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Why have the Donkey Kong Country games been removed from the Virtual Console?

It's probably a contract thing. Agreement to have the DKC trilogy available on the Wii for the length of the Wii's lifespan. Since the Wii has been put down (Are there anymore games coming out specifically for the Wii?) and superceded, I bet the contract didn't discuss future consoles.

Hopefully it's just a matter of setting up a new deal.
 
Because Retro has devoted their entire staff to work on an HD remake of Donkey Kong Country Returns and they don't to cannibalize the sales.

No we don't
 
Why would anyone expect to find out a reason for this? Every game company is inscrutable, Nintendo doubly so.

Who would you ask and have a reasonable expectation of getting a non-PR response?
 
G0523 said:
Because Nintendo wants to re-release them for when the GBA games launch on WiiU.

Dear God, I hope not.
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I would punch a fucking wall!
UncleSporky said:
Why would anyone expect to find out a reason for this? Every game company is inscrutable, Nintendo doubly so.

Who would you ask and have a reasonable expectation of getting a non-PR response?
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Why not find out a reason. Nintendo owns these games why are they snatched of VC? This also may indeed affect their availability on Wii U VC and if the Wii U VC has all the current games of the Wii VC, we will unfairly be missing out on Snes DKC games :(
 
I very much doubt they removed these games because they are planning Wii U versions. Surely it's some sort of rights issue (I have no idea how that could be the case though).

Nintendo want you to pay for these games twice, once on Wii, once on Wii U. There is no logical reason to remove them from the Wii shop. They didn't remove the Mario or Kirby games when they released the disc collections.
 
Mihael Mello Keehl said:
I would punch a fucking wall!

Why not find out a reason. Nintendo owns these games why are they snatched of VC? This also may indeed affect their availability on Wii U VC and if the Wii U VC has all the current games of the Wii VC, we will unfairly be missing out on Snes DKC games :(
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Well Nintnedo obviously doesn't own these games since they were removed. Some kinda copyright problems must have come up since there is no reason Nintendo would've removed them unless it was a copyright problem.

You might say "well its Nintendo, anything is possible." but not this time. Nintendo never removes a game from their digital services unless it is a copyright problem or meant to be a limited edition. And any limited edition will be known that its limited before it comes out. (Four Swords DSi, etc.)

Your fooling yourselves if you think they were removed for any reason other than a copyright problem. Lets just hope that the GBA games are unaffected because if they are under the copyright problem then we will never be able to play these games without getting them on a original SNES OR GBA system...they might be rereleased but I doubt it.
 
It just seems odd that after the problems with Donkey Kong arcade Nintendo wouldn't make sure they hold the complete rights to their games.
 
WiiRevolution1 said:
Well Nintnedo obviously doesn't own these games since they were removed. Some kinda copyright problems must have come up since there is no reason Nintendo would've removed them unless it was a copyright problem.

You might say "well its Nintendo, anything is possible." but not this time. Nintendo never removes a game from their digital services unless it is a copyright problem or meant to be a limited edition. And any limited edition will be known that its limited before it comes out. (Four Swords DSi, etc.)

Your fooling yourselves if you think they were removed for any reason other than a copyright problem. Lets just hope that the GBA games are unaffected because if they are under the copyright problem then we will never be able to play these games without getting them on a original SNES OR GBA system...they might be rereleased but I doubt it.
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If Nintendo does not own these games they do not own the Donkey Kong IP then, well thats what my dumb mind is going with.
 
Nintendo owns the Donkey Kong IP. There's fact.

The things in the game they technically don't own are the Rare IPs like their old logo and I assume the Killer Instinct references.
 
BGBW said:
Nintendo owns the Donkey Kong IP. There's fact.

The things in the game they technically don't own are the Rare IPs like their old logo and I assume the Killer Instinct references.
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I guess that true, if so then why do games like banjo tooie get released on xbla and theres still a N64 in Banjo's house!?
 
BGBW said:
Nintendo owns the Donkey Kong IP. There's fact.

The things in the game they technically don't own are the Rare IPs like their old logo and I assume the Killer Instinct references.
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I swear if they got pulled over those that'd be one of the stupidest things ever.
 
G0523 said:
Because Nintendo wants to re-release them for when the GBA games launch on WiiU.

Dear God, I hope not.
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This is such a horrific notion that surely your ancestors must've been the people who conceived the Iron Maiden, the rack and the wheel.
 
