Two games in the same week on VC that I might actually download? What the hell is going on?

For a long time now virtual console on the Wii has really sucked. It's clear that from their E3 Press Conference and some off the collar quips that Nintendo really doesn't care about the core gamers upon who's wallets they rode a wave of hype to become famed as an object of desire among alpha moms and the elderly.

This has been covered a lot online. And I can't say I disagree. For a long time I'd say, "well I have a Wii, but really all I do with it is play virtual console." and for a while that was true. For about a year we were getting three games a week. And for a stretch there was usually at least one game that was keeping me on the little white waggle box. Hell, there was even a period when we were getting games that up until then had only come out in Japan. It was amazing. I could over look a few years of Wii Fit E3s if Nintendo kept bringing home those goods. However, that trend did not last forever. It seems to be that Nintendo is settling into autopilot, dolling out the bare minimum releases. I suspected that eventually they might even stop all together in favor of Wii Ware titles.

But the releases this week have redeemed themselves.

First a quick aside. There's a lot of places you can get information about Wii Virtual Console releases. You can never go wrong with Jeremy Parish and Chris Kohler over at 1UP. These guys know there stuff and their Virtual Console Round UP is a great place to get the scoop. The only problem I have with it is that, like Retronauts, it is somewhat inconsistant and does not always come out on a predictable schedule. The guys at IGN Retro write up stuff. My one complaint aobut this site is that, like most IGN stuff there isn't a lot of cohesion. I wish there were more specific RSS feeds. I wish I could get Virtual Console reviews without subscribing to a bunch of Wii shovel ware reviews. Also most of hte links in on IGN seem to blast you all over the site. Basically, if it's not from the saftety of my Google Reader, I hate IGN's layout and mish mash of inter linking. For this reason I recommend keeping tabs on the RSS feed from VC Reviews. This site has consistant updates, decent reviews (althugh I should say not as informative as Parish and Kohler's).

Anyway, today in my RSS feed was news that both Splatter House 2 and Mega Man came out this week. I don't think I need to say much about Mega Man. It is my favorite in the series, yes I like it better than 2, cause I sucked at 2 and I've never gotten over it. I haven't played much of Splatter House 2 or 3. I hear 3 is better than 2. But I'm a huge fan of the first, so I'm planing on checking this one out as soon as I can.

I'll post up impressions later on. For now I'm just glad that there is a brief glimmer of hope for Virtual Console. Hopefully this isn't the last gasp before oblivion...then again what do I care, if VC went belly up, I'd just have more time to play Soul Calibur 4.

Update: According to Chris Kohler's Wired blog, Mega Man is apparently NOT coming out today. Oh well. Looks like Splatterhouse 2 is still a go. Should have known it was too good to be true.

The Emulator effect.

So Nine Inch Nails released an album over the weekend.

As usual you can download it or remix it.

Basically Trent is doing everything right with his recent releases. He's giving us the choice of several high quality digital formats. He's giving us the choice of a simple CD or an elaborate special editions like those he released for Ghosts which Bractune describes as "The greatest special edition box set I've seen. Ever." Trent's allowing us to remix his entire album (not just the single) using huge libraries of high quality digital audio.

So why is it that I feel a little underwhelmed by the whole thing? Why is it that I couldn't even be bothered to listen to the whole album that I downloaded for free?

It could be a number of things. It could be that I'm 31 years old now and don't have the teen angst and anguish over unrequited love that I had back in high school. Hell, Trent even seems to be singing about the loss of angsty intensity in my so far "favorite after a half listen to the new album" song "Discipline".

It could be that I've bought ever single Nine Inch Nails CD since the beginning of time and I'm seriously starting to get a sense of diminishing returns. I mean. If you loved Nine Inch Nails in 95. All that stuff is still there to love now. They haven't pulled a Gwen Stefani and basically butchered and killed everything you liked about the band in an effort to reinvent themselves for the 21st century. Unlike, let's say, Radiohead for the sake of argument, Nine Inch Nails also hasn't really explored to much new with their music in the last 10 years. I mean Ghosts was a "departure", but it was still recognizable as Nine Inch Nails. It wasn't like the difference between Kid A and Pablo Honey.

