They never really said why, you'd think by now they would have. Nintendo's really behind with regards to the digital distribution market.

Does anybody have any interesting speculation or real knowledge concerning this?

Speculation: They are working to develop a new iteration of the 3DS (picture DS Lite vs DS) that comes with GameCube emulation as a stock feature/selling point of the new console. Once it's been announced it will eventually roll out to the WiiU as well.

Dunno, I'd be willing to bet they'll fill some gaps between big releases next year with Virtual Console releases of Super Mario Sunshine or Metroid Prime. One reason might be that they want to make more HD releases and charge 50 or 60 bucks instead of 20. Might be a talking point for E3.

People might actually buy games from them again?
I mean the GC is from where all the best games were released with Nintendo. XIII, The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, Luigi's Mansion,Resident Evil Zero, Hitman 2, Crazy Taxi, Pikmin, Pokémon Colosseum & XD, eternal darkness.

Nintendo just hate the idea of making money from the people actually after their games more then Microsoft do.

Oh, I know what you mean. First home console of mine was a GameCube and I have so many good memories attached to that little black/platinum box (the platinum one died on me and we got another one). I sure hop things start getting better for them soon.

How could you not mention the Masterpiece thats Metroid Prime :(

All I could answer would have been speculative and hypothetical, so I'll just say this: I honestly don't have a clue.

Everything happens way too fast on the internet and our memory gets overloaded with trustworthy information and rumors, I can't even say for sure whether Nintendo actually said they were going to have GCN titles available via Virtual Console or if that was sheer speculation and "official info leak" on the gaming media websites.

I would love for them to do that, my Wii U is gathering dust like it's nobody's business, despite the über-cool games I have (I replay games a lot once I finish them, sue me...), having the chance to play my GCN titles again (my GCN broke and I don't have a classic Wii, so no playing the 20+ GameCube games I own, for me) would absolutely spark new life into my sleeping Wii U.

I have no solutions for Nintendo's predicament and situation, gamers just don't care about them anymore, Super Mario 3D World is one of the best games in recent times, was received with universal acclaim but the overall gaming community just stopped caring, in their minds I guess it's "just another Mario game", just "another kiddies' game"... a lot of people didn't even know the Wii U was out when I watched SM3DW streams on twitch, every once in a while someone would ask "on what platform is this?", as if the graphical power of the Wii U could be mistaken for the Wii or even the 3DS. Sure, they complain about their "mature" bland FPSes with dogs not running at native 1080p on their Xboxes, as it does on the PS4 -- a difference that's barely noticeable --, but they think a Wii U game might be running on the Wii.

I don't think Nintendo is doomed because their dominance over the handheld market still generates them a lot of income, but their franchises don't hold the power they did during the GameCube and Wii generations. Maybe they should look at GOG and see the potential of classic gems, even if they are recent classics, like the ones they had on the GCN. I mean... to a lot of people, Super Smash Bros. Melee is way better than Brawl, Mario Kart: Double Dash is way better than Mario Kart Wii, etc. Not to mention the good old GCN titles that marked a generation, such as the three "exclusive-until-proven-unprofitable" Resident Evil games (0, REmake and 4), Tales of Symphonia, the Viewtiful Joe series, Killer 7, Eternal Darkness, Twilight Princess, Four Swords Adventures, Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles, the two AMAZING final Star Wars Rogue Squadron games (Rogue Leader and Rebel Strike), F-Zero GX, the two first Pikmin, Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance, the superb first two Metroid Prime titles, Ikaruga, just... to name a few, off the top of my head. The GameCube isn't my personal favorite Nintendo console (that honor goes to the SNES), but it sure as hell provided me some of the best video game memories in recent years. Nintendo could highly profit from opening their VC to GCN titles, as the console was highly overlooked during its lifetime, and lots of gamers I personally know would love to have the chance to experience some of the games they missed back then.

Because Nintendo are just terrible at features and online infrastructure.
AND at management.
And promotion of their stuff.

Because that would be logical, easy, and profitable.

This is also why Nintendo has failed to capitalize on the Virtual Console itself, sales, better pricing, and features that are standard on products made from 2001 and beyond.

I mean, is Urban Champion really worth 5 Euro? No. It wasn't even worth 5 Euro in the 1980s.

Is it possible that the Wii U isn't powerful enough to emulate the GC?

It depends... There might be some hardware compatibility buried within the Wii U owing to its legacy, but whether that would allow Virtual Console features or not is unknown.

There's a reason Nintendo aren't selling GBA Virtual Console games on the 3DS despite it obviously being capable of running GBA games. It's because the GBA games aren't being fully emulated, but are rather being partially run on legacy hardware buried within the 3DS. This is the reason there's no access to the home menu, just as when you're running a DS game on the 3DS.

When you play a DS game on a 3DS, the 3DS forgets that it is a 3DS and thinks it's a DS. My theory is that when you play a GBA game, the 3DS boots into DS mode and then boots into GBA mode from there (that being a feature of the 3DS hardware). Not running in 3DS mode means no Virtual Console features like state saves.

The lack of the Virtual Console features appears to be reason Nintendo refuses to release GBA games for the 3DS Virtual Console.

Point is, the 3DS doesn't seem to be powerful enough to emulate the GBA and I wonder if the Wii U is powerful enough to actually emulate the GC. It might have some compatibility mode buried within but Nintendo wouldn't release downloadable games based on that.

I don't think its a point of power. The only GBA games that was have on the 3DS were thrown together as part of the ambassador program, probably just the carts themselves dumped into the format they were given. There are emulators for the ARM processor, If I'm understanding this correctly, and considering how barebones the other aspects of the Virtual Console are, I really doubt there'd be much to push the 3DS.

I wasn't going to post in this discussion at all (having no relevent angle whatsoever), but that is the singlemost interesting thing I've read on here all day.

You can't just link to a GBA emulator and say it's evidence that the 3DS is powerful enough. If it's that easy, why didn't they GBA games get released on the store like the NES games did?