Virtual Console was very good for the time, but the industry has shifted massively in the 12 years since it launched. Publishers who once happily contributed to VC have found their own ways of re-packaging and selling their back catalogues - why would they want to buy into Nintendo's model and relinquish control? With the explosion of indie games and the proliferation of other digital content - subscriptions, DLC, microtransactions - regularly releasing emulated games on the eShop no longer makes much sense. There are hundreds of games on eShop already and the service clearly wasn't built to properly handle that amount of content. It's not inconceivable Nintendo's 'classic selection' might be its own app, separate from the eShop. At the very least I would hope Nintendo turn it into a distinct sub-section of the eShop.
Equally, with their Mini hardware range, Nintendo have clearly changed in the way they want to sell their own back catalogue. Given they've shifted 10 million units of Minis so far, it's likely they've made a couple of hundred million (or more) in profit on that hardware. Consider those sales came in a 15 month period, and look at the money Virtual Console generated in the first 12 months - $33 million in revenue. Some estimates in 2010 put the combined revenue from WiiWare and Virtual Console at $125 million for the year; with Virtual Console generating $66 million of that. Those estimates were never proven, but it's also a suggestion the service, while an easy cash earner, has never been a huge deal for Nintendo. Nintendo's perpetually shifting approach to VC was also never a good sign - they didn't develop a clear long-term plan for the service or for cross-platform access to VC games; and given WiiWare appeared 2 or 3 years into Wii's life, and how slow they were to support indies after that, it's also evident Nintendo didn't foresee how big original digital downloads would become. Virtual Console's high point was the first couple of years, in terms of visibility, rate of releases and expansion of the service - everything after that has been hit and miss and that's because Nintendo didn't have a clear long-term strategy for the service once the industry began to shift towards new, original download titles as a meaningful business.
Ultimately I won't be too disappointed, so long as this NES selection is just the start of the service. I think the loss of a unifying label is a big shame, but it's not entirely Nintendo's fault: other publishers are now probably less willing to play ball given they can sell their old titles in their own way. Equally, the popularity of Nintendo's back catalogue could flatten indies who are already struggling to be seen and heard on eShop. If Classic Game Selection becomes a subscription service which offers dozens of titles from past Nintendo systems - and which allows me to buy titles I want to keep - then it may yet turn out well. The 20 NES titles are hopefully just an initial offering, which will gradually expand to include SNES, N64, the GameBoy/Color/Advance, and perhaps even GameCube and Wii. If that happens, it could yet be a strong service. It's really too soon to tell. Given Nintendo's own Arcade Classics releases on Switch, Sega's Ages programme for Switch, and what other publishers have been doing with retro releases on the system, it's been clear for a while a unified VC was never coming - the heyday of a dozen or so systems from different manufacturers under one banner are long-gone.
