The past two weeks have not been kind to fans of Nintendo's Virtual Console. Following the second straight VC-less Nintendo Download, a blog known as The Gamebag (found via GoNintendo) said they asked Nintendo of America what was up with that, and received the following response:

"Dear Jorge,
We understand your concern about the lack of service on the VC as of late. Due to sales numbers being far greater recently on Wiiware than on Virtual Console, we have decided to steer in the direction of WiiWare.
Also, we in America have NO plans to update the Internet Channel or the Nintendo Channel. We hope you understand"
From

Something seemed off about the whole thing, and I don't mean the placement of the closing quotation mark, either (strange though that may be). So I decided to investigate the matter further before running this story, and I'm glad I did.

Looking at the letter, it seems straightforward enough... and that was part of the problem. Look, I love Nintendo, anyone who knows me knows this to be true. But even then, I can honestly say that one thing they seldom tend to be is straightforward. The e-mail seems entirely too transparent into what would allegedly be Nintendo's strategy, and as this year's E3 has proven, they are masters of the Poker face when it comes to their plans.

Speaking with a Nintendo of America representative myself, they admit that the style of the letter sounded like what they would send out, except one thing stuck out to them: the all-caps "NO" near the end.

Digging deeper still to get to the heart of the matter, Nintendo's plans for the Internet Channel, Nintendo Channel, and Virtual Console, I was met with the following responses.

For the first two, I was told: "Regarding plans to update the Internet Channel and Nintendo Channel, we don't have anything to announce at this time."

Ah, now that sounds more like Nintendo.

The next part took a bit longer, but I received word back from Nintendo of America's senior director of public relations, Charlie Scibetta:

Each week Nintendo makes available a mix of Virtual Console, WiiWare and Nintendo DSiWare games. Combined, these services currently provide gamers with hundreds of fun and interesting downloadable games to choose from. There is no preset schedule as to how many games will become available in a given week, but many more are on the way via all of these digital delivery systems.

And there we have it, the official word from Nintendo of America. True, it doesn't exactly tell us anything particularly concrete, but as established before, that is the nature of the beast.

However, that doesn't mean that there is nothing positive to take away from the statement, as it sounds as though Nintendo still plans to support the Virtual Console service. Furthermore, there is no definitive statement about the service's seeming demise, thus at least leaving room for hope.

And let's face it, the number or profile of games they have released from week to week has never been all that consistent.

Last week, we saw the release of Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: My Life as a Darklord, while this week saw Tales of Monkey Island: Chapter 1, both on WiiWare, and both fairly big titles. It is possible that Nintendo did not want to cannibalize Virtual Console sales, or sales of those WiiWare titles themselves, by making offerings on the same week.

As for the letter which kicked off this whole bit of controversy, I'm not going to call the writer a liar or anything; for all I know, there's some loose-cannon Nintendo of America rep who is writing such messages. But regardless of that, what you see above is the official word from Nintendo.