[Revo] Nintendo will release new games for classic consoles on Wii’s Virtual Con

[.:|Physalis|:.]

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EarthboundOver at Camp Hyrule George Harrison, Senior Vice President of Marketing and Corporate Communication at Nintendo of America, answered some questions of Nintendo fans in a chat yesterday.

As we know the Virtual Console will allow Wii owners to download and play old Nintendo NES, SNES, N64, Sega Genesis & TurboGrafx games for about $5 to $10. What we don't know is just about everything else...

LOGIEDAN7: Do you think that many people will utilize the Virtual Console to buy their old favorites?
NOA_GEORGE_HARRISON: Certainly, we hope many people will take advantage of the virtual console games that they love from the past., but we also hope that people who have never experienced these games will enjoy them for the first time. Remember, there are other secrets of the virtual console that we won't reveal until we get closer to launch.

.SHY: Are they any plan for new (non-classic) Virtual Console games from Nintendo?
NOA_GEORGE_HARRISON: Virtual console offers the possibility for us to create new games, but our focus right now is in getting the Wii hardware launched and new games from Nintendo on the virtual console will be coming sometime after the launch.

Another chat Nintendo of America organized yesterday was with their Localization Team, those are the folks translating the Japanese games to English. I found this interesting:

ZERO_13: Are there any plans to bring the MOTHER 3 game to USA?
NOA_BILL: Was there a question Andy? Haven't seen one yet!
NOA_RAMTOWER: Alan already answered it.
NOA_RAMTOWER: He's got me beat for speedy fingers.
NOA_ALAN: Mother 3 plans?
NOA_NATE: What's Mother 3?
NOA_ALAN: Um...
NOA_RAMTOWER: There's a Mother 3?
NOA_TIM: We translate, rewrite, edit, advise, record voices, name stuff, travel to Japan, stay chained to our desks, etc.
NOA_ALAN: Yeah. We don't know. About Mother 3.
NOA_ANN: Yes, and Tim goes crazy...

Obviously they are playing dumb, but they must know it's no joking matter seeing as how many Earthbound fans are begging for Mother 3 aka Earthbound 2 in English.

In the past limited sales of the SNES Mother 2 aka Earthbound 1 prevented Nintendo from releasing Mother 1 aka Earthbound 0. But what if they ported it to the SNES, translated it to English, and released it on the Wii's Virtual Console without marketing, distribution or hardly any other additional costs? That could make any niche (Japanese or otherwise) release a big hit by word of mouth alone.

I know for a fact Europeans would also love to download the American SNES game Super Mario RPG that never got released there, the Virtual Console would make this simple assuming there is no regional lockout. I don't see why they would limit themselves, because even a 12 year old PAL TV works fine with an American SNES and Japanese N64 & 64DD.