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StarTopic Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pack |ST| New 2024 Poll Up

How will Nintendo handle the NSO with the launch of the Switch 2

  • Everything on the service becomes playable on launch day of the new system.

    Votes: 139 76.4%
  • A slow roll out with a promise to move everything over within 12 months from launch day

    Votes: 24 13.2%
  • LOL Nintendo is going to start all over with just NES games in late 2025

    Votes: 17 9.3%
  • Nothing will transfer over because the Switch 2 won't be backwards compatible with the Switch 1

    Votes: 2 1.1%

  • Total voters
    182
The problem there is that, even though people think the Expansion Pack is very expensive, it really turns out to be like 4-ish USD a month. Now, if it’s royalty-based, a bunch of that already goes to Sega for Genesis, which is going to have way more nostalgia value for the worldwide audience than TG16/PC-E ever will, unfortunately. So they’d be carving out even more money for Konami, who would probably stand to make more money than Nintendo’d be willing to carve out for them by contracting M2 to whip up an emulator and selling the games themselves on the eShop.

To be fully honest, I would guess (because I have no way of knowing for sure) that Nintendo’s deal with Sega was a one-time, in-perpetuity cash deal for a number of games, with future options to increase the number of games licensed if they decide to give Sega more money. I don’t think it’s a royalty/sub-cost split, because again, $4/month/user is already paltry. If that’s the case, I can absolutely see them knocking on Konami’s door regarding licensing their games/consoles for NSO, but not until their currently available wells are dry. I agree they’re probably the best 3rd party on all available consoles and they’re clearly willing to play ball (see: Konami titles on Genesis NSO) plus the added benefit of PC-E (not going to be a big splash worldwide but Japan would like it) would be a visible value-add on that NSO+EP Splash Image they like to show. I just don’t think they’d make that deal now, because that’d be money spent on something they don’t need yet; they’ve got a number of first party N64 games left and GB/GBA are just getting started.
I have said previously, but I think this is the kind of deal for every third party game on NSO. That would explain why no third party game has left the service yet since it started in 2018, and also why we don't have a lot of third party games. One would assume it's much more expensive to have a game permanently on a service than just for a timed license. And as you said, NSO is not very expensive at all, and its value keep increasing (slowly but it does).

It's as we talked here previously about GoldenEye. Would Nintendo went through all the effort to unban the game on Europe (which I imagine it cost them money) and adapt it to the emulator it (this goes for Microsoft also) just for having it for a few years? I don't think so.
 
I have said previously, but I think this is the kind of deal for every third party game on NSO. That would explain why no third party game has left the service yet since it started in 2018, and also why we don't have a lot of third party games. One would assume it's much more expensive to have a game permanently on a service than just for a timed license. And as you said, NSO is not very expensive at all, and its value keep increasing (slowly but it does).

It's as we talked here previously about GoldenEye. Would Nintendo went through all the effort to unban the game on Europe (which I imagine it cost them money) and adapt it to the emulator it (this goes for Microsoft also) just for having it for a few years? I don't think so.
Yeah, I don’t think they’d jump through all of the hoops they’ve jumped through for this service just to have games start disappearing in a few years.

I also think it’ll be a situation where, yeah, once the current wells are dry, they go make an in-perpetuity deal with a third party (e.g. Konami), milk that library for all it’s worth for a few more years of content additions, and then once that well is dry, go to another (e.g, Capcom). It’ll keep the pace of game additions going for years and years and years to come, and it‘ll result in much smaller year-over-year spending for content than if they went and made a bunch of third party deals at the start of the service.
 
I'd be a lot less harsh on Nintendo's approach to N64 if they actually had fully slammed down their OWN back catalogue of games, but they haven't even done that. They've barely touched the road map they released in September of last year right now and that's part of the problem. But also that they basically have several pretty significant titles still needed on the service like Donkey Kong 64 and Super Smash Bros as the biggest ones, but also just smaller games they've shown they can get partners to work with.

And it's like on a service that has Banjo-Kazooie and Goldeneye, you gotta go get Diddy Kong Racing and make it even more special. You gotta put that work in to bring Tooie over too. Like it's just a "do the work" type moment to finally make a real, meaningfully expanded N64 service that is a premium everyone is paying for. And being consistent until you literally don't have stuff to release, instead of turning what seemed to be a 6 month road map based on prior experience into a straight up full year road map.

