Topic: Namco Bandai Announces More Virtual Console Arcade Games

[Flames_of_chaos]

Namco Bandai will continue to heavily support the Virtual Console Arcade service in Japan.
 http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/newsArt.cfm?artid=19835

 When Nintendo revealed the Virtual Console Arcade service at GDC, one of the most prominent supporters was Namco Bandai.      

A few months ago, the publisher announced an impressive initial lineup of 30 games. In Japan, the publisher has already released 25 of those titles.    

Today, Namco Bandai announced an additional twenty more games for the service. Look for the full list of games below:    

 
• Ordyne
 
• Galaga
 
• Galaxian
 
• Grobda
 
• Tank Force
 
• Dig Dug
 
• Dig Dug II
 
• Toy Pop
 
• Namco Quester
 
• New Rally X
 
• Bakutotsu Kijutei
 
• Baraduke
 
• Face Off
 
• Bravoman
 
• Bosconian
 
• Marchen Maze
 
• Libble Rabble
 
• Rolling Thunder 2
 
• Rompers
 
• Valkyrie no Densetsu
 

   

There is no release date set for these titles, however, they will be released after the remaining five titles from the initial lineup come out in Japan. There is no word on if or when these games will be released anywhere else.

[AV]

yawn.

[broodwars]

yawn.

Indeed.  All those titles, and not a single one of interest.  Isn't Virtual Console Arcade great?  Maybe they can pair these in their North American release with the latest WiiWare party game, and we'll have an especially awesome week.

[vudu]

Screw you guys.  I wouldn't mind a little bit of arcade-perfect Galag & Galaxian.  Although where the heck is PacMan?

[TJ Spyke]

I like a lot of those.

Too bad the ONLY VCA games from Namco Bandai we have are the 3 games we got when VCA launched back in March. Hell, VC as a whole has stopped being important to Nintendo outside of Japan (a Nintendo executive has even admitted that they are shifting their focus away from VC and to WiiWare).

[broodwars]

I like a lot of those.

Too bad the ONLY VCA games from Namco Bandai we have are the 3 games we got when VCA launched back in March. Hell, VC as a whole has stopped being important to Nintendo outside of Japan (a Nintendo executive has even admitted that they are shifting their focus away from VC and to WiiWare).

That would require their focus to ever have been on Virtual Console.  It's always been an afterthought to Nintendo, especially after WiiWare launched.

[Ian Sane]

a Nintendo executive has even admitted that they are shifting their focus away from VC and to WiiWare

This is like bizarro Nintendo logic.  With the "full" Wii games Nintendo's all "Holy ****!  How much Gamecube content can we recycle with tacked on waggle?!  THIS IS A TOP PRIORITY!!!"

But with the download stuff it's like "Well we can focus on new content that has to be created from scratch or we can focus on all this old content that we can just bang out for like 1% of the effort and cost.  Let's focus on the new content to the near complete negligence of the old stuff even though in Japan they're doing all the legwork anyway."

It's like a completely flip-flopped attitude.

New content over old content makes sense but there is like such insignificant effort with the old content here.  Adding waggle to Metroid Prime is going to take up SOME development time and testing and such.  But this?  You load a ROM to a server, set a price in a database, and write up a little description.  If it took you a DAY to do that I would figure you're being incredibly inefficient.

[BeautifulShy]

Anyway I am looking forward to more titles hitting the VCA.
These are welcome titles.

[broodwars]

New content over old content makes sense but there is like such insignificant effort with the old content here.  Adding waggle to Metroid Prime is going to take up SOME development time and testing and such.  But this?  You load a ROM to a server, set a price in a database, and write up a little description.  If it took you a DAY to do that I would figure you're being incredibly inefficient.

Ian, seriously...I've worked as a tester (and hope to do so again really soon) and it's not that simple.  You have to make sure all the core Wii functionality works fine without destroying the system.  For example, have you ever thought about how much work must go in to ensure that you don't blow up your Wii when you hit the Home button at any point you like during the game?  How about making sure the game doesn't crash when you unplug your Classic Controller?  I'm willing to bet anyone who submits Virtual Console (or WiiWare, for that matter) into Nintendo has to pass their Standards screening, the Home button functionality only being one criteria.  I'm all for dumping on Nintendo for how they've handled Virtual Console, but it's not as simple as just uploading a ROM.

[TJ Spyke]

It's not that Nintendo is ignoring VC worldwide, they are just ignoring it outside of Japan.  Japan has 482 games (they just got 4 new ones this week), North America has 312 (with the average now being 1 per week and lest month there were two straight weeks with NO releases). Nintendo used to care about it, remember when we used to get 3 VC games a week? That eventually dropped to 2 games a week, and now 1 game a week.

Where the hell is my "Skate or Die!"? PAL regions got the game back in December 2007, but we still haven't gotten it in North America.

I can accept that we will probably never get stuff like the SNES Fire Emblem games. Even if Nintendo charges the usually import price of 900 Points, they probably don't think it would be worth the money and time to translate all the text in the game. There are a lot of games that are already done.

[Djunknown]

You have to make sure all the core Wii functionality works fine without destroying the system. 

I would love to hear some horror stories. Have you found a bug that you brought attention to your supervisor, but shrugged it off? If you can't talk about it directly, that's fine.

