At the recent E3 2017 conference, several publications sat down with Nintendo of America President Reggie Fils-Aime for interviews, but none of them seem to have gotten the right answer for whether or not the Virtual Console collection of games is ever coming to Nintendo Switch.
The Virtual Console service consists of 609 currently listed games from older platforms such as NES, Game Boy, Nintendo 64, etc. The big question for Nintendo Switch, ever since it was launched more than three months ago, has been whether or not the console will ever have access to these games.
That question still seems unanswered, according to a report by BGR. Citing at least three separate interviews that Reggie Fils-Aime had with Mashable, Kotaku and Polygon, BGR’s Jacob Siegal quotes what appear to be disparate answers about the same topic – Virtual Console games and Nintendo Switch.
Fils-Aime appeared to be deflecting the questions at each of the interviews, and you basically go away wondering “huh, what did he actually say?”
From what transpired, we can possibly assume that there are orders from HQ not to talk about this aspect of Nintendo Switch, and it seems that the reason for this is the Nintendo Switch Online service, which has been postponed to 2018.
While it’s certainly possible that some legacy games will eventually make their way towards what is quickly becoming the most popular Nintendo console of all time, Fils-Aime seemed hesitant to use the term in the context of the subscription based service. This is an excerpt from his interview with Kotaku:
“What we’ve said is that as we communicate the specifics of the Nintendo Switch online service then at that point we’ll communicate what it is we’re doing with our legacy content.”
That definitely sounds like there’s a gag order from the powers that be, even though it’s not clear why Nintendo would not want information regarding the subscription service and its available titles to get out. In fact, any news of Virtual Console games coming to the platform will very likely push the demand for Nintendo Switch even higher than it already is.
So that question remains hanging for now, but when Nintendo Switch Online finally becomes available as a subscription service, we’re bound to see some familiar titles along with newer ones. It’s quite possible that the company wants to study the demographics and game genre preferences of Switch buyers over time before deciding which legacy games will finally be on the service. That would be a sound move because it would give the service a much better chance at being successful.
In a world of powerful gaming consoles, the company has taken a very different direction with the Switch, and no doubt they’ll want to maximize the traction they have now by fine-tuning what they do in the future. And that future is highly dependent on the variety and appeal of games that are eventually available to the Nintendo Switch platform.
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