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Haverst Moon 64 not possible on Wii/Wii U VC

TunaLover

Member
Crop me if old

Searching for the reason why Nintendo hasn't released N64 games I found this:

We’ve seen Natsume say that Harvest Moon 64 wouldn’t come to Virtual Console for Wii, but is it possible that we’ll get game for Wii U Virtual Console?

Unfortunately, Harvest Moon 64 suffers from technical issues that won’t allow for it to come to the Wii U. We know how beloved the title is by fans, and we have tried everything possible to have it released on the Wii Virtual Console, but there is nothing that can be done.

http://www.siliconera.com/2015/03/1...m_campaign=Feed:+siliconera/MkOc+(Siliconera)

It could be just be certain games, but still dissaponted that even Wii U is having those technical difficulties to run N64 games =/
 
I assume though; If they could get a 64 game running on the Wii it should be no problem on the Wii U, right? Why haven't they released some of those games yet?
 

georly

Member
I like it when pubs are candid about this kind of stuff, rather than perpetually ignoring the issue and leaving fans to speculate. Saying it's too hard/impossible to port is better than saying 'we have nothing to announce at this moment.'

This is probably more licensing issues than anything else, no?

Harvest Moon 64 suffers from technical issues that won’t allow for it to come to the Wii U

Technical implies actual code issues rather than legal. To me anyway.
 
As a huge fan of the series and as Harvest Moon 64 being my favorite title in the series (and one of my favorite games of all time!).....it don't think it has aged well. I remember going back to it a few years later and suffering through the long wait every time you need to access your knapsack. I still think its an amazing game, but I think it would be hard to go back to it.

Having said that I'm very curious as to why exactly it can't be done. Like what exactly is it that is stopping it? If they ever figured it out I would probably buy it anyway just to support the efforts.
 

SovanJedi

provides useful feedback
I remember even at the time the game had lots of game-crashing bugs. Perhaps Nintendo won't allow anything that could potentially corrupt storage and Natsume have no way to fix it with the resources they have?

It's a shame, I really want to try the game out. And I bet it costs a fortune to buy a legit copy too.
 
It could be just be certain games, but still dissaponted that even Wii U is having those technical difficulties to run N64 games =/

Apparently they were using the "technical issues" excuse back in 2010? I found it on this video showing the Homebrew Channel running it on the original Wii with very few issues:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_2niNnAlbm8

Unless they did something in the original game release Nintendo doesn't approve of and won't support in the Virtual Console emulator, it must be legality or financial, not technical.

Edit:
I remember even at the time the game had lots of game-crashing bugs. Perhaps Nintendo won't allow anything that could potentially corrupt storage and Natsume have no way to fix it with the resources they have?

Oh, yeah, that would do it. "Technical issues" would probably mean "We'd have to bugfix the game." At this point, I wonder if a fan has done that for them...
 

TheMoon

Member
It could be just be certain games, but still dissaponted that even Wii U is having those technical difficulties to run N64 games =/

I'm not confident that they've actually tried or are specifically commenting on Wii U VC given no N64 games are out on it. I just would love them to finally come out clearly and say what the problem is and not wave it off with "some technical thing you don't understand" and then talk about Wii.
 

Glass Joe

Member
OP's quote is Natsume talking specifically about Wii, not Wii U. The same hurdles likely exist, but there's no reason to think from this discussion that there's a new U related issue involved.
 

Morts

Member
Despite many attempts HM64 is the only Harvest Moon game I've really gotten into. I probably put hundreds of hours into it back in middle school.
 

TunaLover

Member
It might not be up to their standards. It's easy to emulate N64 games, but extremely hard to do it without visual glitches and whatnot.
This, I still have to see a properly HM64 running on emulator (whatever it is), the graphical glitches are all over the place.
 

enoki

Member
That's heartbreaking. I've been hoping for Harvest Moon 64 since the day I got my Wii U.

Oh well, at least I have my cartridge.
 

