Data miners claim that Metroid: Fusion and a slew of other games have been put through their paces.
Nintendo Switch Online’s vintage game selection is about to receive a major boost. The service built by Nintendo seems to have leaked online, and it appears that a big range of titles, including Mario Kart, Golden Sun, and Pokémon Pinball: Ruby & Sapphire, have been tested on it.
Trashbandatcoot, a Twitter user, said that Nintendo Europe Research and Development (NERD) emulators were among four files released earlier today on 4Chan (NERD). It’s for the Game Boy and it’s named Hioyo. Sloop is a Game Boy Advance game. Trashbadacoot claims that both emulators are flawed but functioning, and the leaked files include screenshots of the Switch games being tested.
To take things a step further, RatgorlHunter took real camera video of the Switch emulators loading up and operating and began tweeting it. That account is no longer active, however their most recent tweets may still be seen using the Wayback Machine. In an interview with Kotaku, a member of the Pokémon and gaming leaks account PoryLeeks said that only the Nintendo Switch dev kit could run an emulated version of Golden Sun.
Many Game Boy Advance games have been tried on the emulator, according to Twitter user Mondo Mega. This does not imply any of these games will be released in the future, but titles like The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap, Metroid Fusion, Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones and Mega Man Battle Network 2 are included on the list.
Finally, the purported breach included references to EZFlash cartridges in the testing files. Retro homebrew has long relied on storage devices, which Nintendo regards as a source of infringement for its own games.
Developer and YouTuber ModernVintageGamer tweeted, “Nintendo internally admitting EZFlash cartridges make this leak seem weird to me.” If it’s genuine, I don’t believe Nintendo created it at all.
But according to dataminer OatMealDome, NERD and Panasonic Vietnam are working together on the leaked GBA emulator. It was revealed by OatMealDome that an official from Nintendo had supplied artwork for an EZFlash cart to the project’s source code.
A request for feedback from /r/Nintendo did not get an instant response.
Late last year, the Nate the Hate podcast started circulating rumours about Game Boy titles being added to Switch Online. A few days later, Nintendo Life and Eurogramer both reported that their own insiders had validated the first rumour, which said that “additional vintage systems are also on the cards.”
It’s possible that Nintendo Switch Online may include titles for the Game Boy Advance and the Game Boy Color in the future, making them the fifth and sixth retro platforms featured. Nintendo’s first successful handheld, the Game Boy, would be a perfect match for the portable console. Whether they’ll be included to the $20 yearly membership or the $50 annual subscription required to access the N64 Expansion Pack is unknown. ‘ Either way, they’d make a huge difference in terms of improving the online experience.
Switch Online plans have a history of being leaked before they are ready. months before they were officially included, datamining files revealed the names of the SNES emulator and games. The similar thing occurred in October 2021 when forthcoming N64 games were introduced.