Capcom: VC titles under Nintendo’s complete control, including Bionic Commando

Those of you dismayed with Ben Judd’s announcement about the original Bionic Commando not coming to the Wii’s Virtual Console service don’t have to be too emo about it. Capcom recently released a statement explaining their stand regarding their library of game titles for Nintendo’s downloadable game service. For more details about what they had to say on this, check out our full article.

Ben Judd, producer of the upcoming Bionic Commando titles (3D Bionic Commando and Bionic Commando Rearmed), recently discussed the pros and cons of the newly remade games. However, what dismayed a lot of fans was the fact that the 8-bit version of Bionic Commando won’t make it to the Nintendo Wii’s Virtual Console service.

This statement caused further confusion when Capcom Vice President of strategic planning and business development Christian Svensson mentioned that this was not an issue with Capcom, pointing the finger in Nintendo’s direction instead.

Fortunately, Capcom head of relations Chris Kramer sorted things out after a talk with MTV Multiplayer and explained the lowdown of the current situation. He mentioned that there was no reason for Bionic Commando to be excluded in the VC library of game titles based on the licensing agreement between the two companies.

He further explained that Capcom had no say whatsoever regarding the scheduled release dates for any of their titles on Nintendo’s downloadable game service. After licensing the rights to their games to Nintendo, Capcom no longer had any control of their library’s appearance on the Virtual Console – this was a right exclusively under the jurisdiction of Nintendo.

Kramer also mentioned that this was true with all the other publishers who licensed their games out to Nintendo. While Capcom got a cut out of the VC releases, it was ultimately Nintendo who handled the scheduling and technical work involved with each title’s release.

In retrospect, considering some of the more mature and gruesome scenes depicted in the original Bionic Commando, it might be prudent to hold off it’s release on the VC service after all.