And like N64 games aren't going to be touched by most developers, so if anything we should see more of those than say NES/SNES where the publishers work to put out collections and want to make their own money. But it really feels like their paid premium service is turning into one of Nintendo's least important priorities when it could damn near be a killer app with some consistency and real effort behind the service to really fill it up with games. There's so much potential and Nintendo seems annoyed as hell they have to do it if anything and annoyed at the prospect of "offering value" to the players with how it's played out. And it's just so frustrating as a player, and entirely exacerbated by the fact they've also taken the VC completely out of existence now.
 
Yeah, I don’t think they’d jump through all of the hoops they’ve jumped through for this service just to have games start disappearing in a few years.

I also think it’ll be a situation where, yeah, once the current wells are dry, they go make an in-perpetuity deal with a third party (e.g. Konami), milk that library for all it’s worth for a few more years of content additions, and then once that well is dry, go to another (e.g, Capcom). It’ll keep the pace of game additions going for years and years and years to come, and it‘ll result in much smaller year-over-year spending for content than if they went and made a bunch of third party deals at the start of the service.
Yes, that's exactly my though, and given that very probably they will keep this service in the next console rather than starting from scratch, it excited me to think how great it can be in a few years. NSO grows slowly, but the value is higher each month and I truly think this is the way, rather than having a ton of games from the beginning half of which will disappear after some time. This is not gamepass, and in the end it can be the best preservation service even if we can't buy the games.
 
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I'm also disappointed with the frequency of N64 drops and I actually do believe there are many titles that could come if Nintendo is willing to pay the royalties. I hope that one day I can actually paly Harvest Moon 64. I gave up back in the day trying to emulate it. It's often regarded as the best game in the series but it has always eluded me.

N64 aside I think the service now offers value for money. Some kind of schedule would be welcome, but I've said it before that I don't want a Netflix-style service with games coming and going. A slowly growing curated archive is what is going to keep me engaged.
 
There is a potential good reason behind the slowed output - although I'm not gonna say it's guaranteed or even neccesarily likely - but they might be working on revamping the N64 emulator (bringing it properly in-house at NERD, rather than using the old iQue emulator). N64 out of all of the platforms on NSO has by far the worst emulation of the bunch, and behind the scenes it is very hacky with lots of games getting special extra code to patch up the holes in the base emulation.

Compare this to the sublime efforts of GB and GBA, with the GBA emulator being better than even most fan-created emulators and including niche edge-case features like Game Boy Player rumble and dedicated game-specific instructions on how to do multiplayer in each title. It's clear that at the very least NERD do care about the quality of emulation - and that they're able to push within Nintendo to make sure they get the funding and support to make their emulators as good as can be. That combined with the popular backlash to how shoddy the N64 emulation is may just be enough to get Nintendo to actually do something about it - which could mean that resources are being expended on that, rather than getting the confirmed other titles to work for the crappy emulator that would get phased out anyways.

Now, it's also possible that Nintendo just want to time certain things with each other (Mario Party 3 to be timed alongside the Mario Movie for instance), and figured that NES/SNES/GB/GBA drops, a Tetris 99 Maximus Cup and Wave 4 for MK8DX was enough NSO content for a single month.
 
at this point I just wanna know when the Pokemon Stadium games are being released

those were the main thing I wanted out of the system other than Paper Mario and it's been 6 and a half months now since they've been announced
 
Credit for the discovery goes to this InstallBase thread,


but alongside the trademarks of names for many announced titles for GB / GBA NSO, there are three that have not yet been announced:

ip1.jpg


1) The Sacred Stones - The least interesting of this selection, since it was naturally going to be coming down the road eventually; already being localised and available on Wii U Virtual Console. Good thing Fire Emblem fans have something else to look forward to...

2) Solar Striker - A first-party Game Boy title that isn't often talked about; a rare vertical scrolling shoot 'em up attempt from Nintendo. This game entirely skipped 3DS Virtual Console, so showing up on NSO would make for a notable addition.

3) The Binding Blade... in English?! - Don't get it twisted either, this trademark, like the others, is fully registered for use outside of Japan (see below). FE6 was announced for release on the Japanese GBA app, but obviously wasn't for the international app given it has no existing localisation. This, registered at the same time as other titles already part of the GB/GBA NSO slate, may perhaps suggest that an official localisation of FE6 is on the way? Can't make that claim with certainty, but it is a very strong clue towards that being the case, and has massive implications for the future of NSO if it comes to pass.

image.png
 
There is a potential good reason behind the slowed output - although I'm not gonna say it's guaranteed or even neccesarily likely - but they might be working on revamping the N64 emulator (bringing it properly in-house at NERD, rather than using the old iQue emulator). N64 out of all of the platforms on NSO has by far the worst emulation of the bunch, and behind the scenes it is very hacky with lots of games getting special extra code to patch up the holes in the base emulation.

