Talk:Lists of Virtual Console games

combination?

Why do we have four separate lists? Why not just combine them into one and then show when the title was released in each region? 64.56.98.243 (talk) 23:40, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

Nearly 15 years late, but I agree. If you look at the List of Nintendo Switch Online games, it has everything on one list, with region just being indicated with a checkbox. I don't think this could be designed as neatly as that list because of the much more varied release timing for Virtual Console games, but I don't think several articles for each region was the best way to lay everything out.

If there were to be a reformatting of all of these lists, I think a good way to do it would be to have columns for each region's release dates. If a game never released in a region, it's release date would instead be grayed out and say "Unreleased". That way, the schedule of Virtual Console releases, even as complicated as they are, could be made more easily legible.

Naturally, this would take up some space, but I think that a lot of the current columns in these lists could be cut to compensate. I don't think we need age ratings for every game (the Switch Online list notably omits these). There's a developer listing, but only for North American VC games, for some bizarre reason. The Switch list also omits this, and given it's only been seen as important enough to do for one region, I feel fairly safe cutting it. There's also game language for South Korean VC, which would probably be the most worthwhile thing that would be cut (there's no easy way I can see to place it in this new system), but I still personally think it would not be a great loss.

Other information could be conveyed in different ways. There is a distinction between the AU/OCE region and the EU region. This is sensible for the Wii, as many games are not available in one or the other region and there is often some heavy variance in release date for the TurboGrafx16 games (and Street Fighter II': Special Champion Edition on Mega Drive, for some reason) and should probably be retained for the redesigned Wii list. The 3DS, however, has one game with a very different release date, and the GBA games are all off by one day of the same exact date, and that is it for release discrepancies. These examples could easily be covered by footnotes. The Wii U list makes the distinction even more pointless, as there is no variance at all in release date between the two regions, and seemingly just has the two columns because the other lists do. This one should just be a combined column.

I would very much like these lists to get consolidated like this and not have pretty unnecessary new articles just for different regions. IAmACowWhoIsMad (talk) 01:57, 21 June 2024 (UTC)