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Remember how the Revolution is going to play games from and emulate every Nintendo home console to date, starting with the NES? Well, that’s not all: they’re also including emulation for the Sega Genesis and Turbo Grafx!

In a press release simultaneously with an announcement made during Nintendo’s keynote speech at the 2006 Game Developer’s Conference, Nintendo announced that Sega and Hudson have signed on as partners for the Revolution’s classic games download service. The agreement covers some of the more than 1,000 games made by Sega and Hudson Soft for the now defunct Sega Genesis console and the TurboGrafx 16 system, Nintendo president Satoru Iwata said.

Furthermore, Satoru Iwata explicitly called the Revolution’s Virtual Console — from which users can purchase old games such as NES, N64 and Sega Genesis titles, and maybe some new ones as well — the “video game version of Apple’s iTunes music store.”

Who would have thought back in the 80s such bitter rivals would eventually work together on a retro software package for Nintendo’s next console?

Some bad news comes from IGN’s Matt Casamassina who chatted with some people from Rare and Microsoft and learned that all Rare-owned licenses will be absent from Nintendo’s Virtual Console. Among others, that includes Killer Instinct and Goldeneye 007!

Check Out The GDC 06: Iwata Keynote Transcript {ign}