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Wii virtual console

Started by DrjonesDW3d Nov 30, 2006 at 6:28 PM 10 replies 2.4k views

Original Post

Nov 30, 2006 at 6:28 PM

Playing around with this now for a while I have a few observations/questions about it and thought someone here might be able to shed some light on the topic. First off, how is the emulation done. While playing the original Zelda, I found that just as the original NES did, when there were too many sprites on the same horizontal line (ie link, the boomerange, and 3 bad guys) the game would slow down and not draw those all properly (they would flicker). Yes, the Wii doesn't have a Core processor, but it should have enough power to render these NES games without that side effect. Was that added to make the emulation more 'official'? Did they just take the original Nintendo firmware and port it to the Wii architecture then slow it down to the original speed? Did they write an emulator specifically for the Wii? Is there just original Nintendo hardware inside and no real emulation? (yes, that one seems a little odd, but honestly would it be that expensive?). Also, why so few games for the virtual console? Those games are already made, it seems like there should be a lot more of them out (as well as more major titles). Where is Tyson's Punch Out? What about a Street Fighter or Mortal Kombat game? What about a Dragon Warrior or Final Fantasy game? Where's Mario 3 and Contra? It seems like those would be on the virtual console already. What is the logic for only having a few games available? These are the only possible reasons I have come up with so far: 1) There is lots of testing that needs to be done for each game, and tweaks made to the emulator. (could be possible, but emulators have been around the net for years and worked fine for almost every game, seems like Nintendo would be able to do the same) 2) It's business related and they are just holding back because some marketing guy told them to let them trickle slowly into customers hands. (Seems like something Sony would do, but Nintendo seems to run their business in a much more logical way) 3) It is business related from having the rights to make the games available. (They've know about this functionality for a long time. It's hard to believe if they went to a company who owns the rights for a game and told them they were going to make an already completed game available to hundreds of thousands of customers for purchase, that the company wouldn't instantly sign the papers and make them available). 4) It is an ESRB thing. (I'm pretty sure all these games have to be rated, even though they are all basically old and benign by today's standards. It could be a slow and or expensive process. But the same logic as above, they've known about this a while, and could of had a very early start). 5) There is no reasoning behind it and they just want to deny my and 100s of other gamers enjoyment from playing the classic games that we love! Looking at those, honestly 5 seems like the most logical answer. I don't understand. They've known about the virtual console for a long time. They know people will buy the games. The games are already completed. The emulation ability is already there. I'm not expert in business, but it seems like just making all of them available from the start and letting people buy the ones they want would of been the best option. Does anyone know the reasoning behind this or more technical info about how the virtual console works?

capn_midnight

Nov 30, 2006 at 6:48 PM

Quote:
Original post by DrjonesDW3d
Playing around with this now for a while I have a few observations/questions about it and thought someone here might be able to shed some light on the topic.

First off, how is the emulation done. While playing the original Zelda, I found that just as the original NES did, when there were too many sprites on the same horizontal line (ie link, the boomerange, and 3 bad guys) the game would slow down and not draw those all properly (they would flicker). Yes, the Wii doesn't have a Core processor, but it should have enough power to render these NES games without that side effect. Was that added to make the emulation more 'official'? Did they just take the original Nintendo firmware and port it to the Wii architecture then slow it down to the original speed? Did they write an emulator specifically for the Wii? Is there just original Nintendo hardware inside and no real emulation? (yes, that one seems a little odd, but honestly would it be that expensive?).

emulation by definition is to replicate the functionallity of the hardware exactly.

Quote:

Also, why so few games for the virtual console? Those games are already made, it seems like there should be a lot more of them out (as well as more major titles). Where is Tyson's Punch Out? What about a Street Fighter or Mortal Kombat game? What about a Dragon Warrior or Final Fantasy game? Where's Mario 3 and Contra? It seems like those would be on the virtual console already.