[broodwars]

You have to make sure all the core Wii functionality works fine without destroying the system. 

I would love to hear some horror stories. Have you found a bug that you brought attention to your supervisor, but shrugged it off? If you can't talk about it directly, that's fine.

I couldn't tell you, I'm afraid.  NDAs, you know.  I'd kind of like to get rehired by this company once my 3-month layoff is over.

[NinGurl69 *huggles]

I have a story for you.

A friend was working as a tester for EA Redwood City a decade ago for some PC ice skating game featuring Michelle Khan or whoever, i forgot.  The team got some weird ideas then replaced Michelle's head with Kane's from the game Soul Reaver.  Imagine those flexible legs and those twisty triple axles.

Good times for everyone.

[that Baby guy]

Wii need some Ms. Pac-man added to this list, to make the Galaga/Ms. Pac-man set.  Thanks.

[Ian Sane]

Ian, seriously...I've worked as a tester (and hope to do so again really soon) and it's not that simple.  You have to make sure all the core Wii functionality works fine without destroying the system.  For example, have you ever thought about how much work must go in to ensure that you don't blow up your Wii when you hit the Home button at any point you like during the game?  How about making sure the game doesn't crash when you unplug your Classic Controller?  I'm willing to bet anyone who submits Virtual Console (or WiiWare, for that matter) into Nintendo has to pass their Standards screening, the Home button functionality only being one criteria.  I'm all for dumping on Nintendo for how they've handled Virtual Console, but it's not as simple as just uploading a ROM.

I'm a programmer and a tester so I understand how this stuff works.  If Nintendo is not the most braindead stupid morons ever then all that stuff regarding the home button and everything should be part of some standard class code that doesn't have to coded from scratch every time.  The emulator program should already take care of that.  So you upload the ROM, which comes with the emulator which already exists.  Then I'm sure they have some little inhouse program that lets someone update the description, upload some screenshots and set the price.  The exception is for, well, arcade games obviously and console games that used special chips in the cartridge.

This is how the company I work for would do it and we would shake our heads in disbelief if a company like Nintendo didn't have something that streamlined.  Plus these are being released in JAPAN FIRST.  So really what work does NOA have to do?  So instead of the Japanese rom you upload the American one.  This should not be very time consuming at all.  If it is, NOA are fucking morons.

[BlackNMild2k1]

I can't make excuses for Nintendo's poor system planning, including the main menu coding (like not centralizing code for use across all games, including the online system & friend codes). All I can say is this was their first time out the gate with that type of stuff, so they better get it right on the next system. & it better integrate seemlessly with the DSi2 also.

[NWR_pap64]

I find it funny how even the simplest of news articles can attract a lot of haters

[BeautifulShy]

I find it funny how even the simplest of news articles can attract a lot of haters

Yeah it is getting annoying. Gezz people quit derailing threads. This is about the VCA titles that are up there not about how Nintendo handles the VC.

Just because you don't find something interesting about an article doesn't mean you can spiral it into something else.

[Ian Sane]

Yeah it is getting annoying. Gezz people quit derailing threads. This is about the VCA titles that are up there not about how Nintendo handles the VC.

Yeah because talking about the VC in a news thread ABOUT THE VC is totally derailing.

In total Namco has either released or announced 50 arcade games for the VC and in North America we've only had THREE of them released.  Is this not relevent to this bit of news?  Are ANY of these announced games going to be released here at all?

[broodwars]

Yeah it is getting annoying. Gezz people quit derailing threads. This is about the VCA titles that are up there not about how Nintendo handles the VC.

Yeah because talking about the VC in a news thread ABOUT THE VC is totally derailing.

In total Namco has either released or announced 50 arcade games for the VC and in North America we've only had THREE of them released.  Is this not relevent to this bit of news?  Are ANY of these announced games going to be released here at all?

Ian, please don't complain about the lack of VC Arcade in North America.  As you said, we're missing about 47 games that Japan's gotten.  That's nearly a whole year of Virtual Console at the rate we're going, and I'd rather not have to sit through that.

[Mop it up]

Pretty much all of the games can be found on the various arcade compilations Namco has released over the years and can be had for a much cheaper price.

[AV]

Wii need some Ms. Pac-man added to this list, to make the Galaga/Ms. Pac-man set.  Thanks.

I actually want the Pac Man Championship Edition that is on 360 on Wii. I doubt that game is to big for Wii and from what I heard it's super fun

[TJ Spyke]

Pac-Man: Championship Edition is about 50MB is size, so it would be pushing the limit of what size Nintendo allows for WiiWare games. I would love to see it though.

[broodwars]

Pac-Man: Championship Edition is about 50MB is size, so it would be pushing the limit of what size Nintendo allows for WiiWare games. I would love to see it though.

While we're on that subject, even though it's not a Namco game I want to see Space Invaders Extreme on WiiWare.  I had a chance to play the Xbox 360 version a while ago and it's pretty awesome, and I don't want to pick it up on DS.

[KDR_11k]

Pac-Man: Championship Edition is about 50MB is size, so it would be pushing the limit of what size Nintendo allows for WiiWare games. I would love to see it though.

It only needs 1/4th as much graphics data since it's not HD on the Wii so it's probably feasible.