Retro Gaming Australia

Sonic the Hedgehog: Triple Trouble and Shinobi could well be the first Game Gear games headed to the 3DS Virtual Console, as both games have recently been rated by the ESRB for release in North America. Both games were exclusively designed for the Game Gear upon first release. Triple Trouble was later released in a variety of Sonic collections, but Shinobi stayed exclusive to the system.

Nintendo announced at last year’s Game Developer’s Conference that Game Gear and Turbografx/PC Engine titles would be headed to the 3DS Virtual Console, but little was said of these plans in the months since.

No release date or pricing information is available at this time, so watch this space.

Before we went dark for a couple of weeks (long story short: I got a new job, needed to adapt), we’d been harking on about the Nintendo 3DS Ambassador Program. Well, it starts tomorrow, and being the timely chaps they are, Nintendo has revealed the full list of games that will be made available through the program.

They are:

• Super Mario Bros.
• Donkey Kong Jr.
• Balloon Fight
• Ice Climber
• The Legend of Zelda
• Zelda II: The Adventure of Link
• Metroid
• NES Open Tournament Golf
• Wrecking Crew
• Yoshi

Let the cheering/bitching commence.

The NES version of Konami’s arcade shooting classic TwinBee is the next game to be released under Nintendo’s 3D Classics line.

It’ll be out next week in Japan – August 10 to be exact, and will set you back 600 yen.

TwinBee is the fourth game to be released as part of the 3D Classics line. While early reports suggested that 18 games were planned for the line, Nintendo has indicated that only six were actually in active development, one of which – 3D Classics: Tennis – has been cancelled.

Via Andriasang

Last week, Nintendo announced that they would be providing 3DS earler adopters with 10 free GBA games as part of the 3DS Ambassador Program. Five of those games were revealed in that press release – Yoshi’s Island: Super Mario Advance 3, Mario Kart: Super Circuit, Metroid Fusion, WarioWare, Inc.: Mega Microgames, and Mario vs. Donkey Kong.

It appears as though Nintendo of America’s customer service has inadvertedly revealed two more of the 10 GBA games planned for the program. Nintendo World Report contacted the company to confirm reports that Super Mario Advance 4: Super Mario Bros. 3 and Kirby and the Amazing Mirror will be made available to 3DS Ambassadors.

Given that Kirby and the Amazing Mirror seems to cost an arm and a leg on eBay, this is good news. Three more games are due to hit the service – any guesses on what they will be?

Last week it was announced that NES games would be coming to the 3DS Virtual Console, first to Nintendo Ambassadors (i.e. anyone who buys a DS before August 12 and logs onto the eStore), and then later in the year for everyone else.

According to IGN, a Nintendo of America spokesperson confirmed that these NES games will be coming with some upgrades, most notably multiplayer capabilities. “When the NES games become available to the general public later this year, they will include additional features such as multiplayer simultaneous play. Ambassadors will then be able to download those updated version at no cost,” the spokesperson said.

Let the Ice Climber fights begin again.

Source: IGN

Perhaps you’ve heard of Operation Rainfall, the letter writing campaign to get Nintendo of America to localise several Wii games. Following in its footsteps is Operation Moonfall, a new campaign which aims to get Nintendo to produce a 3D update of The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask.

The campaign appears to have been started by the fansite Zelda Universe after long time series producer Eiji Aonuma said that he was up for it. After the solid retail performance of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D, it might actually become reality.

So if you want The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask 3D to happen, contact Nintendo and tell them!

It seems that there are a few caveats to go with the recently announced NES and GBA Virtual Console news.

Nintendo Australia has announced that the 3DS system will drop from $AU349 to $AU249 on August 12, with similar price drops occuring across the world. As a bonus for early adopters (anybody who buys a 3DS before September 1), Nintendo will be giving you 10 free NES and 10 free GBA games, some of which we elaborated on in our earlier story.

It’s not as cut and dry as these games simply appearing on the Virtual Console store and you downloading them. On September 1, Nintendo will be pushing out “early bird” versions of the 10 NES games. They won’t have any of the usual VC trimmings, and it is understood that the NES emulation is at a beta stage. These titles will be added to the Virtual Console store at a later date, and joined by other classic NES games.

It gets weirder with the GBA situation though. No date has been announced for when these will be available to download, and it is understood that Nintendo is not planning on adding the GBA to the Virtual Console – instead, these 10 GBA games will remain exclusive to the 3DS early adopters and will not be for sale later down the track.

Nintendo held a press conference today to announce their Q1 FY2012 results, and took the opportunity to address the lagging sales of its new 3DS handheld. The price of the Nintendo 3DS is being slashed by 40% from 25,000 yen ($AU291) to 15,000 yen ($AU174) effective August 11, 2011. Similar price drops will occur across the rest of the world.

The news that’s of more importance to retro gaming fans, however is that the Nintendo Entertainment System and Game Boy Advance will be joining the 3DS Virtual Console line up. As a consolation to people who bought the 3DS at its full price, Nintendo will be giving out a whole horde of free Virtual Console games.

Free games on the NES include Super Mario Bros., Donkey Kong Jr., Balloon Fight, Ice Climber and The Legend of Zelda, while the free game line up from the GBA consists of Super Mario Advance 3: Yoshi’s Island, Mario Kart: Super Circuit, Metroid Fusion, WarioWare: Mega Microgame$ and Mario vs Donkey Kong. This line up only applies to Japan for the moment, so we’ll have to wait and see what Nintendo has in store for us.

One of the bright spots of the original Nintendo 3DS reveal was the revelation that Nintendo would be releasing classic 8 and 16-bit games remastered in 3D through its eShop service. The first of these, 3D Classics: Excitebike was given away free (until last week), and the next one, 3D Classics: Urban Champion is due this week.

However, according to a recent Iwata Asks segment on the 3DS eShop, Nintendo may be scaling back it’s plans for 3D Classics. 3DS software planner Takao Nakano revealed that the company is having far more trouble than expected converting games into 3D.

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