Another great announcement that Nintendo made during the Nintendo Direct this morning was that Wii games would be coming to the Virtual Console on Wii U’s eShop starting today. Although Wii U is fully backwards compatible with Wii, this is a big deal for a lot of reasons- first, of course, most Wii games are surprisingly hard to find, having been out of print for a long time, and commanding prices reaching over $150 on online sites. Secondly, playing Wii games on the Wii U required you to enter the Wii Mode, a sandboxed emulation of the entire Wii console, which was a tedious and nonsensical workabout. Finally, these Wii games promise to be optimized for Wii U, including full Gamepad control support in games that originally supported the Classic Controller or Classic Controller Pro on the Wii.
If all of this sounds too good to be true, it gets even better- Nintendo is starting it big, with the Wii Virtual Console available on the eShop today. The launch title is Super Mario Galaxy 2, the highest rated game of last generation, and one of the best games of all time; over the next few weeks, Nintendo plans on adding games such as Punch Out!!, Metroid Prime Trilogy, Xenoblade Chronicles, The Last Story, Pandora’s Tower, and Sin and Punishment: Star Successor.
Like… damn.
And you want to know the kicker? Each game will only cost $10.
Get on it.