The distribution of past games through the Virtual Console is one of Nintendo's reasons for opposing software piracy of old console games.

Virtual Console titles have been downloaded over ten million times. The service for the Wii also included games for platforms that were known only in select regions, such as the Commodore 64 (Europe and North America) and Microsoft's and ASCII's MSX (Japan), as well as Virtual Console Arcade, which allowed players to download video arcade games. Virtual Console's library of past games consisted of titles originating from the Nintendo Entertainment System, Super Nintendo Entertainment System, Game Boy, Game Boy Color, Nintendo 64, Game Boy Advance, and Nintendo DS, as well as Sega's Master System, Genesis/Mega Drive and Game Gear, NEC's TurboGrafx-16, and SNK's Neo Geo AES.

They could also be purchased using real currency for $2.99 and $9.99 (3DS) and $4.99 and $9.99 (Wii U), depending on the system, rarity, and/or demand. These titles were run in their original forms through software emulation (excluding GBA titles on the 3DS and Wii on Wii U), therefore remaining mostly unaltered, and could be purchased from the Wii Shop Channel or Nintendo eShop for between 5 Wii Points. The Virtual Console lineup consisted of titles originally released on past home and handheld consoles. The Virtual Console was a line of downloadable video games for Nintendo's Wii and Wii U home video game consoles and the Nintendo 3DS handheld game console.

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