I think ultimately what's killing my enjoyment of Nine Inch Nails is the same thing that's killing the record industry as a whole. And that is basically the "something for nothing" blues. I understand this first hand working as I do in the software industry. We are facing the same sort of problems. With games moving largely to the Console due to piracy.

But it isn't just piracy. I think it's the fact that the internet has also given us as consumers the ability to plug in and listen on demand to whatever we want, when we want. I sit at work all day and listen to shout cast feeds. These feeds are all divided by genre's so specific I wonder that anyone would take the time to set them up. But rest assured there is a radio station that plays all Commodore 64 SID Chip music. We no longer have to listen all day to the radio to hear the one song we like. We no longer have to buy a whole 15 dollar album for ONE song. If we like it we can buy it for 99c. We can make discs of nothing but random songs that we really like.

And this means the end of herding listeners into genre gettos. Becca listens to all kinds of crazy stuff. From hip hop to metal to Jazz to techno, I mean she's all over the place. And I think increasingly everyone is.

And the slap back effect is that it's hard to devote ones self to being a fan of one band and it's albums because our tendency now is to mash it all up and super consume it all.

I can't remember the last time I had a CD in my car player for longer than a couple of days. It's like I just dont' need to be that dedicated to one CD because the investment for me now is TIME not Money. And practically all I listen to is radio streams at work and podcasts in my car.

It's what I call the emulator effect. Back in the late 90s when emulators started to appear that were finally capable of playing NES games on computers everyone who was into that sort of thing went through the emulator effect. "Shit" you'd think "All these games are only 4k I can download the ENTIRE NES catalog on my Zip Disc". And then you did that. And then you played them all. For about five minutes each. maybe. The thing is, when you are a kid and you buy a 50 dollar game. You play the shit out of that game. YOu love that game. When I was a kid I had Renegade, a game which just came out for Wii's Virtual Console to universally bad reviews. But I remember loving that game. Because I HAD to love that game. I had no choice. I wasn't going to get another game till my birthday so I better play that game till my hands blistered.

But when you have these games for free on an emulator you start to get really picky real fast. Even the greatest games like Mega man and Super Mario Bros don't hold up forever. I think I got about half way through both before I fired up Star Craft again. It's like...what's the point? And I say that being one of the biggest Retro Game fans there is. I can't explain it. But I'd rather pay for a virtual console game than emulate it for free. When I bough Super Mario Bros on Wii Virtual Console I did so knowing that I had the real NES cart in my back room and that I had the rom somewhere that I could have played for free. But I didn't care. For one thing I wanted to give Nintendo the money the deserve, but there's something about playing a game you paid hard earned money for that just makes it more enjoyable...for me at least. That's the emulator effect. When I have Nine Inch Nails album for free in 15 minutes I just don't listen to it as hard as I listened to the With Teeth album that I liked less, but paid for. go figure.

Now don't get me wrong. I still buy CDs. I think the CD is the best format to get music in for the time being (maybe DVD in 5.1).

With a CD I get lossless audio, the ability to port it to whatever platform I choose, and I don't have to worry about data lost or corruption or DRM that switches off my ability to listen to music in a month.

But having said that, the only CDs I buy are mostly of bands I liked before 2000.

Depeche Mode, Portishead, Nine Inch Nails, etc. I do still buy albums for industrial bands I like...but good luck finding even combichrist or VNV at best buy. I've been forced to buy all this crap from the UK since even Amazon is starting to slip. And I will NOT buy mp3s from iTunes or some other low quality DRM filled shit service.

Forget it.

Reznor gets it. he sells his CDs on his site. he gives me formats I want. I'm happy to give him my money. I wish all artists did this.

Now I just need to force myself to not switch win amp back over to Space Station Soma.