WiiWare Gets My Pokemon Ranch, VC Gets Famicom Imports

Nintendo has updated its North American WiiWare shop with a new first-party title, My Pokémon Ranch. Nintendo has also added Namco maze game Dig Dug and Konami platformer Bio Miracle Bokutte Upa, both Famicom titles never released stateside, to its Virtual Console offerings. Released in Japan with the launch of its WiiWare service, My Pokémon Ranch (pictured) marks the Pokémon series' debut on the download service. Players can upload up to 1,000 collected creatures from Pokémon Diamond and Pearl to watch their Pokémon and Miis interact with each other. Players can take pictures and send them to their friends via the Wii Message Board. Based on Namco's 1982 arcade game of the same name, Dig Dug challenges players to dig underground, defeating enemies by dropping rocks on them and inflating them until they pop. In Bio Miracle Bokutte Upa, a single-player action-platformer originally released for the Famicom Disk System in 1988, players take on the role of Prince Upa in an adventure spanning seven different worlds to rescue the Akuyo kingdom from the demon Zai. Like Dig Dug's protagonist, Upa can inflate enemies, using their floating bodies as platforms. The title was planned for a stateside release in 1989, but Nintendo of America's Howard Philips reportedly turned the game down, claiming it wasn't fit for the U.S. market. All three games are now available for download on North America's Wii Shopping Channel, priced at 1000 Wii Points ($10) for My Pokémon Ranch, and 600 Wii Points ($6) for Dig Dug and Bio Miracle Bokutte Upa.