Gestault

Member
oc8TL12.jpg

Retronauts Vol III, Ep 14:
Harvest Moon


One of the main discussion points is why Harvest Moon 64 cant be emulated. Some people's assumptions here veer a bit off-base.
 
Isn't their something screwy concerning the Harvest Moon IP and Natsume these days?

No, Natsume has the rights to all the Harvest Moon games they've published in the past under the Harvest Moon label. Marvelous, on the other hand, can't publish any of those in the West. Natsume just can't touch future Boku Monogatari games, now being published in the west as Story of Seasons, but they can make games under the Harvest Moon label.
 

Game Guru

Member
Isn't their something screwy concerning the Harvest Moon IP and Natsume these days?

Natsume owns the Harvest Moon trademark, but Marvelous Interactive makes the Bokujo Monogatari games in Japan of which had been brought here until 2014 under the name Harvest Moon. Currently XSEED has the localization rights to the Bokujo Monogatari games, but since Natsume owns the Harvest Moon trademark, XSEED cannot just use the Harvest Moon name for their localizations. Thus, an interesting situation has developed where XSEED localized the latest Bokujo Monogatari game as Story of Seasons while Natsume developed their own Harvest Moon game for the Western Market. In essence, Harvest Moon has ended up separating into two series... Story of Seasons, which is the take on the formula from the original developers, and Harvest Moon: The Lost Valley, which is Natsume's first original take on the formula. I do believe Natsume does still own the publishing rights to previous games in the Harvest Moon series given the SNES original is still up on the Wii U Virtual Console and was released in 2013.
 
How there never was a Harvest Moon 64 DS or Harvest Moon 64 3D I will never know.

If the game is so cherished and demanded on the VC, why not work with Marvelous to remake/port it to DS or 3DS?
 
Yeah, I had mentioned this a few months ago in a thread, though I didn't make a separate thread about it. Adam Fitch, who works for Natsume mentioned it on The Geekbox podcast. The technically couldn't make it work on Wii, and as there is no n64 VC on Wii U, it won't be playable there either.
 
I assume though; If they could get a 64 game running on the Wii it should be no problem on the Wii U, right? Why haven't they released some of those games yet?

There have been issues with other cart-based games on the VC though, most notably titles like Star Fox, Yoshi's Island (SNES), Pilotwings 64 and so on. Third party N64 games would be a great addition to the library but still a pretty niche offering.
 

Javier

Member
But the Wii U has a virtual Wii unit that plays N64 games so I don't see what technical difficulties can exist.
Natsume stated years ago (as in, before the Wii U was out) that they tried to put HM64 on the Wii Shop but couldn't get the game to run properly.

There's definitely a technical issue with the game itself.
 
This is highly unfortunate.

They need to make Harvest Moon 64-2: The Second Attack or something. Any platform. Surely the demand for Harvest Moon-style games is out there, somewhere.
 
Apparently they were using the "technical issues" excuse back in 2010? I found it on this video showing the Homebrew Channel running it on the original Wii with very few issues:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_2niNnAlbm8
That proves nothing because Wii64 is not the emulator it would have to run on.

So how does it fare on the emulator it will have to run on?
Doesn’t work, freezes at “Classic Controller” Screen is what I could find in a search
I think if anything that list demonstrates how bad Nintendo's emulator is for N64. Makes me wonder if NST were really that interested in it...
 

Roto13

Member
ITT, people confuse "running at all" with "running well enough that someone with any self-respect would charge $10 for it"
 
ITT, people confuse "running at all" with "running well enough that someone with any self-respect would charge $10 for it"

Hey, some people would be happy if Nintendo just sold the Ambassador GBA games on 3DS, despite those having none of the features that Virtual Console games have come to have, including pausing when the screen is closed

Edit: I am not one of those people
 

Persona7

Banned
I thought I remember reading something about the game not running well on VC and they can't open up the source code to modify things or something like that.
 
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