For once, there has been a leak or rumor that has absolutely nothing to do with Nintendo’s next video gaming console. In fact, it is related to their current video gaming console and something that Nintendo had planned to have on the Switch when the console was still in active development and hadn’t been revealed as of yet.
You see, there was a leak of iQue emails that happened not that long ago, and a reliable dataminer and leaker named LuigiBlood recently examined them. They discovered that, at one point, Nintendo was planning to bring back the Virtual Console for the Switch. The project, which began in 2015, was code-named “Clipper”. M2, NERD and iQue was also involved with the project. IQue in particular is interesting because this wasn’t the first time Nintendo collaborated with them. It was noted by LuigiBlood that iQue was previously working on a Gamecube emulator for the Wii U in 2013 that would never release.
In the Switch Virtual Console, there would’ve been a feature where, if CRT mode was turned on, players would see an animation in which a CRT TV turns on. NES and SNES games would even have TV noise and the sound of the power button for each respective console. NES games, including Final Fantasy 1, Final Fantasy 3, Mega Man 2, Mega Man 3, Mega Man 4, Mega Man 5, Mega Man 6 and more were tested. There was also some testing for slow, normal and fast game speeds.
The Nintendo Switch’s Virtual Console would’ve also featured online netplay. A mode between up to 4 players was considered where a countdown would appear. Every 30 seconds, the players’ controllers would automatically shuffle. Emojis and pre-made messages, such as “thx”, “sry”, “plz” and “cya”, were also planned.
Ultimately, the project was scrapped in favor of Nintendo Switch Online, which was code named “L-Classics”. By May 2017, discussion about the “Clipper” project and Switch Virtual Console in emails had stopped. NERD would later explain in conversations with iQue that the project was too costly due to extensive testing on each emulator being needed, and Nintendo was taking consideration of feedback from players that were angry that the games on Wii U’s Virtual Console were not available on launch, and in some cases, they had to buy the games again.
With Nintendo Switch Online, Nintendo intended this to be a solution to both problems. It wasn’t as costly, and they could make this a long-term solution where players didn’t have to purchase these games multiple times. With the news from Nintendo that Switch Online would be available on their next console, it seems that Nintendo is sticking with that plan and taking it seriously.
As much as I love playing the retro games on my switch I actually own a good majority of the ones I want to play on my 3ds, but it would be nice one day if you could actually purchase some of the retro games for the switch especially now there are n64 ones and dare I say it, GameCube ones in the very near future.
Nintendo once again prefering the anti-consumer choice, as always.
They should bring back the virtual console for the people interested in “owning” the games individually without the need of the switch online apps…smh.
Virtual Console as Nintendo’s finest.
F-CK NOO WHY
Please Switch 2 give us options to buy Virtual Console games I’m begging
-Retro games – NSO
-Online play – NSO
-Backing up hours of save data (apart from Pokemon and some Squeenix games) – NSO
-Platinum points – NSO
-NSO – $20 a year
Sad……
SOUL!!!!!!!
But NSO ain’t a bad replacement though you feel me? Sure I would love to own my games and have the freedom to open them up without having to be online all the time but like paying 9 dollars a year for 20+ games on each console provided by the expansion pass service is a really neat idea. Honestly they should have NSO and virtual console at the same time, so we can own our favorite games and try new ones with the expansion
VC >>> NSO (glitchy bad emulation for games you don’t own)
You are aware that all of the Virtual Consoles since the Wii have been emulation, yeah? If Virtual Console existed on the Switch it would have been the exact same emulation quality as the NSO apps we have now.
I would have preferred an option to purchase individual games too, but that wouldn’t have magically made each game’s emulation quality better.
you are ignorant as hell my guy, virtual console emulation was not that great sometimes way worse than nso
I’m ok with NSO. An online subscription is inevitable in this day and age so it’s a decent perk. Charging for the expansion pass is disappointing though…
And they are right. Paying for VC games for a 3rd time would have been a bitter pill to swallow.
At this point, with the amount of roms and emulators for most of these games out there, I do wonder why people still want to keep asking for VC. I get convenience. But paying for these games over and over again is pretty crazy. I myself have bought the DKC trilogy a long with a couple of other games multiple times (physical, Wii, WiiU, & 3DS) I’m personally fine with this subscription as well, more games, trials, Online, and cloud saves for a very relatively small price.
That’s the only point I criticize Nintendo… I understand that the servers have to be maintained but it’s annoying anyway, I hope they stick to the NSO even if it sticks in my throat that I can’t transfer my wii/wii u games to Switch and that I have to buy them back on it…
On this side, Microsoft is one step ahead of Nintendo..
This is the first time I agree with you.
Hoping the next console finally has a vastly improved online experience.
Licky
I activate the free trial of NSO, didn’t use it at all after a short time, I do offline games and have zero need to reduce the quality of my gaming by playing online which adds many delays to get to the actual gaming aspect of it, waiting while the game gathers enough people to play and even then the skill levels of the gamers are so varied that it removes proper challenge, either you school most or get schooled, much more fun when the difficulty is set to a certain level that matches your skills; Easy, Normal, Hard, bam that is all I need to enjoy gaming.
But then again I don’t play casual gamer games like Fortnite and Minecraft which are designed for non-gamers and casual gamers (another version of non-gamers.) I play real video games like beat’em ups, shoot’em ups, non-woke fighting games, arcade racing games with zero customizations (like Ridge Racer 1-6+Rave Racer+Pocket Racer,) Japanese RPGs (as long as it’s not made by current Square-Enix, although many SquareSoft games are the goat,) side scrollers, adventure, action, shooters, arcade style puzzle games, etc… Never the casual games, those are not for gamers, they’re made for posers.
I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt here… the NSO apps don’t require you to be online to play them. You just have to have been online recently so there’s zero streaming or anything like that to play the games. Just FYI if you were serious in your post.