Natsume talks Virtual Console, claims Nintendo is working on GBA support for 3DS
Natsume community manager “CeeCee” commented on the publisher’s plans for Virtual Console in the future.
As of late, Natsume has been receiving quite a few fan questions/requests to re-release Game Boy Advance and GameCube titles. Doing so, however, isn’t so simple.
CeeCee explained that when it comes to GBA, this is something the Virtual Console doesn’t support. But interestingly, Nintendo is apparently “working on this” and Natsume “look[s] forward to the day it’s possible.”
Regarding yesterday’s announcement of DS support on Wii U, CeeCee said, “it’s an exciting time, and we’ll be reviewing our DS catalogue for potential titles.”
When we say we get asked this question a lot, we’re not kidding.
So, we get asked these sorts of questions a lot, and there’s a really easy litmus test to tell whether a classic game will be released on the eShop: “Does Nintendo do this? Do they let other companies do this?”
No, Nintendo does not put recent console games on the 3DS eShop, and sadly that means we cannot either. The same goes with GBA (outside of the ambassador games) — though they’re working on this and we look forward to the day it’s possible. But until that day comes, we aren’t actively working on porting any specific GBA or GameCube games.
We’re aware today that Nintendo has announced plans to launch DS games for the WiiU – it’s an exciting time, and we’ll be reviewing our DS catalogue for potential titles.
As for titles Natsume can actually bring to the Virtual Console, CeeCee confirms that more Game Boy Color releases are coming.
HM GBC did quite well for us, and we have a solid library of GBC games to draw from for re-release. Currently, we are working with Nintendo to re-release some more of our classic GBC games. When we have dates for future eShop re-releases (and we WILL be releasing more eShop titles), we’ll announce them on our social media first! We’ll touch upon the challenges of releasing classic titles onto modern systems in a later question.
@GoldMetalSonic If one could do so, wouldn't every company already be doing that? 🙂
— Natsume Inc. (@Natsume_Inc) January 31, 2014
@GoldMetalSonic That's true. I'm guessing having to change them over programming wise may be cost/time prohitibive as well.
— Natsume Inc. (@Natsume_Inc) January 31, 2014
@GoldMetalSonic It's tempting to try to rush out all our old stuff, but we need to balance it with new games, too.
— Natsume Inc. (@Natsume_Inc) January 31, 2014
@GoldMetalSonic Oh, there have been plenty of companies who have looked into it. We wouldn't be the first by a long shot.
— Natsume Inc. (@Natsume_Inc) January 31, 2014
Lastly, Natsume had the following exchange on Twitter with a fan about Virtual Console support:
