![]() I don't really buy NES games for Virtual Console, since essentially every NES game I want has been ported to or remade on Game Boy Advance, and I personally prefer having portable versions of games. Sin and Punishment looks interesting, but I'm in no kind of rush to check it out. I'll probably (95%) get Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels eventually. I was browsing the Wii Shop Channel earlier today because I felt like it (I don't do that very often), and noticed a few games. might make a difference, but if it's going to be on VC, then I'll wait for it). I can play the latter two on an actual Super NES (I don't have StarFox yet, though), but I don't own a Nintendo 64, and I'm not sure I want to buy one for just one game (the fact that it's Smash Bros. I'm still waiting for Super Smash Bros., StarFox, and EarthBound. The problem is that they don't release all of the games they should. I'm not interested in very many of the WiiWare games, but I've bought numerous Virtual Console games in the past. I might use it all the time if I could, but I honesty don't see how that's possible. These aren’t just games, they’re heritage, and if we lose access to these titles, we just might miss out on great experiences down the line from people who could have been inspired a WiiWare game if they only got a chance to play it.I definitely use the Wii Shop Channel, but not all the time. I look back and see…well, I see those too but I also see WiiWare and everything it did, along with the Xbox Live Arcade and PlayStation Store, to usher in the modern era of indie console gaming. Most people look back on the Wii era and see it defined only by first-party titles and the mountains of shovelware that ate up shelf space at Walmart and GameStop. The Wii Shop Channel represents people’s work, their art, their livelihood, and the developers large and small that took a chance on this underpowered console when all the big publishers were pushing their titles to more capable hardware. I understand there is no money in preserving this service and it’s pretty unreasonable to ask a company known for its unusual controllers to support those peripherals on every new piece of hardware it releases, but this is unacceptable. Games like Excitebike World Rally, Eco Shooter: Plant 530, the Art Style series, Fluidity, those Pokémon Mystery Dungeon games that never saw release outside of Japan, and You, Me, and the Cubes will soon be lost to history if not for the efforts of pirates. These aren’t just third party and indie games finding themselves shipwrecked to the service, there are Nintendo titles too. I’m not mad about missing out on those titles, but there is a level of resentment stirring inside me over the fact that all this is happening in the first place, that Nintendo is allowing years of gaming history to go dark. I ended up spending those on some DLC for My Life as a King, but man-oh-man how I wish I had just $20 more dollars worth of points so I could get Gradius ReBirth and DoReMi Fantasy. My gaming repertoire was permanently expanded by the Wii and its Wii Shop Channel, and today I wish it a bittersweet goodbye.įor those keeping count, my purchases of those four games left me with 300 Wii points. For Pete’s sake, this is the service that birthed the Bit.Trip franchise and the Runner trilogy. And it allowed me to play the games I missed out on owning neither a Genesis nor TurboGraphx. It showed me how diverse and eclectic games can be with titles like Bonsai Barber or Snowpack Park. Like Chris Hovermale, this was the service that introduced me to Sin & Punishment. It used a point system for some silly reason, the way it paid developers was broken and horribly unfair, game sizes were heavily restricted, and for much of its early life, the Wii wouldn’t allow people to save Wii Shop games on an SD card, going so far as to refer to the console as a “refrigerator.”ĭespite its problems, the Wii Shop channel was a blessing for somebody like me whose gaming habits didn’t step too far out of their comfort zone. Launching less than a month after the Wii’s debut, the channel started small with Virtual Console titles before exploding into one of the more creative digital marketplaces with the introduction of WiiWare. It is with great remorse and sadness that I confirm today, January 30, 2019, the Wii Shop Channel has closed its doors.
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