Virtual Console

Virtual Console (バーチャルコンソール, Bācharu Konsōru?), sometimes abbreviated as VC, is a specialized section of the Wii Shop Channel and Nintendo eShop, online services that allow players to purchase and download games and other software for Nintendo's Wii home gaming console and the Nintendo 3DS portable gaming console, respectively.

The Wii's Virtual Console lineup consists of titles originally released on past home and handheld consoles. These titles are run in their original forms through software emulation, and can be purchased for between 500 and 1200 Wii Points depending on system, rarity, and/or demand. Virtual Console's library of past games currently consists of titles originating from the Nintendo Entertainment System, Super Nintendo Entertainment System, Game Boy, Game Boy Color and Nintendo 64, as well as Sega's Master System and Mega Drive/Genesis, NEC's TurboGrafx-16 and SNK's Neo Geo AES. The service also includes games for systems that were known only in select regions, such as the Commodore 64 (Europe and North America only) and MSX (Japan only). Virtual Console Arcade allows players to download video arcade games. Virtual Console titles have been downloaded over ten million times as of December 2007, relatively early in the console life cycle. The distribution of past games through the Virtual Console is one of Nintendo's attempts at preventing software piracy.