This is my hope, but I suspect I'm just downing a lot of Hopium.

I really want the input lag, excessive brightness, and explosions in Majora's Mask fixed...
 
0
Credit for the discovery goes to this InstallBase thread,


but alongside the trademarks of names for many announced titles for GB / GBA NSO, there are three that have not yet been announced:

ip1.jpg


1) The Sacred Stones - The least interesting of this selection, since it was naturally going to be coming down the road eventually; already being localised and available on Wii U Virtual Console. Good thing Fire Emblem fans have something else to look forward to...

2) Solar Striker - A first-party Game Boy title that isn't often talked about; a rare vertical scrolling shoot 'em up attempt from Nintendo. This game entirely skipped 3DS Virtual Console, so showing up on NSO would make for a notable addition.

3) The Binding Blade... in English?! - Don't get it twisted either, this trademark, like the others, is fully registered for use outside of Japan (see below). FE6 was announced for release on the Japanese GBA app, but obviously wasn't for the international app given it has no existing localisation. This, registered at the same time as other titles already part of the GB/GBA NSO slate, may perhaps suggest that an official localisation of FE6 is on the way? Can't make that claim with certainty, but it is a very strong clue towards that being the case, and has massive implications for the future of NSO if it comes to pass.

image.png
I wonder if that was the reason for the brand new, not renewal, of the Golden Sun trademark.
 
0
This, registered at the same time as other titles already part of the GB/GBA NSO slate, may perhaps suggest that an official localisation of FE6 is on the way? Can't make that claim with certainty, but it is a very strong clue towards that being the case, and has massive implications for the future of NSO if it comes to pass.
If brand new localisations on NSO are on the cards - then that would be very exciting. Obviously, the two Nintendo first party games that people most want localised are Binding Blade and Mother 3 - but a few more spring to mind to me: F-Zero Climax, For The Frog the Bell Tolls, FE12 (if we get DS NSO), Magical Vacation and maybe even the Starfy games...
 
There is a potential good reason behind the slowed output - although I'm not gonna say it's guaranteed or even neccesarily likely - but they might be working on revamping the N64 emulator (bringing it properly in-house at NERD, rather than using the old iQue emulator). N64 out of all of the platforms on NSO has by far the worst emulation of the bunch, and behind the scenes it is very hacky with lots of games getting special extra code to patch up the holes in the base emulation.

Compare this to the sublime efforts of GB and GBA, with the GBA emulator being better than even most fan-created emulators and including niche edge-case features like Game Boy Player rumble and dedicated game-specific instructions on how to do multiplayer in each title. It's clear that at the very least NERD do care about the quality of emulation - and that they're able to push within Nintendo to make sure they get the funding and support to make their emulators as good as can be. That combined with the popular backlash to how shoddy the N64 emulation is may just be enough to get Nintendo to actually do something about it - which could mean that resources are being expended on that, rather than getting the confirmed other titles to work for the crappy emulator that would get phased out anyways.
If only. I don't have my hopes up though. At this point though I do trust any other dev other than iQue, so give it to NERD or Panasonic Vietnam I don't care lol
Credit for the discovery goes to this InstallBase thread,


but alongside the trademarks of names for many announced titles for GB / GBA NSO, there are three that have not yet been announced:

ip1.jpg


1) The Sacred Stones - The least interesting of this selection, since it was naturally going to be coming down the road eventually; already being localised and available on Wii U Virtual Console. Good thing Fire Emblem fans have something else to look forward to...

2) Solar Striker - A first-party Game Boy title that isn't often talked about; a rare vertical scrolling shoot 'em up attempt from Nintendo. This game entirely skipped 3DS Virtual Console, so showing up on NSO would make for a notable addition.

3) The Binding Blade... in English?! - Don't get it twisted either, this trademark, like the others, is fully registered for use outside of Japan (see below). FE6 was announced for release on the Japanese GBA app, but obviously wasn't for the international app given it has no existing localisation. This, registered at the same time as other titles already part of the GB/GBA NSO slate, may perhaps suggest that an official localisation of FE6 is on the way? Can't make that claim with certainty, but it is a very strong clue towards that being the case, and has massive implications for the future of NSO if it comes to pass.

image.png
Those are pretty curious, The Binding Blade would be interesting to have internationally, if they actually care.
That said "The Blazing Blade" is kinda weird to trademark because they never used that name internationally.
 