What is the logic for only having a few games available? These are the only possible reasons I have come up with so far:

1) There is lots of testing that needs to be done for each game, and tweaks made to the emulator. (could be possible, but emulators have been around the net for years and worked fine for almost every game, seems like Nintendo would be able to do the same)

no, your evaluation is correct

Quote:

2) It's business related and they are just holding back because some marketing guy told them to let them trickle slowly into customers hands. (Seems like something Sony would do, but Nintendo seems to run their business in a much more logical way)

This is the one. People will buy a few games on impulse, so trickling them out gives more opportunity for impulse buying. If they let them out in a bulk block, then people will pick out the few that they actually want and never look again. The rest of your statement is just retarded, Nintendo is being logical, the logic of businesses will maximize profit. If you look hard enough, you'll even find official statements from Nintendo stating that they see the Virtual Console as impulse buying.

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3) It is business related from having the rights to make the games available. (They've know about this functionality for a long time. It's hard to believe if they went to a company who owns the rights for a game and told them they were going to make an already completed game available to hundreds of thousands of customers for purchase, that the company wouldn't instantly sign the papers and make them available).

no, their cartridge licensing scheme back in the day basically meant they own a part of every game anyway. Please, Nintendo was the original evil game manufacturer, they just stuck it to the developers.

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4) It is an ESRB thing. (I'm pretty sure all these games have to be rated, even though they are all basically old and benign by today's standards. It could be a slow and or expensive process. But the same logic as above, they've known about this a while, and could of had a very early start).

ESRB is voluntary, they don't have to rate the games if they don't want to.

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5) There is no reasoning behind it and they just want to deny my and 100s of other gamers enjoyment from playing the classic games that we love!

nothing is without reason.

Nytegard

Nov 30, 2006 at 6:50 PM

As for the disappearing sprites. The NES System was limited. I'm sure they're using emulation, and not redoing the game completely. That being said, the NES was only capable of displaying so many sprites on the screen at once. This is causing the disappearance. Let's imagine you have an Array[16] that is bounds checked. You want to put in 19 numbers in this array. You're going to have to overwrite some of the numbers regardless. Like how companies displayed more colours (such as in Loom), later NES games got around this inefficiency by replacing sprites that were guaranteed to already be drawn on the screen, so the front buffer would trick the player into seeing an image that the game didn't not see internally.

Why so few games? First, not every game in the NES Library can go on the Wii. Nintendo is not Lucas Barton, they don't own every NES game ever made. Other companies, Square, Konami, etc, own their games. They were licensed to be used on the NES. Second, even games which Nintendo does own, or has licensed for the Virtual Console, aren't going to appear overnight. It doesn't make business sense. Release a few at a time, and keep it coming. Constant stream of money coming in.

DrjonesDW3d

Nov 30, 2006 at 8:02 PM

Quote:
Original post by Nytegard

Why so few games? First, not every game in the NES Library can go on the Wii. Nintendo is not Lucas Barton, they don't own every NES game ever made. Other companies, Square, Konami, etc, own their games. They were licensed to be used on the NES. Second, even games which Nintendo does own, or has licensed for the Virtual Console, aren't going to appear overnight. It doesn't make business sense. Release a few at a time, and keep it coming. Constant stream of money coming in.

This makes no sense to me. They make money selling virtual console games. If nintendo doesn't own the license to a game, and another company does, why wouldn't that company want to release it to the Wii so it can be sold? They can either

A) Not give the license to the game that is already tested and developed and hasn't made any money for them in 10+ years, thus still not making any money for them because no one will buy it.

or

B) Give the license to the game so that it can be sold on the virtual console and make money on it.

The cost is already done. The game is made. Making your product availible to people to buy is a smart buisness move. Why wouldn't you want to do that when there is basically no risk and just potential for profit?

Steady stream of income? That doesn't make sense. If there was 200 titles for the virtual console ready right now, they would have that money right now. Money they can use to invest into new games (or other investments) that end up making them more profit if they sold the same amount at a later time.

Lets say the average person has 20 games they are willing to pay for on the virtual console. At the current rate, in the next 3 years it's likely that only 1/2 those will be availible. If those were ready now, people would buy those 20 in the next month or two, and then likely pick up some more during the next 3 years.

