There is no good reason for these games to not be available digitally. The only two "objections" are so easily refuted...

"But there's no interconnectivity!" - The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Seasons & Oracle of Ages are on the Virtual Console... they'll be bought, anway.

"They want people to buy  the remakes!" - The remakes offer enough new content to stand by themselves... people will buy both, anyway.

I'm able to put my fandom away when I know there's a legitimate business reason for actions. (ie. Wind Waker getting an HD remake over Twilight Princess) But I don't see a good business reason for withholding old Pokemon games.

Business logic has nothing to do with it. I've always chalked it up to old-school Japanese principles. They want the IP to stay social, at ANY cost.

I hope so! I want to buy dem pokemon games damn it!

Honestly they should at least do it for the 3rd games of each gen (Yellow, Crystal, Emerald, Etc.) because we all know they won't release a remake for any of those.

I'm sure they would make a lot of money. I understand them not wanting to put their VC collections on iOS or Android. However, I can't come up with any reason not to put the old Pokemon games on the eshops.

Yes, right before the "Ultimate Pokémon Edition" where you can travel through all 36 regions where you catch all the 5259 Pokémon.

But seriously I think they should release them soon. Ruby and Sapphire would be perfect before Alpha and Omega will release because we already have GBA Virtual Console. But maybe they think that it wouldn't the same because the social features weren't included. You know Nintendo thoughts....

Soon possibly. But ONLY the very old old ones.....like gen 1-2.
the 3rd is getting a remake so yeah.

With you on this!!

I'd rather them have proper VC presence first.

N64, GCN, and Wii games should all be on the Wii U by now, and the fact that they need to completely repopulate the Wii's VC is completely backwards.

GBA and DS games should be on the 3DS. I don't mind if they're on the Wii U, but it should be cross buy and there's no reason it should be on the Wii U first. When it comes to selling consoles with the VC, people aren't going to buy the Wii U for blown up handheld games, but old console games with their resolutions upscaled to HD would actually be tempting.

Wouldn't you be stuck with only rental Pokemon?