If only. I don't have my hopes up though. At this point though I do trust any other dev other than iQue, so give it to NERD or Panasonic Vietnam I don't care lol

Those are pretty curious, The Binding Blade would be interesting to have internationally, if they actually care.
That said "The Blazing Blade" is kinda weird to trademark because they never used that name internationally.
Makes sense if they plan to have a special direct announcement like they did with the Earthbound games. You use all 3 official names, then say something like "Blazing Blade, originally localized as FE" when describing each game
 
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They released 20 games across February and March, and before that they released 4 N64 and 4 GEN games across 4 months.

Seems more like they were going with their usual schedule and GB/GBA would come in September until they notice NSO wouldn't meet their target and shuffled the schedule.
 
They released 20 games across February and March, and before that they released 4 N64 and 4 GEN games across 4 months.

Seems more like they were going with their usual schedule and GB/GBA would come in September until they notice NSO wouldn't meet their target and shuffled the schedule.
Yeah, with two system launches I don't think it's totally accurate to say the schedule slowed down. N64/Genesis might've fallen off their usual cadence but we've still gotten a bunch of games overall this year so far.

Yeah, I think it’s pretty realistic in a year or two. I think the benefit would go both ways: it’s value added to the Expansion Pack for Nintendo, but would also be very good for Konami’s brand recognition and public image. Also they did all that work for the PC-Engine Mini which I don’t think was the barn-burner success they were maybe expecting, so it’d be nice to reuse a bunch of that work if possible.
Oh yeah, I see most of the work M2 does with platform holders as prologue for what we might see on NSO. Sega CS2/M2's work on Sega Ages moved directly over to Genesis NSO but their licensing work on the Genesis Minis (Bloodlines, Hard Corps, Wily Wars, Alisa Dragoon, Zero Wing, Target Earth, etc) is also being parlayed right into Genesis NSO. I fully expect to see Virtua Racing (SVP) and Sega CD games make it to the Genesis app in time too, possibly also some of the new M2 ports like Space Harrier MV or Fantasy Zone, and longer term maybe also Game Gear and Arcade as new platform apps entirely. Likewise the work Konami and M2 did together on PCE/CD/SGX makes a lot of sense to transition over at some point if possible.

Price is a stumbling block though. Like you said, NSO is CHEAP for what it offers and the retro services are really just positioned as a value add for the general system subscription. I've kinda opined before that to bring the level of catalog release people want Nintendo would have to raise prices (EP is a step in this direction but still pretty cheap tbh) or massively expand audience (like introduce a "Nintendo Online" mobile/PC companion app and target those users as a more dedicated retro service subscription on top of Switch). Sadly I don't see either option as one Nintendo would be that interested in for the foreseeable future.

There is a potential good reason behind the slowed output - although I'm not gonna say it's guaranteed or even neccesarily likely - but they might be working on revamping the N64 emulator (bringing it properly in-house at NERD, rather than using the old iQue emulator). N64 out of all of the platforms on NSO has by far the worst emulation of the bunch, and behind the scenes it is very hacky with lots of games getting special extra code to patch up the holes in the base emulation.
I'm mostly pretty content with the state NERD's managed to patch things up from a single player perspective but I would still love if they dumped it eventually for a ground up effort that could improve online (rollback) and throw in rewind. I've been told those are memory issues but that seems a bit weird to me when NERS's four multiplayer GBA emus and even City Connection's S-Tribute Saturn emu manage rewind and have to be comparable memory intensive?
 
If only. I don't have my hopes up though. At this point though I do trust any other dev other than iQue, so give it to NERD or Panasonic Vietnam I don't care lol

Those are pretty curious, The Binding Blade would be interesting to have internationally, if they actually care.
That said "The Blazing Blade" is kinda weird to trademark because they never used that name internationally.
They use The Blazing Blade when referring to the game in the English versions of Heroes and Engage at least. Wouldn't be shocked they decided to call the NSO release The Blazing Blade too to keep consistency with those, even if they probably wouldn't edit the ROM or box art.
 
If brand new localisations on NSO are on the cards - then that would be very exciting. Obviously, the two Nintendo first party games that people most want localised are Binding Blade and Mother 3 - but a few more spring to mind to me: F-Zero Climax, For The Frog the Bell Tolls, FE12 (if we get DS NSO), Magical Vacation and maybe even the Starfy games...

there was also a second pokemon trading card game on game boy that never left Japan

probably a longshot even if they are doing localizations but we are getting the first one so who knows I guess
 
3) The Binding Blade... in English?! - Don't get it twisted either, this trademark, like the others, is fully registered for use outside of Japan (see below). FE6 was announced for release on the Japanese GBA app, but obviously wasn't for the international app given it has no existing localisation. This, registered at the same time as other titles already part of the GB/GBA NSO slate, may perhaps suggest that an official localisation of FE6 is on the way? Can't make that claim with certainty, but it is a very strong clue towards that being the case, and has massive implications for the future of NSO if it comes to pass.
I wonder if this is perhaps related to the ability to play the Japanese game, on the Japanese app, with a non-Japanese account? Like how I downloaded the Super Famicom app with my Canadian account to play Umihara Kawase or whatever.

