To the dismay of American Wii owners everywhere, the Commodore 64 is one game system that is lacking from the Virtual Console’s repertoire in North America. The system and it’s games are simply absent.
So why is that? How come Europe has been getting Commodore 64 games, but it hasn’t even been announced for North America? And are there any plans for release Amiga games for the Virtual Console?
vc-reviews got some answers in their interview with one of people who was instrumental in bringing the computer system to the Wii Virtual Console.
VC Reviews: How did the decision to re-release Commodore 64 games on the Virtual Console come about?
Nico Kaartinen: At the beginning it was all a crazy idea which came up with Commodore Gaming and some other friends from the gaming industry. We have all our interest in retro gaming as it all brings back the memories of how it all started and how much we time we spent playing or coding in front of the C64. At some point we involved Eidos and Alten8 into the idea and we had all pieces together to get this project started.
We decided to move forward and talk with Nintendo and present them our thoughts. The great thing was that Nintendo of Europe (NOE) was open to our idea from the beginning even though a C64 has never played a big role in Japan. It was not necessarily easy all the time but at the end we established a great relationship with the guys at NOE and are happy that we have so many titles on the Wii C64 VC.
VCR: Do you intend to make C64 games available to the Virtual Console service in Australia and North America soon? What have been the difficulties in doing this so far?
NK: I do understand that this is one of “THE” questions in regards to the Wii C64 VC as I am reading the feedback from your users and other web pages. I can not say if it comes to the regions you refer to.
VCR: Have you got any plans to bring out games from the C64’s big brother, the Amiga eventually?
NK: Did the C64 have a big brother? Seriously speaking, we are currently concentrating our efforts on the C64 releases.