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There is no way it can't be the opposite. Our club nintendo accounts register our downloads, so if we do the same thing on Wii U, having our club Nintendo account, we can re-download the games. I don't even understand the "tiny restructuring" thing.

I have a handful of games that I bought before the option to link to a Club Nintendo account existed. And there are probably millions of Wii owners who have no Club Nintendo account. IIRC, when you create one, it doesn't pick up previously purchased games.

 

[graywolf323]

does this mean games for 3DS' eshop also are now account based or are they still tied to the hardware?

 

[Franchuzas87]

Really, really great news for me. I have a lot of VC games, and in recent months I avoided buying some more because of this matter.

 

[Jackano]

Most countries do not have Club Nintendo.

Indeed. In their case, I think the transfer will be impossible to gamers in those countries.
Unless the transfer is possible over an application like the DSi and 3DS. It will be a mess, but, knowing Nintendo, this will be a new way for them to say "you don't need two TVs here, the Wii U Gamepad make it possible with only one TV!".

 

[BocoDragon]

That's very surprising and good news.

 

[tuffy]

As soon as DSi -> 3DS transfers came online, I'd assumed Wii -> Wii U was only a matter of time. But I'm glad to have it confirmed.

 

[Gamer @ Heart]

does this mean games for 3DS' eshop also are now account based or are they still tied to the hardware?

I dont think its account based yet, but i would bet alot of money when their network finally launches, the 3DS OS will be updated to mirror it.

 

[BGBW]

does this mean games for 3DS' eshop also are now account based or are they still tied to the hardware?

Currently they are tied to the hardware but they allow you to transfer the data from one 3DS to another.

 

[Cosmo Clock 21]

I'm almost willing to bet that this won't be the case for the next playstation given the architecture changes that have been rumored. I don't know if they can get away with that now that Nintendo has set the precedent though..

I'd be interested to hear how even more future consoles will handle DDL titles. Are all consoles going forward going to require some form of backwards compatibility to play these games?

 

[SUBZERO-08]

Happy to have confirmation.

 

[Tathanen]

It's been a while since I've had to manage Wii save files, so I might be remembering wrong, but you can transfer those via SD card, right? Even if it doesn't go automatically in a system transfer, I don't see why they wouldn't be copyable manually.

Some of them, yes. Some of them, no. It's a per-game thing, perhaps related to whether you could exploit the game somehow by duplicating saves, or because they have an online gaming profile in them, or this or that. But yeah, you can't do it with everything.

 

[Eusis]

Wii U excitement went from "Well, they DO have games I want to play" to "I NEED THIS". Literally, I've got artifacting on my Wii and at this point it would be more practical just to get a Wii U and transfer everything over rather than try to get Nintendo to repair/replace it.

 

[PixyJunket]

YES. My most wanted news. My purchase is almost guaranteed now. Just give me a price.

 

[Levyne]

How would this work if my Wii was stolen? Does it? The downloads weren't really tied to anything other than the Wii itself

 

[Balb]

I wonder if we'll be able to play VC games on the tablet. That'd be even better.

 

[Diddy Kong]

Aw yeah!

 

[Gamer @ Heart]

I wonder if we'll be able to play VC games on the tablet. That'd be even better.

That seems so obvious as to be silly if it cant. Its a perfect example of something the U could do without taking up the tv, and nintendo focused on that alot in their material.

 

[Metroid Hunter]

does this mean games for 3DS' eshop also are now account based or are they still tied to the hardware?

I'm assuming this is the case.

 

[PixyJunket]

I wonder if we'll be able to play VC games on the tablet. That'd be even better.

 

[MatthewB92]

Sweet all bit.trip games on the same console.

 

[SovanJedi]

Cheers for the good news, Muffin Man!

 

[brandonh83]

I wonder if we'll be able to play VC games on the tablet. That'd be even better.

I would... imagine so, but I guess weirder things have happened. I'd be disappointed if you couldn't. Especially factoring in the resolution. It would make far more sense to play VC games on the pad's screen.

 

[Hellraizah]

Another important question is : Will there be another batch of VC releases and, if yes, will they also be available for Wii?

I only have a Wii for VC and couldn't care less about upscaling since my TV is doing the job anyways.

 

[Liquidus]

I'm pleasantly surprised by this. Good job Nintendo!

 

[PigSpeakers]

Will this be available at launch? I'm still waiting on my PSX games for Vita.

