Even though the service had something of a rough start,Nintendo Switch Online has been steadily growing into a valuable servicefor Switch owners. It’s arguably still not yet what what the old Virtual Console was in terms of selection and being limited to always-online streaming, but the value is growing nonetheless. With a few more entries from the N64, GBA andSNESfeaturing newly-enabled online multiplayer, Nintendo Switch Online (NSO) could very well surpass its predecessor someday.
What would put it over the top, though, would be some titles from the now twenty-year-old GameCube. There’s little doubt that the Switch is capable of running them, yet there’s still no sign that they’ll be making an appearance. So is it just a matter of time or would Nintendo does something else in mind for the indigo box’s greatest hits?
As the service has developed, NSO has come to feature many favorites from every major Nintendo platform except for three: Nintendo DS, Nintendo 3DS and GameCube. The former two are unlikely to ever appear due the difficulty of emulating their dual-screen technology, but there’s no such limitation when it comes to the GameCube. Actually, considering that the 3DS was capable of running superior versions of games like Luigi’s Mansion, there’s likely little in the way technology-wise.
Yet, we still haven’t even heard so much as a whisper from Nintendo on the subject. It seems like something that would be a slam-dunk in terms of NSO subscriptions and would likely fully and finally justify the service’s price tag in the eyes of its users. Looking at it plainly, it seems like something Nintendo has every reason to do. Well, unless the company has other plans, that is.
When it comes to GameCube games, Nintendo seems to be reluctant to just make the originals available. Instead, be it for the Wii U, 3DS or Switch, the company has instead preferred to sell them individually as HD remasters.The Legend of Zelda Twilight Princess HD,Wind Waker HD,Luigi’s Mansion 3DSand nowMetroid Prime Remasteredare all examples of this. It’s not a hard and fast rule; Super Mario Sunshine was (briefly) available for the Switch as part ofSuper Mario 3D All-Stars,but it seems that Nintendo would much rather hold GameCube games back for remastered individual releases as much as possible. It must figure that there’s more money in them that way.
This isn’t to say that Nintendo still wouldn’t put any GameCube games on NSO, just those that it either doesn’t want to expend effort on remastering or those it doesn’t think it can sell again. So while Nintendo fans probably won’t see something like Wind Waker on NSO (that would almost certainly sell for full price yet again), it wouldn’t be too far out there to one day see Mario Tennis: Toadstool Tour or Mario Party 4-7 on the service one day. Heck, considering how much more popularthe Fire Emblem serieshas gotten since Fire Emblem: Awakening, perhaps Nintendo will take the opportunity to grow the fandom even more by putting games like Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance on there.
There are games that likely won’t go up for other reasons too; classics like Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s Requiem for example. It may bea much beloved horror cult-classic,but untangling the legal web of IP ownership and publishing rights for that one would probably prove to be too much of a nightmare to be worth it.
Then there are games like Super Smash Bros. Melee that Nintendo seemingly would rather just have disappear. Nintendo doesn’t seem like they’ve been happy about the fact that the Smash games have a competitive scene, and it hasn’t been particularly welcoming towards the Melee scene from the beginning. Maybe Nintendo is worried about protecting its brand, or maybe it’s something else. Whatever the case, though, it seems unlikely that Nintendo would do anything to make the game any more accessible than it currently is.