Or maybe Nintendo is really about to start translating currently Japanese-only titles for NSO which in that case: Mother 3 is a matter of time
 
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To be honest it wouldn't surprise me to see Nintendo rejig the pricing model/structure of the subscription when new hardware is on the market; not immediately, sure, but perhaps within 12 to 18 months of launch (so we'd be looking at late 2024 at the absolute earliest for any changes). We got the base sub in September 2018, 18 months after Switch, which was likely a slower rollout than Nintendo intended, and we got the first price hike/additional tier 3 years after that. Nintendo won't just want to keep increasing the number of subscribers to NSO - they'll also want to drive more revenue from it and the only way to do that is going to be with more content (which, fair enough, might not just mean retro content).

As for localisations - I could see it happening for in-demand series/games, so Binding Blade and eventually Mother 3 would make sense. Both games have baked in demand for them; I'm not sure it'd happen for more obscure games, unless they weren't particularly text heavy.
 
Well, it looks like the every three months pattern for a Genesis update has been broken.
 
0
There is a potential good reason behind the slowed output - although I'm not gonna say it's guaranteed or even neccesarily likely - but they might be working on revamping the N64 emulator (bringing it properly in-house at NERD, rather than using the old iQue emulator). N64 out of all of the platforms on NSO has by far the worst emulation of the bunch, and behind the scenes it is very hacky with lots of games getting special extra code to patch up the holes in the base emulation.

Compare this to the sublime efforts of GB and GBA, with the GBA emulator being better than even most fan-created emulators and including niche edge-case features like Game Boy Player rumble and dedicated game-specific instructions on how to do multiplayer in each title. It's clear that at the very least NERD do care about the quality of emulation - and that they're able to push within Nintendo to make sure they get the funding and support to make their emulators as good as can be. That combined with the popular backlash to how shoddy the N64 emulation is may just be enough to get Nintendo to actually do something about it - which could mean that resources are being expended on that, rather than getting the confirmed other titles to work for the crappy emulator that would get phased out anyways.

Now, it's also possible that Nintendo just want to time certain things with each other (Mario Party 3 to be timed alongside the Mario Movie for instance), and figured that NES/SNES/GB/GBA drops, a Tetris 99 Maximus Cup and Wave 4 for MK8DX was enough NSO content for a single month.
It's a little bit early to go too deep down the rabbit hole on the lack of N64 (after all, it's entirely possible GB and GBA just threw off the schedule a bit and the number of viable N64 games is of course limited), but the platform does have a fair number of reasons things could be getting held up:
  • The technical issues with the emulator are well documented
  • There's something going on with age ratings
  • Nintendo just shipped a pretty big Vulkan extension that is probably not directly related to the emulator, but there's a non-zero chance iQue (or whoever's working on it now) might want to adopt it, as it could make the emulator less CPU heavy if it's amenable to it.
  • It's really not clear if the mainline Pokémon and/or Transfer Pak issues are settled yet, both of which implicate the quickly approaching Stadium games
It wouldn't surprise me if some combination of those might be causing delays, but at the same time, it might not be any of them.
Yeah, with two system launches I don't think it's totally accurate to say the schedule slowed down. N64/Genesis might've fallen off their usual cadence but we've still gotten a bunch of games overall this year so far.


Oh yeah, I see most of the work M2 does with platform holders as prologue for what we might see on NSO. Sega CS2/M2's work on Sega Ages moved directly over to Genesis NSO but their licensing work on the Genesis Minis (Bloodlines, Hard Corps, Wily Wars, Alisa Dragoon, Zero Wing, Target Earth, etc) is also being parlayed right into Genesis NSO. I fully expect to see Virtua Racing (SVP) and Sega CD games make it to the Genesis app in time too, possibly also some of the new M2 ports like Space Harrier MV or Fantasy Zone, and longer term maybe also Game Gear and Arcade as new platform apps entirely. Likewise the work Konami and M2 did together on PCE/CD/SGX makes a lot of sense to transition over at some point if possible.

