Bayou Billy YEEEEEEAH!

Bayou Billy arrives, but can't be bothered to bring Contra along with it. Insane.

Which I don't understand. They have given us the sequel (Super C) and the SNES one (Contra III: The Alien Wars), but not the original game.

There has to be some kind of rights issue preventing Contra's re-release. Or maybe the guy in charge of Contra releases is on vacation.

I'm pretty sure it never even came out on Wii, so that'd be a pretty long vacation.

I am guessing it is probably a rights issue considering it was originally an arcade and those other ones were made for their respective console. That or you know Konami just has better things to do than waste resources on a game they aren't likely to get  much money back on.

Pretty sure arcade Contra WAS released in one of "Konami classics collections" last gen.

I actually still have the cartridges for all three of these NES games. Never really been into them though... in fact I can't even remember where I got them.

One of the reasons that Contra 4 (DS) was such an awesome game was the great set of unlockables included - you can pretty easily get the NES versions of both Contra and Super C available for play that way.

And the inexplicable wait for Metroid Zero Mission and Xenoblade Wii continues.