They did release a first-party title this week. Title "XYZ" is rather unimportant in the scheme of things unless it's something relatively rare or never on VC before, there's at least 5 other ways to get SMB3 and at least 1 is still current (Wii VC). These aren't new games or anything, it's a just matter of whether it's coming or not.
To me, Nintendo games are as iconic, timeless and classic as Beatles songs. There's many different ways I can listen to the Beatles albums I own but like many people, I still very much appreciate the fact that all of their respective songs are also available to purchase on my IPhone if I wish and this is now how I listen to them whenever I'm driving. And it took years, but I'm glad Apple didn't stop until they figured out a way to bring the Beatles to ITunes. How many IPhone owners before that would have steadfastly said, "Yeah, I'd like to have Beatles songs on my IPhone, but I still have my physical Beatles albums and unless they can convince McCartney to release some ultra rare bootleg tracks to go with them, it doesn't really matter to me if the main bulk of their most popular songs go on ITunes"?
The point, which has been repeated many times, and shouldn't have to be repeated much if at all, is that Nintendo is still not making the VC a fully viable service both in functionality, release schedules and especially in lessening the gap of output disparity between regions. Is it nice Nintendo worked to include BC so that I can play my OG VC copy of SMB 3 in Wii Mode if I wish? Yes, of course. Ok, so how does that excuse the fact NOA is still the only region holding it back for Wii U when Japan and EU have had it for months?
You can split hairs all you want, the VC is a service for delivering classic games and in its current technical state on Wii U, it now gives me, the customer, the ability to upgrade my previous copy. So I as the customer can and should point out how rediculous it is and what poor business practice it is for one region of a global company to consistently ignore customer demand. Would McCartney and Steve Jobs have lost anything by not making Beatles happen on IPhone? No. But they would have been letting a lot of extra money just sit on the table from the people who were clamoring to put the songs on their IPhones. I even remember Ringo said in an interview that he was happy the ITunes deal finally went through because fans kept asking him if it would ever happen and now he could finally say yes. I can imagine Itoi felt much the same way about Earthbound's VC release, a title which was number one for weeks and about eight months later is still in the U.S. eShop's top ten. Again, by not making Wii U VC output more robust, Nintendo is just leaving money on the table.
Nintendo keeps telling us it's great that we only have to pay small fees to upgrade our titles and keep telling us how great it is that we can now play VC on the Gamepad, so it's on them to act like they mean what they keep telling us. And as someone who enjoys downloading classic games, I am not just going to shrug it off and blandly rationalize it all with excuses for them such as "Oh well, lots of people already own these games in some form and unless they have something a lot more rare to offer they might as well just drip feed us stuff like Ice Hockey and continue to undersupport the service."
I'm not expecting every game to be available obviously. However as both an avid VC purchaser over the past seven years and a loyal Wii U owner despite its continually poor sales and disintegrating third party support, I have EVERY RIGHT to EXPECT that Nintendo do a much better job in managing the VC with what they have. I'm not going to settle for the Monkees when I could be listening to Abbey Road. Get it?
