NeoGeo games to hit Wii Virtual Console

Nintendo of Japan announces plans for SNK's console, first MSX titles for Japanese release.

Last year SNK Playmore revealed that it was getting into the downloadable retro gaming market with a Japanese release of the NeoGeo fighter Fatal Fury Special for the Xbox 360's Live Arcade service. However, the Xbox 360 won't be the only console to offer downloadable NeoGeo games. Nintendo has updated its Japanese Virtual Console page with word that it would begin supporting the NeoGeo this summer.

The site also gives a few more Virtual Console-related updates. The first two MSX games announced for release on the VC are Eggy and Aleste, both slated for release this spring for a price of 800 Wii points ($8) each.

A handful of new companies have also been added to the list of Virtual Console publishers, including Pony Canyon (Dr. Chaos, Phantom Fighter), Spike (Fire Pro Wrestling, Dragon Ball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi), SNK Playmore (Fatal Fury, Metal Slug), and mobile game developer G-Mode. This doesn't necessarily mean the Virtual Console will host ports of cell phone games; G-Mode acquired the rights to Data East's catalog of games (including Burger Time and Magical Drop) in 2004.

As of press time, neither Nintendo nor SNK Playmore representatives had responded to GameSpot's request for comment on when (or if) NeoGeo games would be added to the Virtual Console offerings outside of Japan.

218 Comments

  • hromana

    Posted Mar 31, 2008 8:44 am PT

    Any new on this?

  • Jacksons1986

    Posted Jul 31, 2007 10:42 am PT

    Hopefully they have Super Baseball 2020, has anyone heard any recent news on this topic?

  • nkaiton

    Posted Jun 27, 2007 10:34 am PT

    It would be cool if they made a Neo Geo joystick for Wii to boot. Playing Samurai Shodown with the classic controller just doesn't seem right.

  • GrimBee

    Posted Feb 27, 2007 2:28 pm PT

    NEO GEO! Now that is awesome, I am so happy to hear that!!! King Of Fighters, Neo Turf Masters, Shock Troopers, Metal Slug, Super Dodgeball (hey! I like it!), Samurai Showdown... I could go on.... ok I will - Agressors of Dark Combat, Aero Fighters 2 (3 as well), Fatal Fury...

    The great thing about this is that you CANNOT buy these games in a bargain bin at gamestation for £2.50. Some cartridges will set you up from £50 - to the £1000's! I personally paid over £1000 for Metal Slug 5 when it came out first, I still have it, sealed an everything.

    Having Neo Geo on the Wii will be incredible, the graphics definately hold out even today, somehow you just can't beat the detail that is in Neo Geo games, especially SNK games like King Of Fighters '95 and Metal Slug.

    And with the quality of these games and the instant pick up and play appeal, they will surely be worth every wii point. Even by todays standards, the Neo Geo was a powerful 2D console, SNES and Megadrive could only HOPE to have this level of awesomeness.

    Not even the ps1 had the power to do Neo Geo properly, only the Saturn had the 2d beef, but then you had to have a memory expansion to do so!

    Neo Geo games will always rock, and for Nintendo's sake - they belong on the Virtual Console. A retro collection is not retro, or CLASSIC, until you have at LEAST 3 Neo Geo games on there.

    SNK will make a mint when they slap their games on the VC, nobody really wants to buy SNK games (strangely enough) because "bigger" named games get the attention - sonic, mario, streetfighter...
    When you get the millions of Wii users looking for something fresh, chances are an SNK game will be the perfect thing.

    This is a great idea, go for it!

  • The_Weekend

    Posted Feb 27, 2007 7:13 am PT

    NEO GEO should start doing a collection series for Wii also ... i currently have the collection series for King of Fighters, Fatal Fury Battle Archives 1, Last Blade collection, Art of Fighting collection .... waiting for more to come!

  • thestickman

    Posted Feb 26, 2007 11:34 pm PT

    Awesome.

  • kindredmachine

    Posted Feb 26, 2007 7:48 pm PT

    A saturn VC with Radiant silvergun :-)

  • kindredmachine

    Posted Feb 26, 2007 7:47 pm PT

    BlueFlameBat - ROTFL!!!! That's funny. Back in the day when memory was outragously expensive and 64MB cost over $100, then yea, Neo Geo games were considered big. Today, they can cram those babies into GBA carts... remember Metal Slug Advance? The Neo Geo VC is FREEKING AWESOME!!!!!!!!

  • BlueFlameBat

    Posted Feb 26, 2007 5:20 pm PT

    I'd still rather there be disc options. NEO GEO games are just too big.

  • theKSMM

    Posted Feb 26, 2007 3:16 pm PT

    The best games for the Virtual Console are the ones that were initially launched on a console. The console translations of arcade games don't look nearly as good as the original arcade games.

