Eshop Update: Nintendo Launches 30th Anniversary Virtual Console Promotion

During yesterday’s Nintendo Direct, company president Satoru Iwata announced that the celebration of the Famicom’s 30^th anniversary was about to start, which would be commemorated with a trial promotion on the Wii U’s Virtual Console. Landon wrote a bit about it yesterday, but the full, detailed schedule has been released with the celebration’s launch.

For 30 days at a time, Nintendo would slash the prices of some classic games all the way down to 30 cents, the first of which being the NES game Balloon Fight. The price will go back up to normal on February 21, but by then, the next game in the promotion, the SNES launch title F-Zero, will hit the 30 cent mark.

While not every game merits even a 30 cent purchase (I could do without Balloon Fight), there are some gems in there. Here’s the full list, which goes through August:

• Balloon Fight (NES) – 1/23 – 2/21
• F-Zero (SNES) – 2/20 – 3/21
• Punch-Out!! Featuring Mr. Dream (NES) – 3/20 – 4/18
• Kirby’s Adventure (NES) – 4/17 – 5/16
• Super Metroid (SNES) – 5/15 – 6/13
• Yoshi (NES) – 6/12 – 7/11
• Donkey Kong (NES) – 7/15 – 8/13

Not bad, right? That Super Metroid’s gonna be pretty sweet, that’s for sure. And I wouldn’t mind Punch-Out either…

Now, an important detail that wasn’t totally clear during the video announcement yesterday. If you buy the game at the 30 cent price, even though the game’s price will rise back to normal once the 30 days are up, you won’t have to pay the higher price to keep it. Why was this ever in doubt? Because Nintendo’s making Wii owners who have previously bought Virtual Console titles pay an extra dollar or dollar-fifty to play those games on the Wii U’s Virtual Console, which sucks a lot. This promotion, though, seems to NOT suck so much.

Any games you’re excited about? Any that you’re sorry aren’t on here?

The 3oth Anniversary promotion isn’t all that’s going on with Nintendo’s eShop today. Double Fine’s downloadable adventure platformer, The Cave is available now, as a game I’ve never heard of called Funky Barn. The 3DS’s eShop has a bunch of new additions as well: a demo of Brain Age: Concentration Training, Super C, Cocoto Alien Brick Breaker, and Ghost Recon Shadow Wars, a turn-based strategy game that I recently discovered was actually produced by legendary game designer Julain Gollop. I’ll definitely be scoping that one out…