8-bit Google Maps for the NES/Famicom?

[treismac]

Like I said on Famicomworld, my only beef is they keep referring to NES and clearly its a Famicom set up. In my defense if anyone responds with "Its aimed at an English speaking audience" well, then they should have filmed it in the US and used a NES Cart and System. Use the correct information or do not use it at all.


.....The over abundance of undereducated morons commenting on it is amazing. "Durrrrrp duh its not April." They must have skipped the 4th grade Time Zone lesson.

To me, Parodius Duh!, the best way for Google to make this obvious April Fool's Day Prank a real prank is to actually make the cartridge. Who'd see that coming?

Besides the obvious awesomeness of an 8-bit Google maps for the Famicom/NES, you know what makes me really, really happy about this prank? It shows that a large corporation that deals with the interests of people (i.e. search engine) thinks that a retro video game reference joke has enough appeal to entertain a large enough chunk of the masses. Seriously. Think about this. It could mean that the Big N might one day consider re-releasing the Famicom and NES with built-in games like Atari did with the 2600 (VCS) and Sega did with the Genesis. Why not? There is evidently a big enough market. Even collectors/gamers who have the original hardware and the Wii's Virtual Console version of their favorites might find it hard to resist a re-release of their favorite system, or actual new releases on the system by big time developers like Konami or Capcom or Nintendo themselves.

Perhaps I'm reading too much into this, but to me, this says that retro gaming is not quite as niche as I had previously thought. Yes, I am sure that gamers on this forum take retro gaming a bit further than most gamers, but perhaps retro gaming is more of a viable commodity on the video game market than I thought.

Beyond mere speculation, does anyone know if it is possible to find out how many Virtual Console games have sold? Looking at how many of their top 5 games sold would be a pretty damn good way to determine the strength of the retro market. How many New 2600s sold would be a semi-decent indicator too, but not as good. I'm sorry, but many of the 1st party Atari games built into the system are beyond passable. Anyway...

But, yeah... Famicom Google Maps rocks my pixelated socks!