IMO they will make more profit making them availible now. Am I the only one who doesn't see the logic in what they are doing?

Samith

Nov 30, 2006 at 8:15 PM

Quote:
Original post by DrjonesDW3d
IMO they will make more profit making them availible now. Am I the only one who doesn't see the logic in what they are doing?

Yes. Impulse buy. If all the games were available now people would look through the library once, and forget about it. If games keep coming out for the virtual console, there is incentive for buyers to keep looking through the library of games, the more they look through the games the more impulse buys they'll make.

Daaark

Nov 30, 2006 at 8:39 PM

Quote:
Original post by DrjonesDW3d
Yes, the Wii doesn't have a Core processor, but it should have enough power to render these NES games without that side effect. Was that added to make the emulation more 'official'? Did they just take the original Nintendo firmware and port it to the Wii architecture then slow it down to the original speed? Did they write an emulator specifically for the Wii? Is there just original Nintendo hardware inside and no real emulation? (yes, that one seems a little odd, but honestly would it be that expensive?).

The Virtual Console emulates lots of systems, not just the old SNES. It's a software emulator that can play genesis games and other stuff.

Part of doing emulation is to replicate the functionality of the old hardware. The old games will have been coded to depend on the old system functionality. If you put upgrades, you are going to break some games maybe.

Could be the sprites in Zelda were coded to rotate on a per frame basis so that they could give the illusion of having more sprites on the screen, which would make any upgrades to fix it pointless.

DrjonesDW3d

Nov 30, 2006 at 8:44 PM

Quote:
Original post by Samith
Quote:
Original post by DrjonesDW3d
IMO they will make more profit making them availible now. Am I the only one who doesn't see the logic in what they are doing?

Yes. Impulse buy. If all the games were available now people would look through the library once, and forget about it. If games keep coming out for the virtual console, there is incentive for buyers to keep looking through the library of games, the more they look through the games the more impulse buys they'll make.

I understand your logic, but I don't think as many people would follow that way.

I know personally if lots of games were availible now, I'd buy a ton of them, play through some, forget about others, then in a few months get bored on a sunday and check for more. In the next 6 months they'd have a lot of my money.

Doing it this way, in the next 6 months they won't have much of my money.

Also, the longer they wait the more Wii titles there are. Right now with a lack of big titles to play, people would be more willing to spend money on older games I think. 2 years from now when there are a ton of Wii games out they will be more likely to spend Wii money on new Wii games not virtual console ones.

That is obviously just me, and I know people will also 'forget about it.'

Maybe if we can't agree on motives, we could at least agree that if they are going to release them over time, they should release them at a slightly faster rate so that they actually get a chance to sell them to people before the next round of consoles is out.

spartanx

Nov 30, 2006 at 8:52 PM

Quote:
Original post by capn_midnight
no, their cartridge licensing scheme back in the day basically meant they own a part of every game anyway. Please, Nintendo was the original evil game manufacturer, they just stuck it to the developers.

They weren't suddenly in control of every single IP that crossed the console's face. As well, while they had a tight fist on that specific console, it seems rather unlikely that their contracts would allow them - at their sole discretion - to publish the games on as many future consoles as they wished.

Quote:
Original post by DrjonesDW3d
The cost is already done. The game is made. Making your product available to people to buy is a smart business move. Why wouldn't you want to do that when there is basically no risk and just potential for profit?

Paperwork. Bureaucracy. Sllooowwwmmooooo.

trzy

Nov 30, 2006 at 9:17 PM

Quote:
Original post by Vampyre_Dark
Part of doing emulation is to replicate the functionality of the old hardware. The old games will have been coded to depend on the old system functionality. If you put upgrades, you are going to break some games maybe.

Could be the sprites in Zelda were coded to rotate on a per frame basis so that they could give the illusion of having more sprites on the screen, which would make any upgrades to fix it pointless.

Absolutely. Some games rely on these performance quirks of the NES hardware. Many games use pixel-accurate timing for some of their graphical effects.

