I don’t usually post about games coming to the Wii’s Virtual Console far ahead in advance. For example, I received several e-mails about Nintendo Power listing Super Paper Mario as coming to the Virtual Console probably sometime this month. Thank you to all that submitted that, however, I didn’t post the story simply because it’s a given. We’re going to get Super Paper Mario, there wasn’t any doubt there. On the other hand, I posted earlier Friday that Zelda II: The Adventure of Link was confirmed by Nintendo as coming to the VC Monday. The difference in that case was that Nintendo pointed out that the game would be a milestone – the 100th game on the Virtual Console.

However, I’m posting about a potential new VC game in the future, and it’s not even officially confirmed. However, IGN’s Wii podcast includes a blurb where Mark Bozon claims that Sin and Punishment is pretty much a done deal for the North American Virtual Console. It’s actually been discussed for several months as a possibility, and Nintendo even included it in a Virtual Console product survey a while ago. Now the subject’s back, and here’s why it’s significant:

Sin and Punishment is a highly acclaimed Nintendo 64 game that was only initially released in Japan (though it was released in China years later). Nintendo had previously stated that only games released in each region would show up on each region’s respective VC service. Sin and Punishment does indeed seem like a done deal though, especially since the game was released in Japan with English voice acting. If and when Sin and Punishment makes it over to the North American and likely European and Australian Virtual Console services, I expect Nintendo to open the floodgates for other Japanese-only games from the past on our VC. Sure, there’s the issue of localization for these games. But some franchises have localization teams today that have said they’d be willing to translate them. Like Fire Emblem. Ahem.

IGN Wii