Price is a stumbling block though. Like you said, NSO is CHEAP for what it offers and the retro services are really just positioned as a value add for the general system subscription. I've kinda opined before that to bring the level of catalog release people want Nintendo would have to raise prices (EP is a step in this direction but still pretty cheap tbh) or massively expand audience (like introduce a "Nintendo Online" mobile/PC companion app and target those users as a more dedicated retro service subscription on top of Switch). Sadly I don't see either option as one Nintendo would be that interested in for the foreseeable future.


I'm mostly pretty content with the state NERD's managed to patch things up from a single player perspective but I would still love if they dumped it eventually for a ground up effort that could improve online (rollback) and throw in rewind. I've been told those are memory issues but that seems a bit weird to me when NERS's four multiplayer GBA emus and even City Connection's S-Tribute Saturn emu manage rewind and have to be comparable memory intensive?
N64 has an order of magnitude more RAM than a GBA, and IIRC, some games are running with extra RAM to enable emulation hacks.
 
To be honest it wouldn't surprise me to see Nintendo rejig the pricing model/structure of the subscription when new hardware is on the market; not immediately, sure, but perhaps within 12 to 18 months of launch (so we'd be looking at late 2024 at the absolute earliest for any changes). We got the base sub in September 2018, 18 months after Switch, which was likely a slower rollout than Nintendo intended, and we got the first price hike/additional tier 3 years after that. Nintendo won't just want to keep increasing the number of subscribers to NSO - they'll also want to drive more revenue from it and the only way to do that is going to be with more content (which, fair enough, might not just mean retro content).

As for localisations - I could see it happening for in-demand series/games, so Binding Blade and eventually Mother 3 would make sense. Both games have baked in demand for them; I'm not sure it'd happen for more obscure games, unless they weren't particularly text heavy.
I agree. Adding stuff like Voicechat native in-system will give them the excuse to bump up the base price form $20 to $30 or something like that
the Expansion pass may be where they deliver free upgrades for existing Switch games for free. A lot will depend how the position the new device, but it will make sense.
 
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Really hoping we see Amazing Mirror this week. I want to play through it co-op with my wife
 
0
at this point I just wanna know when the Pokemon Stadium games are being released

those were the main thing I wanted out of the system other than Paper Mario and it's been 6 and a half months now since they've been announced

Been way too long for these to come out since they were announced. Why do N64 games need 6+ months to release? I've been looking forward to those games too, but it's kind of ridiculous that we have to wait so long to play.
 
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The only unannounced first party N64 game I feel like I need on NSO Is Super Smash Bros. If that game doesn’t make it I will be genuinely disappointed.
 
I'm here hoping for Harvest Moon 64

I bought it head on when it released on Wii U, and i know i'd play the shit out of a NSO release.
 
I'd guess we get a GBA title confirmed first for release next week. N64 maybe in the middle of the month and Mega Drive at the end of the month.
 
I don't think ANYTHING will be released this week considering it's the first public screening week of the Mario movie, so all attention would be on that.
 
Hoping we get FE The Blazing Blade soon.

Also as wishful thinking it would be awesome if they do a translation of The Blinding Blade for the west, like they did with the original FE a couple years ago. I know that game is apparently kind of not-good but it’d be great to eventually have all three GBA FEs on NSO, especially since I think it’s kind of a waste for the developers to ever do remakes for those ones.
 
0
I don't think ANYTHING will be released this week considering it's the first public screening week of the Mario movie, so all attention would be on that.
Nah that’s exactly why they’ll drop Mario Party 3 featuring all the characters from the movie.

Also Sega genesis NSO don’t care
 
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so uh....does anyone have an idea on what April's release is gonna be? :v
These are all under the assumption that the service in question actually gets an April update:
  • NES / Famicom: No clue, no real pattern is really discernable based on the last few released - Earthbound Beginnings -> Pinball -> Daiva Story 6 -> Xevious - maybe more Namco games seeing as how Xevious NES was in a collection on Switch already before being added to NSO.
  • SNES / Super Famicom: Probably something from G-Mode (owners of Data East's old library) like Shadowrun, the original Magical Drop or one of the Metal Max games (JP only likely) - all three of the last SNES drops have featured a Data East title, and there's still a few more left in the tank (weirdly no Data East titles on NES NSO yet tho)
  • Nintendo 64: Mario Party 3 is next up on the schedule, which is the order that has been stuck with for a long time (besides Goldeneye sneaking in and the gap between the end of the first schedule and the release of the second one).
  • Mega Drive / Genesis: 3/4 titles - with most probably being Sega first party titles. I can't really get more specific than that, but that's been the format for every Genesis/MD drop so far.
  • Game Boy / Color: So far we haven't had any of the confirmed upcoming titles added, but the first on that list was Oracle of Ages/Seasons, so that's an option. The other option is what happened last time which was something not preannounced: I'd throw the original Super Mario Land or Super Mario Bros. Deluxe in as an option if they want to theme the release with the Mario movie releasing this month. If it's Zelda, then I'd expect it to just be the two Zeldas, if it's something else then I'd expect two unrelated games (like the Dream Land 2/BurgerTime DX drop).
  • Game Boy Advance: Kirby and the Amazing Mirror is next on the schedule, and we've stuck to it for the first release (Metroid Fusion). The JP NSO trailer suggests GBA could get multi-title releases akin to NES/SNES/GB/Genesis so it might not just be Kirby - maybe we get our first third party game as well at some point?
As for likeliness, we're overdue both Genesis and N64 - and it seems to me at the very least that we'll get at minimum a GBA or N64 title each month (thus something new for the Expansion Pack each month). My hope is that NES/SNES/GB will also be monthly waves, but we'll see about that.
 
