Topic: Natsume has possibly revealed how the VC works

[pokepal148]

How does the virtual console porting process work? What are all the steps needed to put a game (Like HM2 GBC for example) on VC?
-Connor Nichols (Facebook)
The titles for Virtual Console are handled by Nintendo. The publisher and Nintendo discuss which classic titles would be a good fit and have the best potential to sell. Once a title is agreed upon, Nintendo and the publisher work together to bring that title to the designated system, with Nintendo doing the bulk of the work.

At this point, it’s unlikely we’ll see any other Natsume SNES games coming to the Virtual Console, as Nintendo’s interest has moved onto other classic systems.

So if you want a game on Virtual Console it will probably go something like this

[azeke]

Is that Catherine Tate?

I liked her show, not as funny as Sketch Show (what is?) -- but still decent.

[Soren]

What classic systems is Nintendo currently interested on, though? GBA? N64? DS? Wii?

[broodwars]

So Nintendo thought S.C.A.T. was a "better fit" for the Wii U & would sell better than Lufia 2, one of the most beloved RPGs of its era. Can't argue with that logic.     As annoyed as I am at Nintendo for blocking VC submissions, though, I'm more annoyed at Natsume for not leading with the main Natsume game anyone actually cares about: Lufia 2. And now it's too late.

What classic systems is Nintendo currently interested on, though? GBA? N64? DS? Wii?

The "classic" systems, obviously. Don't ask logical questions of Nintendo of America.

[Khushrenada]

Is that Catherine Tate?

Yep. The sad thing is, I only mainly recognize her for her work on The Office (US) which wasn't that good.

[Soren]

I'm glad Nintendo is focusing all their attention on the 3 Gamecube Virtual Consoles games they want to release before wrapping up support and moving on to...uhhh...Virtual Boy?

[Adrock]

Does Nintendo still emulate each individual game instead of using a general emulator? If so, that may explain this. There are benefits to writing an emulator for each game, but it's a lot more work. Maybe Nintendo is finishing up the games it already started emulating or are now focusing on other platforms like DS that haven't been emulated yet. Maybe both?

Nintendo has talked about future hardware being more integrated, like "brothers in a family of systems." Here's a good article. As much as it sucks in the short-term, if Nintendo is serious about simplifying the transition of porting between platforms, it doesn't make sense to continue individually emulating games on Wii U. It would be in Nintendo's best interest to move on from PowerPC. Imagine if Nintendo could use the same emulator on the successors of both Wii U and 3DS. Nintendo dug itself into this hole so if true, it's nice its finally doing something about it. Now, hopefully this also includes unified accounts.

[BranDonk Kong]

There are benefits to writing individual emulators, but given the power of the Wii U, it's hard to imagine that Nintendo couldn't write a single emulator perfectly capable of emulating any N64 game, especially since they've been doing this since the GameCube.

[Mop it up]

Yeah, I heard about this the other day. Not exactly surprising, but I guess it explains more why we don't see as many third-party games get released.

[Evan_B]

This proves that Nintendo has no idea what audience they should be aiming for on VC.

[Luigi Dude]

This information was revealed literally months after the Virtual Console was first released in 2006, not sure why some people are so surprised  Nintendo handles all the games for their systems, Sega handled the Sega systems, Hudson (RIP) the TurboGraphix and SNK the Neo Geo.

Of Natsume isn't exactly innocent in this.  If Capcom was able to get something as obscure as Demons Crest released last Summer, Natsume sure as hell could have gotten more of their games released as well.  Seriously, this is like how SNK said Metal Slug Anothogly for the Wii released shortly after launch didn't have Classic Controller support because they said Nintendo told them all retail games needed to show of Wiimote control and the CC was only for Virtual Console games.  Of course this was 100% made up bullshit which was a proven lie since a DBZ fighting game released around the same time allowed it.    Or like how Sega said the reason Sonic CD wasn't in Sonic Mega Collection for the Gamecube was because the lack of data on the disc, because we all know a dozen Genesis games easily fill up 1.5 GB.

This is your typical third party finding a way to blame their own lazyness on Nintendo.  Yes Nintendo has done a bunch of stupid **** with it, but as I said before, if Capcom could get Demons Crest released then Natsume sure as hell could have gotten Lufia 2 which is a lot more famous on the Virtual Console if they really wanted too.

[ShyGuy]

Well, this proves that Nintendo is a bad company that does bad things. They're like Comcast + Monsanto x 100.

[NWR_insanolord]

Luigi Dude's right to point out that we shouldn't necessarily take what Natsume's saying at face value. It might be accurate, it might be exaggerated, and regardless of which of those it is Nintendo's not going to say anything about these comments.

[broodwars]

Or like how Sega said the reason Sonic CD wasn't in Sonic Mega Collection for the Gamecube was because the lack of data on the disc, because we all know a dozen Genesis games easily fill up 1.5 GB.