    Still, it's very good to see Nintendo aggressively expanding their catalog of retro titles. It gives me a chance to play some games that I may have missed the first time around.

  • Vash67

    Posted Feb 26, 2007 3:15 pm PT

    i hope they bring the NeoGeo downloads to America. I want to play Garou.

  • CyleM

    Posted Feb 26, 2007 1:44 pm PT

    heck yeah this is exciting for the Wii!!! now i hope that the VC brings Dreamcast games and also Saturn games....

  • dadeisvenm

    Posted Feb 26, 2007 1:42 pm PT

    Wait... What if its the crappy SNES/ Gen ports! That would tragically hilarious.

  • FearNeutron

    Posted Feb 26, 2007 1:34 pm PT

    Good too see SNK Playmore interested... now give me the NES version of Crystalis!

  • rarson

    Posted Feb 26, 2007 1:14 pm PT

    "MSX games on the VC makes me think what else they might do. FM Towns, PCFX, Saturn, Playdia?"

    I would LOVE to see some Saturn classics! How about the PSX too? :p Just kidding, I'm sure Sony would want to see their games working on the PS3 before they let Nintendo offer them on VC.

    I wouldn't mind seeing some Atari classics, and maybe some Sega CD games (Sonic CD, PLEASE!).

  • smbius

    Posted Feb 26, 2007 11:02 am PT

    I'm wondering how big those downloads would be for NeoGeo. I remember seeing those ROMs up in the 60MB to 70MB. That would take up a ton of "blocks"

  • kamicolo

    Posted Feb 26, 2007 10:45 am PT

    cell phone games how cool. Wow the Wii is getting everything

  • mariokart64fan

    Posted Feb 26, 2007 9:30 am PT

    ANDY YOUR WRONG metroid 3 is not a gc title , nor is medal of honor mario galaxy ssbb or any of the titles you mentioned the wii has alot of good games out on the vc and more coming

  • Chirico_Cuvie

    Posted Feb 26, 2007 9:10 am PT

    Ring King and Dr. Chaos are two awesome games the nobody played. Neo Geo is the best system to download games for but not own the hardware, so another way to play those games is great.

    MSX games on the VC makes me think what else they might do. FM Towns, PCFX, Saturn, Playdia?

  • Arthas045

    Posted Feb 26, 2007 7:36 am PT

    Hope we see Samuari Showdown

  • sieg6529

    Posted Feb 26, 2007 6:49 am PT

    Dammitalltohell, this is the first compelling reason I've seen to use VC downloadable content. Now I have to get a Wii!

  • Crimson-_-Tears

    Posted Feb 26, 2007 5:35 am PT

    Sweet!

  • chrisdojo

    Posted Feb 26, 2007 5:23 am PT

    cool. the more the better.

  • Agelu

    Posted Feb 26, 2007 5:02 am PT

    Sweet. I'm also glad that SNK is taking the Wii in consideration...

  • Andy639_basic

    Posted Feb 26, 2007 4:52 am PT

    Wwonka--what about Zelda? Granted that was a Gamecube game to start with, but it's definitely not a novelty game. Incidentally, there are quite a few games set to release this year that aren't 'novelty games'--Super Mario Galaxy, Metroid Prime 3, Smash Bros Brawl, Manhunt 2, No More Heroes, Medal of Honor Vanguard, etc. My biggest fear is that the Wii becomes a place where developers decide to dump left-over last-generation products that didn't sell well enough or never made it to the shelves in time.

  • nappan

    Posted Feb 26, 2007 2:10 am PT

    I have to say that I kind of agree with wwonka666... The Wii is far behind the other consoles in terms of non-novelty or "ye olde" games. Beyond that, all of these VC games don't exploit the Wiimote, which is essentially the whole point of the Wii to begin with. Oh well...

  • datniccah187

    Posted Feb 26, 2007 1:43 am PT

    Neo Geo games? What in the world is that. Never heard of it have you?

  • wwonka666

    Posted Feb 25, 2007 11:28 pm PT

    One more thing, how come everyone is so crazy for the Wii right now? I have to admit though I am a little more confident in the graphic capabilities of the Wii since playing the new Sonic and the Secret Rings game.

  • wwonka666

    Posted Feb 25, 2007 11:27 pm PT

    How many people think that all we are gonna get on the Wii is a bunch of novelty games? So far, I have Elebits, Wii Play, Warioware, Rayman Raving Rabbids, Excitetruck, Super Monkey Ball, Sonic and the Secret Rings and of course Wii Sports and they all rely on short bursts of fun rather than truly and deeply engaging game play and most of them have some sort of mini-game gimmick or the entire game is a mini-game gimmick. Please just give us good retro games and I will not be disappointed in my purchase of the Wii.

