If Virtual Console doesn't have all the games you want, just load up an emulator?

If Virtual Console doesn't have all the games you want, just load up an emulator?

For those of you who are eagerly anticipating Nintendo's Wii but are a bit disappointed at some of the choices on the first run of the Virtual Console, it seems you may be in luck. The launch on December 8th in the UK will show a few great hits on Virtual Console, but not many of the titles people were looking for. So, one industrious fan figured out how to run console emulators straight from the SD card on the Wii.

The software required looks like something that many GameCube emulation buffs will be familiar with. Using the GameCube version of ActionReplay, the guy calls up SDLoad and pulls emulated games (NES in the video) straight from the card. It's a rather smart workaround since the Wii is based so much on its GameCube predecessor.

It could only be hoped that most people would rather buy the copy on the Virtual Console when it becomes available - just to remove load times and unnecessary steps, if anything. However, not every game is going to be released for Virtual Console, and the slow conversion means certain games will be considerably late for the party. Therefore, this could be a nice fill-in until some of your favourites are released natively for the Wii.

Of course, it should be strongly noted that this is not an activity that Nintendo has in any way sanctioned, and the company has offered no known comment on it yet.

Have you got a thought on the emulation? Would you use this trick as a stopgap until games are properly released on VC, or not at all? Tell us about it in our forums.
Newsletter

Register for the bit-tech newsletter to receive the latest news and reviews in your inbox.



Quote DougEdey 22nd November 2006, 16:49
I'll wait untill someone works off the homebrew :P
Quote Swafeman 22nd November 2006, 17:19
is there a n64 emulator for the GC that work? /me hopes so and the wii is mine :)
Quote riggs 22nd November 2006, 17:25
This is exactly the type of thing I was looking forward to with the Wii. The Gamecube's homebrew scene was pretty dissapointing to say the least, and the DS scene is only just starting to pick up. If someone has managed this so quickly after launch, then hopefully the Wii homebrew scene will be huge.
Quote DXR_13KE 22nd November 2006, 18:28
if(this==true){
me buy a wii soon
}
else{
me buy a wii later
}

me is newb at programing :p
Quote aggies11 22nd November 2006, 18:53
Charge a fair/reasonable price for the VC games in the first place, and people won't bother to go through the hassle of this. (Although reading the article, I doubt many people will go through the hassle of this, regardless)

Mass Piracy is a market response to a disagreement on the pricing/distribution of the product.

$0.99 for a Music Song that you can get elsewhere and is still temporally viable is a fair deal.

$8.00 for Altered Beast is a crime, and even $5 for OLD NES Games that are no longer temporally viable and can't be sold anywhere else, is too much.

VC = Old "worthless junk"(to Nintendo at least, as they can't sell anymore) that had no value, suddenly becomming marketable. But they are obviously confused on what it's actual value is. Before VC Nes carts sold for a dollar or two, and even that money never reached them as it was all Re-sale.

Make NES games $0.99, and people would buy a couple hundred. At higher prices, they may only buy a dozen or so "must haves".

Remember the VC is not "Nintendo doing us a favour by giving us the gift of old games", instead it's "Us doing Nintendo a favour by allowing them to re-sell games that otherwise were useless, just sitting there collecting dust". They are pricing based on the first idea, when in reality it should be based on the second concept.

Aggies
Quote mikeuk2004 22nd November 2006, 19:04
You mean the VC is not availble yet???? I though it was available on release.
Quote keir 22nd November 2006, 19:49
yeah uk release
Quote BioSniper 22nd November 2006, 20:21
Piracy always manages to kill consoles in one way or another. If Nintendo aren't making sales of Virtual console games they will not want to invest in porting. Way to kill an emerging service guys :(

::edit:: cleaned up a typo
Quote Bindibadgi 22nd November 2006, 20:26
Well no, for what it's worth and the effort of investing in Action Replay and finding the emulation software etc, just paying a few bucks to get it off the VC is far more convienient and the majority of people will want to go that way.

However, supposen something old school ISNT released from someone like Sega or whoever? Ninty aren't loosing money and you can still play it on a console and TV.
Quote BioSniper 22nd November 2006, 22:29
I can see where you are coming from Bindi. I think usage like that is fair but surely most people will just see it as a way of getting something for nothing/not very much and as such not bother with the VC downloads?
At the end of the day though I guess only time will tell on things like that.
Quote Bindibadgi 22nd November 2006, 22:33
Bio piracy is gonna be there anyway. Itunes hasnt killed pirated music despite the fact that buying songs off it for 99c/p is cheap-as and getting them from torrent is a bit more work. The difference is you can get almost every song from torrent on some legal music site somewhere.
Quote Aankhen 22nd November 2006, 22:44
Quote:
Originally Posted by Bindibadgi
Itunes hasnt killed pirated music despite the fact that buying songs off it for 99c/p is cheap-as and getting them from torrent is a bit more work.
Well, the choice is between paying 99¢ on iTunes for a low-quality song with DRM up the wazoo, which is locked down to five computers... or else paying 0¢ for a high-quality (if you know what you're doing), mostly reliable, unlimited use album off other... uh... online shops. :)
Quote webbyman 22nd November 2006, 23:14
...now that was quick.

?
Quote aggies11 22nd November 2006, 23:44
Quote:
Originally Posted by BioSniper
Piracy always manages to kill consoles in one way or another.

Yep, the PS1, which was probably the most "pirated" console in history?, really prevented it's success. I hear it even made Sony leave the games business altogether....

