Depends on who owns the actual rights. Even if Nintendo does have a say, I could see two ways to let it happen:

1) Cold, hard, cash

2) Tell Nintendo they can put the original versions on the VC.

I would think Nintendo holds some rights on the items it published. So, with that either:

A) Nintendo is receiving a fat paycheck to let them go so long as...
B) The game is changed to not be exactly like the original Nintendo published game.

Personally, I would rather have the awesome original version on VC, but, I don't think MS would allow anymore potential system sellers lose way to the Wii, it is doing good enough already.

well superchunk, if I could get online multiplayer, i'd take that over the original. The gangs all gone their separate ways so it's too hard to play as a group again :(

As far as I've heard from a few websites, the main reason 007 isn't on VC/XBLA yet is entirely due to Nintendo. They want 007 to stay to them and VC, despite the fact that Rare, MS, and Activision just want the game to come out on both.

Either way, would be great to see 007 HD.

Double post.

If it does in fact come out on XBLA, the VC version will be completely shown-up.  Again, this is one of those games that was great at the time, but hasn't aged well.  You can certainly see why Nintendo would want to avoid the comparison.

Of course, there's no reason they couldn't release an updated version on WiiWare, with online functionality and improved graphics and framerate, just like the XBLA version, with the added bonus of Wii Remote aiming (which suits Goldeneye's gameplay perfectly).  But I don't see MS allowing that to happen, either.

Rumors are rumors.

But at the center of this is a tricky licensing issue. In these situations the customer usually gets screwed.

Oh well *tosses remote mines, detonates instantly using the glitch*

I wouldn't put much into it being only for the XBLA. Since they're not making a original copy of it I think that it will be on both Wiiware & XBLA {notice all the reports are focused on Nintendo making the first move. They could be holding it off until they get Wiiware up and running}.

I don't care

I'm already playing goldeneye source

Perhaps we are looking at the expiration of Nintendo's own exclusive publishing rights. We need to look at this realistically it has been over ten years since Nintendo published many of these games. Some of them have been out of production for longer then ten years. Eventually the publishing rights must return to the developer in whole. That said ten years sounds like a reasonable time frame. I doubt Microsoft would have purchased Rare if they never got publishing access to their property.

The rumor is very plausible. Microsoft has probably waited out the clock, and now they can reap the rewards by releasing their property free and clear on their console. There probably isn't a thing Nintendo could do about it either. After all these games belong to Microsoft now and not Nintendo. Anyway its probably in the fine print of the contract between Microsoft and Nintendo.

I wouldn't hold out much hope of seeing any of those games on the Virtual Console. Nintendo obviously couldn't obtain the rights, and its doubtful they would negotiate the rights with Microsoft. Microsoft would probably demand the right to provide Nintendo first party offerings on live. Which we know would never happen.

Anyway I expected something like this to happen eventually. For the above mentioned reasons. No publishing right is eternal after all they all expire eventually.