on Wii U than simply re-introducing the games to the eShop for the same group of diehards that downloaded so many of them on Wii. Hopefully it works, and Nintendo is encouraged to keep bringing more games to the service.
Oh, and even though this was mostly good news, Nintendo of course could not resist getting in another jab at America's long-suffering Earthbound fans. One of the 30-yen games to be made available in Japan is, yes, Earthbound. (It even gets its own special featured page.) Meanwhile a U.S. copy of the original costs about $200.
Then again, if I may be permitted to be a little bit optimistic, maybe this is a good thing: The game being actually available on the service (it was never released on Wii) does give Nintendo of America an opportunity to look at releasing it. Not to mention the fact that a Game Boy Advance category on Virtual Console means that Nintendo is officially out of excuses for why the original Rhythm Heaven (still the best!) and Earthbound's sequel Mother 3 aren't available outside Japan.