 

[TriniTrin]

Do we know if the WiiU is backwards compatible with Wii/gamecube games?

 

[JoshuaJSlone]

How would this work if my Wii was stolen? Does it? The downloads weren't really tied to anything other than the Wii itself

When dude steals your Wii U, he can transfer your games to it.

 

[MatthewB92]

Do we know if the WiiU is backwards compatible with Wii/gamecube games?

Wii yes. Gamecube no.

 

[SovanJedi]

This actually might work out well for me as my old Wii is busted and I refuse to pay £120 for Nintendo to fix it; my only concern is that you need the old Wii in order to transfer stuff wirelessly to the Wii U, like you did with the 3DS. :\

 

[FatCat]

I wonder if we'll be able to play VC games on the tablet. That'd be even better.

I was thinking about this, are there any hurdles with controls? Wouldn't you need extra programming for the gamepad controls?

 

[PixyJunket]

I was thinking about this, are there any hurdles with controls? Wouldn't you need extra programming for the gamepad controls?

The Wii U Game Pad has every controller and button you would need for any Virtual Console game.

 

[JoshuaJSlone]

I was thinking about this, are there any hurdles with controls? Wouldn't you need extra programming for the gamepad controls?

They could probably have the system pretend it's feeding in Wii Remote or Classic Controller input.

 

[Nessus]

There is no way it can't be the opposite. Our club nintendo accounts register our downloads, so if we do the same thing on Wii U, having our club Nintendo account, we can re-download the games. I don't even understand the "tiny restructuring" thing.

I suspect they are implying a unified account separate from Club Nintendo, since the vast majority of Wii users don't have their Wii console linked to Club Nintendo, they don't even know it exists.

 

[MoxManiac]

This calls for a sexy party!

 

[Pie Lord]

Easily the best news of the day.

 

[UberTag]

I'm not going to get excited about this until they share the mechanism they plan on providing to facilitate this transfer of past downloaded titles.
Because if it amounts to "please send us your Wii and Wii U hardware and we'll transfer your content licenses over and ship them back in 4-6 weeks" I'm still not impressed.

The "at launch" mystery is also an issue. Vita owners are all too aware of this.

 

[thefro]

I'm not going to get excited about this until they share the mechanism they plan on providing to facilitate this transfer of past downloaded titles.

Because if it amounts to "please send us your Wii and Wii U hardware and we'll transfer your content licenses over and ship them back in 4-6 weeks" I'm still not impressed.

Probably will be a "Wii U Transfer Channel" released on the Wii.

 

[dancrane212]

Get news, I'm glad to finally get confirmation on this.

I still need to spend the 2000+ points left on my system, funds didn't transfer from DSi to 3DS right?

 

[rpmurphy]

I didn't expect any less, really.

 

[RPG_Fanatic]

With DSi to 3DS transfer, can't say I'm surprised. Good to see confirmation though.

 

[Willy Wanka]

I'll believe it when I see it or they at least give more concrete details on how it works. Great news if true though.

 

[zroid]

Many VC saves, perhaps even the majority, are console locked at present.

ick, that sucks. :/

 

[JaseMath]

BEST
BRAND
NINTENDO

 

[Eusis]

ick, that sucks. :/

Most of them are save states though. Those with hard saves will partially copy, so for something like Zelda you'd lose that save state right after beating Ganon, but you'd still have the save before you fight him unless you never saved in the game ever.

 

[Game Guru]

Aren't the only VC saves that aren't transferable the ones that only suspend gameplay? I mean, yeah, you aren't getting where you suspended gameplay in, say, Super Mario Bros. 3 on an SD Card, but the saved goals of, say, Super Mario World, would be perfectly transferable.

Most of them are save states though. Those with hard saves will partially copy, so for something like Zelda you'd lose that save state right after beating Ganon, but you'd still have the save before you fight him unless you never saved in the game ever.

Yeah, exactly. And many of these games use passwords, so you can write the password down and transfer the 'save' that way.

 

[Barrel Cannon]

The irony is that even though people hate on nintendo about online Microsoft and Sony are less likely to do this.

 

[Dark Octave]

Sony, this is the thing to copy.

 

[AkimbO_Arcana]

YES! So many games I did hold on for the last two years. *grabs credit card*

 

[The Giant]

Those vc save files better transfer as well.

 

[Bojanglez]

Better late than never, although it is too late to save all my Virtual Console games that are on my dead Wii :-(