Wii U to Offer Select GameCube Games as Downloads - Report

Update: Nintendo has addressed the report and, as you'd expect, it isn't confirming things one way or the other. Nintendo of America told 1UP in a statement, "To clarify the capabilities of the Wii U system: As correctly stated, Wii U will not play Nintendo GameCube discs, however Nintendo has not made any announcements regarding downloadable content."

Original Story: While Wii U will be fully backwards compatible with all Wii games and controllers, it won't play the previous generation's games. GameCube support was ruled out during E3, although a new interview from the show has surfaced that indicates select GameCube games will be made available as downloads on the new system.

"You know it's interesting that you bring up backwards compatibility and Nintendo's history usually goes back one system," said Amber McCollom, Nintendo of America's director of entertainment and trend marketing, during an E3 interview with NintendoGal (via Eurogamer). "The Wii was compatible with GameCube and Wii U will be compatible with Wii and that's pretty traditional in launches from Nintendo."

Responding to a question about if Wii U will support GameCube games or accessories, she said, "Actually the GameCube discs will not be compatible with Wii U, but a number of the games that were playable on GameCube can be downloaded from WiiWare."

Nintendo had previously given no indication this was the case, although there was a fair amount of speculation that it was inevitable. Wii and 3DS each have Virtual Console services where you can purchase and play games from older systems, although neither offers games from the previous generation's systems. With GameCube now two generations ago, it makes sense that it would be available on the Wii U's Virtual Console.

Although all GameCube games are fully compatible with Wii, Nintendo did re-release certain GameCube games for the system with Wii remote support under the New Play Control line. Those titles include Pikmin, Donkey Kong Jungle Beat, and Mario Power Tennis, as well as the first two Metroid Prime games, which were released individually in Japan and as a part of the Metroid Prime Trilogy collection in North America and Europe.

We've contacted Nintendo for confirmation.

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