Donkey Kong Country 2 and Donkey Kong Country 3 are both being pulled from the European Virtual Console. Why? We have no idea. The games are coming down on November 25 th . Until then you’ll still be able to purchase the DK titles and they’ll remain on your console after the 25 th has passed. However, Nintendo will simply stop selling them once November 25 th rolls around. Though, the first title in the series, the original Donkey Kong Country, will still be sold as usual.
As of now, it does not appear that the games will be pulled off the Virtual Console store in any territory other than Europe. So this begs the question: what the heck is going on here? Nintendo has not commented on the removal, and both DKC2 and 3 are decently popular so it seems weird for them to take the games down right before the Holiday season. Some fans and outlets have theorized this has something to do with the games being developed by Rare and Rare being owned by Microsoft, but this is nothing new. Rare has been owned by Microsoft for a while now, and if this was an issue, the games would have been taken down a lot sooner. In addition, the fact that they are only going down in Europe is quite strange as well. What’s going on, Nintendo!?
Source: CVG