While I won't comment on piracy one way or the other, I will say that the VC games are over-priced. Lowever the price and you'd definitely make piracy less attractive.

One of the best quotes I saw on the issue was not that long ago, was when some exec (movie?) said that "You have to treat piracy as a competitior", and thus, offer a service that is better and/or more attractive.

Aggies
Quote Havok154 23rd November 2006, 06:17
It should be noted that you need to use a sd card adapter that plugs into the GC mem card slot, not the SD card slot on the Wii.
Quote Firehed 23rd November 2006, 06:58
Quote:
Originally Posted by Aankhen
Well, the choice is between paying 99¢ on iTunes for a low-quality song with DRM up the wazoo, which is locked down to five computers... or else paying 0¢ for a high-quality (if you know what you're doing), mostly reliable, unlimited use album off other... uh... online shops. :)
Sure, us techies can snag any release at 320k mp3 if not lossless from bit-torrent easily enough. But most people don't even know about DRM, much less care. On the Day Against DRM a month or two back I brought around signs to my classes. As far as I could tell, only myself and one other person (another techie type) had heard of DRM. Plenty of students have been bit by it, but really didn't understand why (though they were plenty happy when I pointed out fairuse4wm to "fix" their legal Ruckus content).

Don't get me wrong, I want to support artists, just like I want to support game designers. In the case of the former though, I take serious issue with both the recording industry (who screws the artist over on both CD and legal download sales) and the DRM that's always been in the legal downloads and is on plenty of CDs now. If they're going to treat me like a criminal, I'll make sure they're justified (despite copyright infringement being a civil offense, not criminal last I checked).

As to the games... I'll be happy to buy them if the price is right. For games that I already own, I wouldn't hold any reservations about "pirating" them - I paid once, and once is plenty as far as I'm concerned. I missed out on plenty of classics (probably due to the high price at the time!) and I'd pay for those without a second thought, again provided I won't get screwed over one way or another.

Aggies nailed it - that woman from Disney (I think) that said piracy is a competitor had it figured out. It's certainly not an issues yet - I haven't found any Wii content on the torrent sites I frequent (for arguably-legal content, mind you).

I'm really waiting for someone to install a *nix on it. It's a PPC chip in there after all. Then things will get really interesting I think.
Semi-related: any old SD card will work with the Wii, right, not just the Ninty "official" one?
Quote BioSniper 23rd November 2006, 08:24
I like causing a bit of a stir over piracy talks because I (on some subjects) have strong feelings about it. As aggies11 said, Piracy didn't kill the PS1 even though it was very VERY frequent.

I guess my slight Nintendo-fanboy-ism is showing a little bit here though as I really do dislike naysayers of Nintendo and their products and that's where my hate of pirates, in this particular situation, stems from.
However if it really proves an issue I guess Ninty could do a Sony, and like the PSP, force firmware updates to stop unauthorised code running.

I'm not really worried as such about it but I do think it has the potential to stop software developers from wanting to develop for VC or port code.
There are obvious benefits such as being able to play games that may never be released to VC though, such as (rumoured) that Goldeneye may never see the light of day on there.
Quote aggies11 23rd November 2006, 13:24
One could even argue that piracy is a *good* thing. How you might ask? Well if piracy is indeed considered a "competitor", then that means competition, which as we all know ultimately forces the "players" to produce even better/more competitive services.

So the theory would then go, if no one "else" is releasing VC NES games, Nintendo has no incentive to offer a better service. However if "pirates" do it, then Nintendo must compete and improve their service so it's more attractive.

Ultimately then this is a good thing as consumers get a better service.

Food for thought at least ;)

Aggies
Quote mikeuk2004 23rd November 2006, 13:35
Quote:
Originally Posted by aggies11
Yep, the PS1, which was probably the most "pirated" console in history?, really prevented it's success. I hear it even made Sony leave the games business altogether....

Aggies

Ok priracy did not prevent the PS1 to be a success as the PS1 was a success. Far more successfull than any other console around its time ie the N64 and Dreamcast.

When did Sony leave the games business as they still make games and alwasy have since the PS1.
Quote mikeuk2004 23rd November 2006, 13:41
Quote:
Originally Posted by Bindibadgi
Well no, for what it's worth and the effort of investing in Action Replay and finding the emulation software etc, just paying a few bucks to get it off the VC is far more convienient and the majority of people will want to go that way.

I disagree with that as everyone wants something for nothing. If people are faced with a one off payment for a action replay and can have every emulator and game for free. Or pay nintendo for each download from the VC console and limited to so many games and nintendo only games. Then they will go the action replay way.

Come on millions rip their consoles apart to install mod chips to play homebrew and backups. Running emus on the Wii by use of an action reply is by far the simplist and easiest way to do with no risk of damage to your console. And the most benificial
Quote Blademrk 23rd November 2006, 15:43
Quote:
Originally Posted by aggies11
I hear it even made Sony leave the games business altogether....*

Quote:
Originally Posted by mikeuk2004
When did Sony leave the games business as they still make games and alwasy have since the PS1.
*Take with just a pinch of sarcasm
Quote mikeuk2004 23rd November 2006, 18:07
oh yeah, now i read it again I do believe he was being sarcastic :)
Log in

You are not logged in, please login with your forum account below. If you don't already have an account please register to start contributing.



Sapphire Toxic HD 4850


OCZ EliteXStream Power Supplies
Stats: 0.269 seconds