  • wwonka666

    Posted Feb 25, 2007 11:21 pm PT

    funsohng
    metal slug~~~~~~~~~~~ ?????? I'm a little confused here? You can play all the Metal Slugs now if you just get the anthology. funsohng, are you alright???

  • dragonfoxmem

    Posted Feb 25, 2007 10:40 pm PT

    I would love to see Samurai Showdown games on VC because this is one of most fun fighting games of all time.

  • jaredcrazy3232

    Posted Feb 25, 2007 10:26 pm PT

    u think the metal gear games will come to the virtual console... maybe near the release date of brawl? **()((((DROOL))))()**

  • jaredcrazy3232

    Posted Feb 25, 2007 10:23 pm PT

    no the 3DO is a forgotten system not the neo geo....

  • Generic_Dude

    Posted Feb 25, 2007 9:04 pm PT

    This can sit alongside Turbographix 16 as another old system nobody gives a damn about to drag out the amount of time between good NES, SNES, Genesis and N64 releases.

  • Valen_Ca

    Posted Feb 25, 2007 7:58 pm PT

    I like how everyone is getting all excited about this, especially since it hasn't been confirmed that Neo-Geo games will appear on the Wii's VC outside of Japan.

  • bubnux

    Posted Feb 25, 2007 7:41 pm PT

    Nice.

  • dadeisvenm

    Posted Feb 25, 2007 6:30 pm PT

    Speaking as someone who owns a Neo Geo Gold system, d-pad controllers are not the ideal method of playing a Neo Geo game. Expect these games to be priced at the upper tier 1000+ points; more then likely Samurai Showdown, World Hero II, Fatal Fury, and the like would be 1500 point. If its lower count yourselves lucky.

  • Silvernix

    Posted Feb 25, 2007 6:00 pm PT

    Hate to break this to you Joe, but it won't be in High Definition. I mean, having you played the Street Fighter, and any other ports? None of them are in high def.

  • JoeSmith34

    Posted Feb 25, 2007 5:44 pm PT

    I can't wait to play Neo Geo games in high-definition on Xbox Live Arcade!

  • chikahiro94

    Posted Feb 25, 2007 3:44 pm PT

    I just realized - Data East games: Wind Jammers, Heavy Barrel, Bad Dudes, Fighter's History/FH Dynamite, etc! Very, very sweet ^_^

    Everyone who has a Wii - be sure to contact SNK and tell'em you've got some cash you'd like to give'em

  • juanfraino

    Posted Feb 25, 2007 1:03 pm PT

    awesome! the neo-geo was cool.

  • Schwartz55

    Posted Feb 25, 2007 12:42 pm PT

    that is going to be cool

  • EMZA64

    Posted Feb 25, 2007 12:36 pm PT

    El coolio! How much are the games?!

  • rarson

    Posted Feb 25, 2007 9:54 am PT

    "wii needs online"

    I might point out the incredible ambiguity of that statement by mentioning that the Wii already has it's own version of the Opera browser for surfing the internet.

  • whiplash

    Posted Feb 25, 2007 7:36 am PT

    SNK made some of the most timeless games ever. I'm glad Playmore is keeping up the library and making it available to a new generation of gamers.

    An online King of Fighters, Garou Mark of the Wolves, Samurai Shodown, or Last Blade would be enough to get me to dust off my Wii.

  • bigaldella10

    Posted Feb 25, 2007 7:27 am PT

    wii needs online

  • archiekins07

    Posted Feb 25, 2007 12:52 am PT

    Samurai Showdown 1,2, and 3 PLEASE!!!!!! I can't wait!!!!

  • Kn0w0ne

    Posted Feb 25, 2007 12:19 am PT

    Right on... those of us that have played almost all games on all systems, are lovin it. Pull some more goodies from the depths, how about Nobunagas Ambition, or Bandit Kings? Are these also Wii bound? The Wii rocks.

  • rarson

    Posted Feb 24, 2007 10:52 pm PT

    "Why this sucks??because there's no online like on XBL. Why bother if you don't have online gameplay to enjoy some of Neo-geo great fighting games."

    I don't know, why would you have possibly paid 10-100 times more the first time around when the Neo Geo was first out? This is Virtual Console, not "reinventing classics." This is how the game was originally produced.

    I hear a lot of people whining about no updates to graphics or features of VC games. I really think anyone making complaints like that doesn't get the whole concept of the VC. To take a retro game and "update" it would be to make it no longer retro.

  • JohnnyBiz

    Posted Feb 24, 2007 10:00 pm PT

    YES.. YES.. Y ... E ... S

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