News: Rumour: GameCube Games Downloadable on Wii U? Page 1

Rumour: GameCube Games Downloadable on Wii U?

20.07.2011

Rumour: GameCube Games Downloadable on Wii U? on Nintendo gaming news, videos and discussion

It's 2012. You've just unpacked your shiny new Wii U from its box and feasted your eyes upon the glory of HD Pikmin. Now you want to check out the GameCube original to see how far the series has come but, you realise with horror, Wii U doesn't play GameCube games. Unless they were available for download, that is...

In an interview with NintendoGal, Nintendo of America Director of Entertainment & Trend Marketing Amber McCollom let slip that the company may be offering up downloadable GameCube titles via Wii U's WiiWare in the future. No further details were mentioned.

NintendoGal: I noticed on backwards compatibility at the press conference that the GameCube was missing. Why is this?

Amber McCollom: You know it’s interesting that you bring up backwards compatibility and Nintendo’s history usually goes back one system. The Wii was compatible with GameCube and Wii U will be compatible with Wii and that’s pretty traditional in launches from Nintendo.

NintendoGal: So the Wii U will not support the discs or accessories?

Amber McCollom: Actually the GameCube discs will not be compatible with Wii U, but a number of the games that were playable on GameCube can be downloaded from WiiWare.

Nintendo has not yet officially announced this capability, so consider it a rumour for now. A representative from Nintendo UK today was contacted by Cubed3 regarding this, to which we received the standard response of the story being "rumour and speculation".

You can read the rest of NintendoGal's interview here, where they speak further on the subjects of Wii U, 3DS' sales and social media.

Which GameCube games would you like to see made available for download on Wii U?

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Sherwinator 20.07.2011#1

Does this mean we can use GC controllers? Smilie

PS - I dont think there's any GC game that I would want to download as I have the ones I wanted/need. Smilie

( Edited 20.07.2011 13:33 by Sherwinator )

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RudyC3 20.07.2011#2

Same as Sherwiinator, there aren't any GameCube games that I'd want to pay again for when I already own on discs almost all the games I wanted to get. And the few ones I still don't own and would like to possess are very unlikely to find their way on the platform anyway...

Cubed3 Limited Staff :: Review and Feature Writer

irfy 20.07.2011#3

Same as above, i sold most of my GC games and kept some that I wanted to play again and again on the Wii, thats such a piss take if you have pay for them, there should be a system of some sort that existing GC game owners don't need to pay for the same game again. Im sure the Wii U is capable of reading a GC game disc. A option like "Have this game on disc already?" and you insert your game disc to verify a free download.

J4K 20.07.2011#4

This irritates me a bit -- if the Wii U can play Wii games, it should be able to play GameCube games. The Wii and GameCube have nearly identical architectures.

The only reason I can think GC support isn't there is so that Nintendo can make money off of re-releasing them.

Azuardo 20.07.2011#5

This would only excite me if the games were upscaled or re-released in HD or something. Like everyone else, I have everything I want on GC already. But for those who never got a GC or Wii or have a harder time tracking down certain GC games, relaunching them on WiiWare could be a good idea, as long as the price is right (which it won't be).

irfy 20.07.2011#6

The prices for games on the gameboy games on the 3DS Virtual Console are a bump.

Marzeee 20.07.2011#7

Coincidently, I was talking about this with Slydevil the other night.

I was saying that I thought Nintendo took the GC disc compatibility out so they could gain money, by making various Gamecube games downloadable. So it wouldn't surprise me if this was true.

Squidboy (guest) 20.07.2011#8

@Jacob

No, from what I understand it's the new optical drive WiiU uses, the custom HC discs (25G) require a new system which cannot support the tiny GC discs.

Squidboy (guest) 20.07.2011#9

Good, but I want all my games brought over too. I also want GC/N64/SF,NES Wii Remote add-on's. I already have two Super Famicom ones which are excellent. Nintendo should sell them all as a legacy set. I'd buy two if they did.

welshwuff 20.07.2011#10

Honestly this isnt news to anyone who can put 2 and 2 together. The wii has downloadable games up to the N64, it covers all bases, so to loose disc combatibility is obviously leading towards DL games, hell the ps3 has ps2 games for DL... hell the ps3 has ps3 games for DL... makes me kinda sad though, i have alot of gamecube discs, but i got a cube and a wii so meh.

EdEN 20.07.2011#11

This opens up the door for the chance to get Japanese GC that never released here. I would pay $20 for a Japan Only GC game translated to english.

Stulaw 20.07.2011#12

If this is true, I hope titles like Baten Kaitos (and it's Sequel) and MGS Twin Snakes gets put on there. Baten is hard to find at a good price and it's sequel wasn't released in Europe, and MGS is just too damn expensive.

I just hope they don't charge more than a tenner per game at most, but even that is a bit expensive.

RudyC3 20.07.2011#13

EdEN said:
This opens up the door for the chance to get Japanese GC that never released here. I would pay $20 for a Japan Only GC game translated to english.

They won't even translate all their Wii or DS games, so expecting them to do so for even older games is a bit idealistic i'm affraid... Not for text-heavy games anyway (like Giftpia :/ ...).

Cubed3 Limited Staff :: Review and Feature Writer

J4K 21.07.2011#14

Squidboy (guest) said:
@Jacob
No, from what I understand it's the new optical drive WiiU uses, the custom HC discs (25G) require a new system which cannot support the tiny GC discs.

That doesn't make sense. The GameCube uses the exact same technology as a Wii disc -- its just smaller. So it really should be as simple as putting instructions for the where the laser needs to start and end -- something Nintendo likely had to do for the Wii disc drive as well, and honestly something that can't be that hard to manage.

I think the reality is they saw an opportunity to both save cash by scrapping GC controller/memory card ports, and make more money by then adding the GC portfolio to the Virtual Console.