In the case of Sonic CD, though, weren't there FMV compression issues to consider when calculating the final file size, though? Sure, the Genesis games wouldn't take up that much space on the disc, but Sonic CD had at least animated FMV openings and closings and compression really sucked back then.

[Ian Sane]

The "separate emulator for each game" thing is such a nutty way to do it.  The ideal way to do it is to have one emulator and put a hook in so that the odd game with compatibility issues can use a custom one.  So some conventional game like Super Mario World just uses the universal emulator while a very specialized game like Star Fox, which has it's own custom chip and thus wouldn't work with a universal emulator, gets its own included with the game.  The OS then knows to check for the existence of a custom emulator included with the title.  If it finds it, it uses it, otherwise it uses the universal one built into the OS itself.  That took me five minutes to think of and it runs circles around Nintendo's method.  Why is this large company incapable of coming up with something like that?

And that instantly fixes the VC for later systems because changing the universal emulator will make 90% of the games compatible overnight.  Also third parties don't have to rely on Nintendo to do anything for them.  They just need to pay their licence, follow Nintendo's standards (ie: no game breaking bugs) and use the universal emulator.  For the odd time it doesn't work they can then hire Nintendo to create the custom emulator for them or maybe create their own.  Damn it, this is EASY.

It's either some curmudgeon Nintendo exec that doesn't even really know what emulation is putting his foot down on something he doesn't understand or Nintendo is just so obsessed with controlling every thing and/or jerking third parties around that they needed this idiotic method to get the level of control they wanted.  Natsume's story sounds very similar to Nintendo insisting on manufacturing all carts on the NES.

[ThePerm]

i thought it was odd when I was downloading Super Mario Bros 3 or Kirby for wii u and they were both 35mb each. I was like WTF? These games are like 25-50kb. From a space perspective they might as well make an NES channel and make the games its dlc. If a game requires a special plugin, then it would be included in its file. There shouldn't be a 35mb wrap around for every file.

[Ian Sane]

i thought it was odd when I was downloading Super Mario Bros 3 or Kirby for wii u and they were both 35mb each. I was like WTF? These games are like 25-50kb. From a space perspective they might as well make an NES channel and make the games its dlc. If a game requires a special plugin, then it would be included in its file. There shouldn't be a 35mb wrap around for every file.

And the company that is unnecessarily inflating the size of old games is also the only company that doesn't include a hard drive with their console.  How are they so bad at this stuff?

[NWR_insanolord]

The system includes 32 GB of storage. You need to be downloading stuff a lot bigger than NES games, inflated or not, for that to be an issue.

[Soren]

I'm pretty sure you could download every single VC game currently available on Wii U(154 per Wikipedia) and not come close filling up the 32GB of storage.

[Ian Sane]

The system includes 32 GB of storage. You need to be downloading stuff a lot bigger than NES games, inflated or not, for that to be an issue.

Still, it's ironic.  You expect the guys that include 500 GB of space to have bloatware, not the guys who offer only 32.  A company that comes to the conclusion that the user doesn't need as much space should be sensitive to file size and you figure would be the least likely to come up with a system that increases the size of every retro game download for no good reason.  It just isn't very consistent design.

[NWR_insanolord]

They're probably right that most people don't need more storage than that, and have made it extremely simple and straightforward to add more for people who do. I'd argue they have the best system of anyone this gen in terms of adding additional storage.

[Mop it up]

There's pros and cons to everything. At least the Wii U can work with any regular external HD drive instead of needing expensive proprietary drives.

[broodwars]

The system includes 32 GB of storage. You need to be downloading stuff a lot bigger than NES games, inflated or not, for that to be an issue.

Still, it's ironic.  You expect the guys that include 500 GB of space to have bloatware...

And they DO. I have save files on my PS4 that are 500 MB, and I haven't seen a retail game less than 30 GB in size in at least a year.

[Luigi Dude]

Well what do you know, I was 100% right again.  Natsume was full of **** and lying they're ass this whole time, just like other third parties have done in the past.

http://www.nintendo.com/games/detail/HYdSaOWlNWv4rEhQIeMRjXiG6Nz1FMkJ

Metal Marines, an obscure third party SNES game was just released on the eShop, despite Natsume saying Nintendo has moved away from SNES games.  So Namco can get this game released, but Natsume can't get Lufia 2 released, even if Lufia is the more famous and highly regarded classic that would guarantee higher sales.  Yeah sure, Nintendo is blocking the game alright.    

So once again, some people should think a little more before just believing whatever bullshit lazy third parties will say about Nintendo to make up for their own lazyness.

[broodwars]

So once again, some people should think a little more before just believing whatever bullshit lazy third parties will say about Nintendo to make up for their own lazyness.

Not so fast, there. Bear in mind that there's a production time getting these games from submission to the shop, since Nintendo stupidly does all the work themselves. It's very possible that this latest piece of Namco shovelware was submitted before Nintendo instituted the blanket ban on SNES & NES VC releases, and Natsume wasn't allowed to submit further games now. We'll have to see how the VC releases shape out a month or so from now to know for sure.