Summary
- Nintendo fans have wondered for some time why the Switch doesn’t have a Virtual Console like the 3DS, Wii, and Wii U did.
- According to leaked emails that was the “original plan” at one point in time, with Nintendo having worked with teams on the emulator and store.
- The Virtual Console was seemingly abandoned for Nintendo Switch Online due to the high costs of testing and the feedback players had about having to repurchase all of the games.
A Nintendo dataminer has reportedly uncovered evidence from leaked emails that indicate a Virtual Console was in the works for the Switch at one point but got cancelled due to being “too costly”.
Although many gamers would argue that Nintendo is still a bit behind the times, it’s changed a lot in the near-decade since the Switch launched back in 2017. It’s had a bit more focus on online gaming, branched out with more adult games, and even offered up some online services through a membership system, just like PlayStation and Xbox have done for generations.
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One of those services is Nintendo Switch Online, which is somewhat regularly updated with classic titles from the NES, SNES, Game Boy, and Nintendo 64. It’s basically the Switch’s version of the Wii, 3DS, and Wii U Virtual Console, but it’s fair to say it’s made nowhere near the impact that store did and is something players have been wanting back for some time.
Nintendo Was Reportedly Working On A Virtual Console For The Switch
Nintendo fans have wondered ever since the Switch launched why the console didn’t end up getting a Virtual Console like its predecessors did. As it turns out, though, it seemingly was working on a similar store at one point in time. This is according to LuigiBlood, a dataminer who runs Yakumono’s Blog and recently made a post about the discovery.
According to LuigiBlood, the information comes from iQue emails that were leaked not too long ago. Those emails suggest that the Switch’s Virtual Console was codenamed Clipper and started development at some point in 2015. The project was apparently being worked on between iQue and M2, with LuigiBlood suspecting that NERD also helped out at some point.
According to the emails, starting a game on the Switch’s Virtual Console in CRT mode would have resulted in a custom animation where a TV is turned on, suggesting that more effort was put into it than you might think.
The leaked emails suggest that a lot of testing was done for the Virtual Console, with games like Final Fantasy, Mega Man, and Star Luster all being described alongside first-party games. Online functionality was also important for the games, with Nintendo even coming up with a fun shuffle idea that would make players swap controllers every 30 seconds or so.
So, what went wrong? Well according to an exchange between iQue and NERD, Clipper was cancelled for the current approach because extensive testing for each emulator and platform was “just too costly”. Nintendo was also getting a bad rap for making players buy Virtual Console games over and over again whenever they moved to new platforms.
The exchanges end after 2018, but it seems at the very least that NERD’s responses make it clear that Nintendo sees it as a long-term goal. We won’t know for sure about that until we see what the Switch 2 does with Nintendo Switch Online, but it seems that the Virtual Console dream might have died a long while ago.
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