Neiteio said:
This is such a horrific notion that surely your ancestors must've been the people who conceived the Iron Maiden, the rack and the wheel.
Click to expand...

Good news guys! They are putting Donkey Kong Country back on the Virtual Console! And it's not the GBA version either!

8io6Lp4.png
 
frankie_baby said:
I'm inclined to think they may have been pulled because of Nintendo discovering a security problem with them
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I don't think that's how it works.

1. Why would it take 5 years for hackers to find a security flaw in any VC game?
2. Why would Nintendo care, when homebrew is possible through several other exploits?
 
frankie_baby said:
I'm inclined to think they may have been pulled because of Nintendo discovering a security problem with them
Click to expand...

Well the games being removed right before the WiiU released tells me that it has to be some licensing issue. It's an odd time to suddenly discover problems or randomly pull a game from a marketplace.

It's annoying, but what truly gets me is how NoA doesn't even give a shit to warn people when they delist games. I would have bought these on a wii and transferred it to my wiiu later if I had any warning at all that these would vanish.
 
Most likely, Nintendo probably had a license agreement with Rare that expired, and since the Wii-U VC would've required them to draw up a new agreement anyway, they didn't see any reason to bother renewing the old agreement.

There's no conspiracy going on.
 
If nintendo included all 3 DKC games in the port of donkey kong country returns then I'll buy it, please nintendo


I've got DKC 1 on my Wii vc, I should have bought 2 and 3 :( how can I play 3 now(I own the cart of 2)
3 was good
 
Quackula said:
Most likely, Nintendo probably had a license agreement with Rare that expired, and since the Wii-U VC would've required them to draw up a new agreement anyway, they didn't see any reason to bother renewing the old agreement.

There's no conspiracy going on.
Click to expand...
So you think we will see them on Wii U VC?
 
Mihael Mello Keehl said:
So you think we will see them on Wii U VC?
Click to expand...

I think so

reason: I really think Nintendo pulled them to overhaul them massively for a VC WiiU release.
why? well, tbh the barebones Wii VC- Snes versions look like utter shit on flatscreen TVs.
low-res prerendered graphics blown up on new TVs look like a pixelated mess.

I guess Nintendo still has the original high-res material and releases an updated HD DKC trilogy for WiiU VC.
 
iamaustrian said:
I think so

reason: I really think Nintendo pulled them to overhaul them massively for a VC WiiU release.
why? well, tbh the barebones Wii VC- Snes versions look like utter shit on flatscreen TVs.
low-res prerendered graphics blown up on new TVs look like a pixelated mess.

I guess Nintendo still has the original high-res material and releases an updated HD DKC trilogy for WiiU VC.
Click to expand...

Why would Nintendo remove the original versions, though? It makes no sense. Nintendo love people paying multiple times for the same game. In their ideal world, you buy the original trilogy on the Wii and you buy they updated versions on the Wii U. There must be a rights issue.

They are going to make Wii U versions of all the big Nintendo VC games, yet they haven't removed any besides DKC.
 
Ushojax said:
Why would Nintendo remove the original versions, though? It makes no sense. Nintendo love people paying multiple times for the same game. In their ideal world, you buy the original trilogy on the Wii and you buy they updated versions on the Wii U. There must be a rights issue.

They are going to make Wii U versions of all the big Nintendo VC games, yet they haven't removed any besides DKC.
Click to expand...

Well ok then. Maybe they have to remove some rare logos and then rerelease them again for wiiu

But i simply don't believe it's a rights issue. Why remove them so late then?
Also didn't nintendo acquire everything donkey kong related from rare? I remember reading that was part of sale-contract they had with MS.
Anyway...time will tell.
 
superchunk said:
so. Does this mean that if I own them on Wii VC already and had to delete from some reason, then I wouldn't be able to re-download?
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No they're still in your purchases history. Just note: if you transfer the Wii Shop account over to Wii U you'll never be able to do a paid upgrade for them to run in Wii U mode.

Timeless said:
Good news guys! They are putting Donkey Kong Country back on the Virtual Console! And it's not the GBA version either!

8io6Lp4.png
Click to expand...
Its not Donkey Kong Land Either
GBC DKC1 is how I played that game, don't mock me...didn't Japan also get GBC ports of DKC2 and 3?
 
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