These are all under the assumption that the service in question actually gets an April update:
  • NES / Famicom: No clue, no real pattern is really discernable based on the last few released - Earthbound Beginnings -> Pinball -> Daiva Story 6 -> Xevious - maybe more Namco games seeing as how Xevious NES was in a collection on Switch already before being added to NSO.
  • SNES / Super Famicom: Probably something from G-Mode (owners of Data East's old library) like Shadowrun, the original Magical Drop or one of the Metal Max games (JP only likely) - all three of the last SNES drops have featured a Data East title, and there's still a few more left in the tank (weirdly no Data East titles on NES NSO yet tho)
  • Nintendo 64: Mario Party 3 is next up on the schedule, which is the order that has been stuck with for a long time (besides Goldeneye sneaking in and the gap between the end of the first schedule and the release of the second one).
  • Mega Drive / Genesis: 3/4 titles - with most probably being Sega first party titles. I can't really get more specific than that, but that's been the format for every Genesis/MD drop so far.
  • Game Boy / Color: So far we haven't had any of the confirmed upcoming titles added, but the first on that list was Oracle of Ages/Seasons, so that's an option. The other option is what happened last time which was something not preannounced: I'd throw the original Super Mario Land or Super Mario Bros. Deluxe in as an option if they want to theme the release with the Mario movie releasing this month. If it's Zelda, then I'd expect it to just be the two Zeldas, if it's something else then I'd expect two unrelated games (like the Dream Land 2/BurgerTime DX drop).
  • Game Boy Advance: Kirby and the Amazing Mirror is next on the schedule, and we've stuck to it for the first release (Metroid Fusion). The JP NSO trailer suggests GBA could get multi-title releases akin to NES/SNES/GB/Genesis so it might not just be Kirby - maybe we get our first third party game as well at some point?
As for likeliness, we're overdue both Genesis and N64 - and it seems to me at the very least that we'll get at minimum a GBA or N64 title each month (thus something new for the Expansion Pack each month). My hope is that NES/SNES/GB will also be monthly waves, but we'll see about that.
It's frankly a massive pity that they're still doing only 1 game per month, could've at least went with at least 2 but alas 😞

and I think there's an argument for Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade to be April's release instead since this month will be the game's 20th anniversary. That is, if they're even gonna care about that.
 
It's frankly a massive pity that they're still doing only 1 game per month, could've at least went with at least 2 but alas 😞

and I think there's an argument for Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade to be April's release instead since this month will be the game's 20th anniversary. That is, if they're even gonna care about that.
I think even not just because of the schedule, Amazing Mirror makes sense for GBA for April - carrying the Kirby momentum into another month, between all of the various avenues we've had long strings of monthly Kirby content before:
  • March '22 - Kirby and the Forgotten Land
  • April '22 - Forgotten Land Tetris 99 Maximus Cup
  • May '22 - Kirby 64: the Crystal Shards on NSO
  • June '22 - SP Versions for Super Star, Dream Course and Dream Land 3 on NSO
  • July '22 - Kirby's Avalanche (West) and Kirby no Kirakira Kizzu (JP/HK) on NSO
  • August '22 - Kirby's Dream Buffet
Then a break for a few months, followed by:
  • December '22 - Dream Buffet Tetris 99 Maximus Cup
  • January '23 - Nothing
  • Feburary '23 - Kirby's Return to Dreamland DX, and also Kirby's Dream Land on NSO
  • March '23 - Kirby's Dream Land 2 on NSO
I'm also skeptical on Blazing Blade due to a slight lingering hope that the English trademark for Binding Blade actually means something and that they may announce a localisation at whatever Nintendo's summer event will be - and release both FE6 and FE7 on NSO at the same time. Ofc, they could still do that in June, and just release FE7 by itself in May (would also mean we get have a farily sizable monthly Fire Emblem content streak for a while too - when accounting that we're already getting at minimum 4 consecutive months of FE content with Engage and its DLC).
 
