GBA Finally Coming to Virtual Console on Wii U

Last year in January, Iwata announced that games from Nintendo’s classic 16 bit handheld, Gameboy Advance, would be coming to the Wii U Virtual Console; earlier this year, he promised that they would be made available by the end of April (in his own words- finally). Now, Nintendo seem to be living up to their word, as they just announced that the GBA Virtual Console will launch on Wii U on April 3rd.

The first game that the GBA Virtual Console is launching with is the classic turn based strategy game Advance Wars by Intelligent Systems. The game was met with incredible critical acclaim back when it first released, and it went on to spawn three sequels, one for the GBA, two for the DS, with another one for the 3DS widely rumored.

The GBA library should provide Nintendo a wealth of classics to mine that have hitherto been untouched- from Advance Wars to Fire Emblem, Zelda to Metroid, Final Fantasy, Breath of Fire, Pokemon, Mario and Luigi, F-Zero, Mario Kart, to the surprisingly strong western third party support the system got.

The Wii U is also slated to receive Virtual Console support for the Nintendo DS sometime soon. Stay tuned for more coverage.