The Virtual Console was one of Nintendo’s main selling points when the Wii was still considered a harebrained idea. Its purpose was two-fold – both to entice gamers with the power of nostalgia and to show that traditional gaming was still possible even with the new-fangled controls. A deluge of titles both great and awful appeared across multiple retro systems during the first year, but afterward and more noticeably in recent months that flow has slowed to a trickle. There seems to be less excitement every week when the new games are released, but given the quality it’s not hard to see why.

When the service launched the line-up included equal parts caviar and crap , not unlike retail shelves. It seemed to be understood that every release didn’t need to be Super Mario 64 – who was Nintendo to put a premium on which titles were released? And the great games continued to come. The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time is sitting on the same service as Super Metroid and Gunstar Heroes. The service was doing well around a year ago but now the quality of games has started to drop. We got used to seeing great games like Contra 3, but now we’re getting "gems" like Cruis’n USA. Where’s our Earthbound?

Quality and quantity aren’t always the issue, however. Sometimes it’s just straight-up lack of variety. The Virtual Console has become a haven for shooters. The list available is staggering – Xevious, Galaga, Lords of Thunder, Gradius III,R-type III,Super Thunder Blade, Fantasy Zone, Super Star Soldier... the list goes on and on and on. It’s fine to offer up a bunch of titles from a genre, but it helps to mix things up, too. Sure, Square-Enix jumped aboard the service and released King’s Knight, but it’s another shooter!!! Where are the RPGs? Chrono Trigger is begging to let another generation of gamers (or older gamers on a limited budget) take a crack at it. Hell, we couldn’t even get the original Final Fantasy? It’s not just Square-Enix, either. Look toward Konami – instead of Metal Gear we get Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Sure, we have Castlevania and its sequel, but what about the superior third installment? Maybe we’ll see it someday, but when will it be too little too late?

Many have noticed the amount of titles released each week has slowed from three to two; a move made to keep from running out of games to release. This is certainly a good move, though it’s made more noticeable without higher quality games to buoy the smaller quantity. If we’re seeing two crappy games a week instead of two crappy games and at least a mediocre one, consumers are more likely to notice they’re not worth downloading. After several weeks of offerings that aren’t worth their time, consumers are likely to forget about the service altogether.

There’s a high volume of quality games out there that have yet to see release on the Virtual Console. Many have already been mentioned here (Earthbound, Castlevania III) but there are even more. There’s no reason we’re seeing titles like Yoshi’s Cookie when we could be getting Final Fantasy III (or Final Fantasy VI for all you otaku out there). The import selections were a step in the right direction, but even those have started to fall off. Sin and Punishment was a great release, but where’s Dracula X for the Turbo-Grafix or Mother for the NES? If Nintendo isn’t careful, people are likely to forget about the Virtual Console, especially with WiiWare bringing re-imagined versions of old games (Dr. Mario). It’s time for Nintendo to stop screwing around and give gamers what they want, because interest is starting to wear thin with what they don’t.