Dear Nintendo,
Why won’t you allow me to re-live my childhood gaming days while out and about?
Namco does with Pac-Man, Galaga and Mr. Driller. Sega does with Sonic the Hedgehog, Ecco the Dolphin, and, most recently, Shining Force.
Where is Super Mario Bros. 3? Why can’t I download and play Super Metroid on the go? What about a Bluetooth-enabled multiplayer Super Mario Kart? Nope!
You have an incredibly nostalgic audience, and your own portable device to sell these games to us on, let alone an array of other systems just waiting for the flood gates to open.
As reported in January of 2010, the life-to-date sales of the Nintendo Wii were 67 million. As the current console lucky enough to be graced by the Virtual Console store, you are missing out. Before the tremendous success of the iPad and iPhone 4, the combined sales of the iPhone and iPod Touch were in the 75 million range. In a recent survey, they found iOS device users download 10 -18 Apps a month. Imagine if just two of those were classic Nintendo games?
And these numbers don’t even account for your own uber-popular portable device. With the release of the Nintendo DSi in November of 2008, and the concurrent release of the DSi Shop, many gamers, myself included, were hoping you would then release your catalogue of 16, 32 and 64-bit games.
It’s disappointing, to say the least, to see your best efforts in this arena are micro-versions of your ever popular, but ultimately whatevs, titles Brain Age, Electroplankton, Master of Illusion titles and Solitaire.
I truly hope you do something about this quickly, as the hacker community is currently drinking your milkshake. On the iPad there already exists a pretty kick-ass SNES emulator that allows you to use an iPhone or your own Wii remote as a controller. This App is available on Jailbroken iPads for $5.99. Why not release an official version?
In closing, there is an entire generation of consumers with itchy instant gratification fingers just waiting for you to sate their needs. I truly hope history does not repeat itself, as I can already see the banner ads flashing, “Everyone does, what Nintendon’t.”