One example of a game that relies on sprite limiting behavior is Sonic the Hedgehog on the Genesis. During the title screen intro sequence, Sonic pops up from behind the circular frame. For a long time, Genesis emulators couldn't handle this properly -- Sonic would appear slightly overlapping the border. It was long thought to be some sort of a priority issue until someone discovered that the developers placed a series of transparent sprites on the left side of the screen. There were enough of these null sprites to cause sprite rendering to halt for the remainder of the scan line thus clipping Sonic's sprite.

Other games use excess sprites for similar reasons.

Nytegard

Nov 30, 2006 at 9:23 PM

Quote:
Original post by DrjonesDW3d
Quote:
Original post by Samith
Quote:
Original post by DrjonesDW3d
IMO they will make more profit making them availible now. Am I the only one who doesn't see the logic in what they are doing?

Yes. Impulse buy. If all the games were available now people would look through the library once, and forget about it. If games keep coming out for the virtual console, there is incentive for buyers to keep looking through the library of games, the more they look through the games the more impulse buys they'll make.

I understand your logic, but I don't think as many people would follow that way.

I know personally if lots of games were availible now, I'd buy a ton of them, play through some, forget about others, then in a few months get bored on a sunday and check for more. In the next 6 months they'd have a lot of my money.

Doing it this way, in the next 6 months they won't have much of my money.

Also, the longer they wait the more Wii titles there are. Right now with a lack of big titles to play, people would be more willing to spend money on older games I think. 2 years from now when there are a ton of Wii games out they will be more likely to spend Wii money on new Wii games not virtual console ones.

That is obviously just me, and I know people will also 'forget about it.'

Maybe if we can't agree on motives, we could at least agree that if they are going to release them over time, they should release them at a slightly faster rate so that they actually get a chance to sell them to people before the next round of consoles is out.

It's already been mentioned why, but I'd agree with you that I would like a faster release. Then again, the systems been out what, under 2 weeks? Two new games have already been released, which is similar to that of the XBox Live Arcade.

To me, I'd think that Nintendo and Microsoft (and I'm willing to bet Sony will have a similar time between their releases) have hired people more qualified than I could ever be to figure out how to sell their old games. There's obviously a well studied reason behind this. I'm guessing because waiting makes people more impulsive for while they wait.

Now, as a gamer, there are certain games I'm really looking forward too. With the XBox, I can't tell you how psyched I was the other day when it was made official that the arcade version of Double Dragon is coming out for Live.

LockePick

Nov 30, 2006 at 9:46 PM

-They need to test games to make sure they run properly on the Wii.

-They need to make sure old games don't have any content that would be inappropriate by modern ESRB rating standards.

-They need to make sure the games pass Nintendo's modern standards.

-They need to own the license to the games, or convince the owner that the virtual console is a good idea.

-Many of these companies already resell their old titles for full price. Why put it on the virtual console for $5-8?

-They're putting out 10 a month!

-Just how many games do you need to buy every month, exactly? Why are you asking them to put out more games than you will play?

-Constantly updating the content on your system gives people a reason to stick with it. A single, giant release gets forgotten in a week, sometimes less.

-Releasing too many titles is overwhelming for people who aren't older/hardcore gamers that know what every single game ever made is already. It encourages people not to try games if they don't already know them.

-Spreading out game releases spreads out the cost to the consumer. Forcing people to pay a giant lump sum, or to remember to come back and sift through hundreds of games everytime they want to put down a few dollars, is not reasonable.

perfectly_dark

Nov 30, 2006 at 10:17 PM

The reason they don't just put everything on at the same time is the same reason why companies don't release big titles at the same time, they'll steal each other's sales. You might buy all your favorite games now, but most people probably don't want to put down $200+ for old games so they'll buy one or two games. If they just release them gradually, they can make it more of a big deal when big games are released, and $10 every month doesn't seem so bad. Who would buy some smaller games when you could buy Ocarina of Time, Mario 64, etc all at the same time? Nintendo will also likely use the VC to help out in the droughts when no good games are coming out. That's just my thoughts, but I'm pretty sure those are the general reasons.

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