Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Gaming
  3. News

No more regular schedule in release of Nintendo Switch Online NES, SNES games

Aaron Mamiit
By

More NES and SNES games are coming to Nintendo Switch Online, but subscribers will no longer know when the retro titles will arrive on the service.

Nintendo Switch Online launched last year with a library of 20 popular NES games that included Super Mario Bros., Donkey Kong, and The Legend of Zelda. Since then, more NES games have been added to the service at a rate of two to three games per month.

Recommended Videos

Right in time for its first birthday, Nintendo Switch Online expanded its retro offerings with the addition of 20 SNES games that include Super Mario World, Super Metroid, and The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past. A $30 wireless SNES controller was also unveiled, in a similar fashion to last year’s wireless NES controller.

A collection of 20 titles is not enough to include all the popular games of the console, and notable omissions include RPG classics such as Final Fantasy VI, Secret of Mana, and Chrono Trigger. Subscribers hoped that their favorite SNES games would arrive in future monthly updates, but it now appears that there will be a different release schedule from now on.

“More NES games will be added in the future, but those releases will not adhere to a regular schedule,” a Nintendo representative told Business Insider. “More Super NES games will be added after launch, but those releases will not adhere to a regular schedule,” the representative echoed for the service’s SNES library.

The good news is that more NES and SNES games are coming to Nintendo Switch Online. However, in comparison, there were regular monthly releases for the Virtual Console emulators of the Wii and Wii U for years before the updates slowed down. Virtual Console games may be purchased individually though, instead of all being made available through a subscription.

Wishful thinking is that more NES and SNES games will be added to the service at a faster rate, though logic dictates that the statement was made because the arrival of more titles will slow down. Hopefully, this means that the addition of more retro consoles to Nintendo Switch Online is in the works, with the Nintendo 64 next up.

It currently remains unclear how irregular the release of more Nintendo Switch retro games will be. In the meantime, subscribers may play the newly added SNES games for a kick of nostalgia.

Editors' Recommendations

Topics
Aaron Mamiit
Aaron Mamiit
Contributor
Aaron received a NES and a copy of Super Mario Bros. for Christmas when he was 4 years old, and he has been fascinated with…
Pokémon Stadium 2 and Trading Card Game are now on Switch with online play
Ash holds a Pokeball while a lot of iconic Pokemon stand behind him.

Nintendo Switch Online just added two retro classics, as Pokémon Stadium 2 and Pokémon Trading Card Game are now available on the service. Both games have been updated to feature online multiplayer.

Both announcements come from today's Pokémon Presents stream, which primarily focused on updates to mobile games and Pokémon Scarlet and Violet. Nintendo Switch Online got a small block during the presentation, when it was revealed that the two games were dropping on Switch shortly after the stream.

Read more
Red Dead Redemption is coming to Nintendo Switch and PS4 this month
red dead redemption switch ps4 release date key art

The original Red Dead Redemption is coming to two new platforms, PS4 and Nintendo Switch, later this month. It'll retail for $50 on both platforms.
Red Dead Redemption and Undead Nightmare Coming to Switch and PS4
Rockstar Games' open-world western game first launched in 2010 for Xbox 360 and PS3. It was critically acclaimed and a smash sales hit, creating a new franchise for Rockstar that could stand alongside the likes of Grand Theft Auto. It received a sequel, Red Dead Redemption 2, in 2019, but the original Red Dead Redemption remained stuck on older platforms outside of backward compatibility support on Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S.
That's why fans got excited when a rating for the game from the Game Rating and Administration Committee of Korea popped up. We've now learned that this rating is for new Nintendo Switch and PS4 ports of Red Dead Redemption by Double Eleven Studios. Red Dead Redemption will release across both of those platforms digitally on August 17, with a physical launch to follow on October 13.

It will cost $50 and includes the base campaign as well as the zombie-infested Undead Nightmare expansion; the Red Dead Online multiplayer is not included. This is the first time Red Dead Redemption will ever be on a Nintendo system, although it doesn't look like the port will have much in the way of Switch-exclusive features. That said, a press release does reveal that this will be the first version of the game to include Brazilian Portuguese, Korean, Latin American Spanish, Polish, Russian, Simplified Chinese, and Traditional Chinese localizations.
Red Dead Redemption comes out on PS4 and Nintendo Switch on August 17. 

Read more
This hidden Switch feature will change the way you play Nintendo games
Two players play Nintendo Switch.

Any time I discuss the latest Switch game with my friends, I usually hear the same critique: “I wish I could remap the controls.” Major Switch exclusives like The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom and Metroid Dread are seriously lacking in control customization, which can be frustrating if your brain has a specific idea of what a gamepad layout is.

There’s a fairly good excuse as to why those games don’t include controller customization options, though. It's because of a system-level controller remap option tucked deep away in the Nintendo Switch’s settings menu. If you didn’t know that existed (as few of my friends seem to), get ready for a solution to all your control issues that’s been hiding in plain sight all this time.

Read more