Turbo Grafx games drop off the Virtual Console

[SignOfZeta]

What the hell? These games take up a matter of kilobytes on a server somewhere. They're so small you'd have to delete like 6 of them just to have enough space to store a single average-length MP3.

It doesn't make any sense whatsoever. Nintendo can't be that hard up for a couple kilobytes that they just can't afford the cost of keeping them around. Hell, even if they sold 1 (or 0!) copies a year on these titles, it takes more effort to remove them than to just leave them there.

This makes no sense, and it makes me angry even though I never had any plans to buy these on VC since I already own the originals.

I'm sure the explaination has nothing whatsoever to do with server space, but rather rights.

[thesteve]

pulling games without intent to produce/sell them is just greed.
same with pulling old movies/tv shows/music off the web.
current production go for it

[jeffhlewis]

I'm fairly sure this has to do with the contractual rights and/or royalties involved to sell virtual console games rather than anything to do with space constraints.

There was a really good episode of Retronauts where they explained why it was so difficult to for companies to put retro games out there on platforms like VC or XBLA - a good example they gave was a movie game like Batman for the Sega Genesis, where they not only have to give royalties to publishers and producers but also the movie studio who owns the rights to the Batman franchise, DC Comics, etc - everyone gets a cut and a lot of times the $5 price tag doesn't cover the meager sales the title might generate. I wouldn't be surprised if some of the more obscure games sell in in the single digits some weeks, or even less.

[motdelbourt]

Getting off topic a little, but Nintendo was very negligent in promoting the Virtual Console/WiiWare service when the Turbo games were being added, and is even so to this day, although they have improved with 3DS Virtual Console.  I wouldn't be surprised if some of these smaller companies like GMODE got burned.

[KingDrool]

I would argue that they have "improved" with the 3DS VC. As a 3DS owner, I can tell you that nearly every Thursday I am greeted with exactly zero releases on the VC. It's a nice box to check on their list of features, but they don't make any priority out of it at all.

The Wii VC has a pretty impressive list of titles. But that took about 6 years to amass. Nevertheless, it's a good way to introduce newer generations to old games. So I appreciate it for that.

[GohanX]

Hmmm, this makes me wonder if I need to go ahead and snatch up some of the TG16 PSN games so I can play it on my Vita.

[Samurai Ghost]

Hmmm, this makes me wonder if I need to go ahead and snatch up some of the TG16 PSN games so I can play it on my Vita.

Or just throw the entire library of TG-16 games on a hacked PSP?

[nat]

I was just looking at the (US) VC today, and the TG-16 section is down to 56 titles. It was at 63 at its peak, so we've lost 7 games so far. I haven't had a chance to figure out what the other 4 are.

[Necromancer]

I was just looking at the (US) VC today, and the TG-16 section is down to 56 titles. It was at 63 at its peak, so we've lost 7 games so far. I have(haven't?) had a chance to figure out what the other 4 are.

R-Type, Vigilante, Ninja Spirit, and Legend of Hero Tonma are the other victims.

[DragonmasterDan]

R-Type, Vigilante, Ninja Spirit, and Legend of Hero Tonma are the other victims.

That tells us that Hudson's sub-licensing deal with Irem presumably ran out.

[vestcoat]

It's pretty amazing that 40% of the library was released on VC.  How long before someone sells their complete "Wii-Grafx" and makes bank?

[galam]

The home brew channel solves all of these problems

[guyjin]

well that's really f*cking shitty.

[DragonmasterDan]

well that's really f*cking shitty.

Yep, not only that but with Konami owning Hudson, I get the feeling there wouldn't be much of a push to restore the rights to those games any time soon.

[esadajr]

I'll stick with physical copies thank you!

Yeah, sell me something I can keep.