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Damn I thought we would've gotten Stadium 1 + 2 bundled in a single wave. Kinda disappointing its just this for the first N64 game in 3 months.

I'll play it a bit for the minigames cause I have nostalgia for those.
 
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So... Is it like, one GBA game or one N64 game now per month? Cause that's kinda disappointing if so. Was looking forward to Amazing Mirror this month.

I hate the dripfeed lol
 
  • NSO N64 Service Launch - October 25, 2021
    • Dr. Mario 64
    • Mario Kart 64
    • Mario Tennis
    • Sin and Punishment
    • Star Fox 64
    • Super Mario 64
    • The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
    • WinBack: Covert Operations
    • Yoshi’s Story
  • Paper Mario (December 10, 2021) 46 days - Second Friday
  • Banjo-Kazooie (January 20, 2022) 41 days - Third Thursday
  • The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask (February 25, 2022) 36 days - Fourth Friday
  • F-Zero Zero X (March 11, 2022) 14 days - Second Friday
  • Mario Golf (April 15, 2022) 35 days - Third Friday
  • Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards (May 20, 2022) 35 days - Third Friday
  • Pokemon Snap (June 24, 2022) 35 days - Fourth Friday
  • Pokémon Puzzle League (July 15, 2022) 21 days - Third Friday
  • Wave Race 64 (August 19, 2022) 34 days - Third Friday
  • Pilotwings 64 (October 13, 2022) 55 days - Third Wednesday
  • Mario Party/Mario Party 2 (November 2, 2022) 20 days - First Wednesday
  • GoldenEye 007 (January 26, 2023) 85 days - Fourth Thursday
  • Pokémon Stadium (April 12, 2023) 76 days - Second Wednesday

I don't like these extended times between updates. Until recently we were about 35 days apart between releases, but now because of the gap between GoldenEye and Pokemon Stadium, the average time between releases are 43.7 days. Six weeks. At this rate we might not get whatever's next of Mario Party 3/Pokemon Stadium 2/1080 Snowboarding/ExciteBike 64 until June.

Yes, I concede there's no point releasing anything in May given the 700 lbs gorilla that is Zelda, but maaaaaaaannnnnnn...they really listed those 2023 games to say stop bothering us and now Smash Bros 64 isn't coming until 2024.

In conclusion don't be like me.
 
  • NSO N64 Service Launch - October 25, 2021
    • Dr. Mario 64
    • Mario Kart 64
    • Mario Tennis
    • Sin and Punishment
    • Star Fox 64
    • Super Mario 64
    • The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
    • WinBack: Covert Operations
    • Yoshi’s Story
  • Paper Mario (December 10, 2021) 46 days - Second Friday
  • Banjo-Kazooie (January 20, 2022) 41 days - Third Thursday
  • The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask (February 25, 2022) 36 days - Fourth Friday
  • F-Zero Zero X (March 11, 2022) 14 days - Second Friday
  • Mario Golf (April 15, 2022) 35 days - Third Friday
  • Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards (May 20, 2022) 35 days - Third Friday
  • Pokemon Snap (June 24, 2022) 35 days - Fourth Friday
  • Pokémon Puzzle League (July 15, 2022) 21 days - Third Friday
  • Wave Race 64 (August 19, 2022) 34 days - Third Friday
  • Pilotwings 64 (October 13, 2022) 55 days - Third Wednesday
  • Mario Party/Mario Party 2 (November 2, 2022) 20 days - First Wednesday
  • GoldenEye 007 (January 26, 2023) 85 days - Fourth Thursday
  • Pokémon Stadium (April 12, 2023) 76 days - Second Wednesday

I don't like these extended times between updates. Until recently we were about 35 days apart between releases, but now because of the gap between GoldenEye and Pokemon Stadium, the average time between releases are 43.7 days. Six weeks. At this rate we might not get whatever's next of Mario Party 3/Pokemon Stadium 2/1080 Snowboarding/ExciteBike 64 until June.

Yes, I concede there's no point releasing anything in May given the 700 lbs gorilla that is Zelda, but maaaaaaaannnnnnn...they really listed those 2023 games to say stop bothering us and now Smash Bros 64 isn't coming until 2024.

In conclusion don't be like me.
Fourteen days between the best two, huh? That was it? We didn’t know how good we had it, huh…
 


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