Nintendo Confirms Virtual Console Is Dead
Still waiting for Virtual Console to come to Switch? Ah, we got some bad news….this may be just confirming what most of us were figuring by this point, but Nintendo put in writing today that they have no plans to establish a Virtual Console service on Switch.
“[We have] no plans to bring classic games together under the Virtual Console banner as has been done on other Nintendo systems,” a rep from the company told Kotaku. It’s the most direct Nintendo has been about its plans, or lack thereof. At the time of Switch’s launch, Nintendo remained mum about the possibility of Virtual Console, indicating they were still deciding the matter.
We can only speculate what led them to put a demanded service to bed, but the major success of the Mini Classics line might have something to do with it. The SNES Classic is still in such high demand that it was impossible to find until very recently, and the NES Classic is getting a reprint later this year.
The confirmed axing of Virtual Console comes at an odd time. Just yesterday, Nintendo revealed they would soon make it possible to archive your save data in the cloud to prevent its loss via destruction of your console (which, since it’s half-handheld, is more likely than in the past). This news eliminated a major argument within the hacking community for breaking into the Switch code. But now with the news that you’ll never get to play your old favorites on the Switch’s big nice screen, hackers are probably ten times as determined as they were before.
Classic games are still coming to the Switch, just not in Virtual Console form. Nintendo Switch Online will come with NES-era games wired for online play, Hamster is selling emulated arcade games, and Sega has announced many of their Genesis titles will be sold on the eShop.