Mario Kart glitch shows flaw in Wii Virtual Console

Redmond (WA) - The recent addition of Mario Kart 64 to the Wii’s Virtual Console digital download store showed what could be a big flaw in future releases to the Nintendo 64 channel, as technical problems prevented the implementation of part of the game’s save mechanism.

In Mario Kart 64, while the main game data can be saved, the ghost rider feature, which allows players to essentially race against previous versions of themselves, has been scrapped, after it was deemed impossible to replicate on the built-in emulator on the Wii.

The weirdly configured N64 save packs led to emulation problems that have not yet been fixed, and according to Nintendo, will not soon be fixable for the Virtual Console.

It is a technical problem that only affects small portions of some N64 titles, but it could cause problems for Nintendo, and other game publishers, as they try to format the classic games for the Wii emulation hardware.

Nintendo said that an advisory notice has been posted on the Virtual Console, telling users about the problem, but when we checked the store this morning, there was no such notice to be found.