Original Game Boy Pokemon games return for 3DS eShop in February

By Danny Cowan November 13, 2015

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Pokemon Red, Blue, and Yellow are due to hit the Nintendo 3DS eShop as Virtual Console titles in commemoration of the franchise’s 20th anniversary, Nintendo confirmed this week.

Despite the decades-spanning shift in hardware, the eShop versions of the original Game Boy Pokemon games will retain their distinctive trading and battling features when they arrive for the 3DS in 2016.

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Nintendo’s Pokemon series launched in 1996 with the release of Pokemon Red and Pokemon Blue for the monochrome Game Boy. Pairing deceptively complex RPG mechanics with addictive monster-catching gameplay hooks, the original Pokemon games were tremendously popular worldwide, and helped to revitalize Nintendo’s aging Game Boy hardware.

In the original Pokemon games, players journey across the Kanto region in search of creatures that can be captured and collected for use in battle against other Pokemon. There are 151 Pokemon between Pokemon Red and Blue, and each edition boasts its own exclusive collection of creatures.

In order to collect all 151 Pokemon, players must trade creatures with friends using the Game Boy’s Link Cable peripheral. The Link Cable also allows players to battle their collected creatures head-to-head. The upcoming 3DS versions of Pokemon Red, Blue, and Yellow simulate Link Cable functionality by using a wireless connection to link multiple 3DS units.

In 1999, Nintendo followed up on Pokemon Red and Blue with Pokemon Yellow Version: Special Pikachu Edition. Featuring updated graphics and minor changes to series-standard gameplay mechanics, Pokemon Yellow Version starts players out with a Pikachu pal that follows them throughout the adventure.

Pokemon Yellow Version is otherwise largely identical to the previous Red and Blue games, and still requires players to link up with other versions in order to collect all 151 Pokemon.

Pokemon Red, Blue, and Yellow will hit the 3DS eShop in North America on February 27, 2016.

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Nintendo’s eShop closures are a necessary, but messy move

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Nintendo last week announced its intentions to shut down the Wii U and 3DS eShops, the systems' digital storefronts, in March 2023. This decision was disappointing for hardcore fans who stuck with Nintendo during that rocky era and extremely worrying as many of the games available on the platforms won't be preserved.
More significant Wii U games and a handful of 3DS titles were ported to Switch, but many titles are still stuck on those systems and can’t be ported. Once the digital storefront shutdowns, digital-only titles will be gone forever, and physical copies of these titles will get more expensive and harder to experience. Fans and game preservationists have not been pleased by this decision, with the Video Game History Foundation giving the most candid response.
https://twitter.com/GameHistoryOrg/status/1494398068346654720
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Why is Nintendo shutting down the 3DS and Wii eShops?
Officially, Nintendo’s FAQ on the eShop closures says “this is part of the natural life cycle for any product line as it becomes less used by consumers over time." The answer doesn’t get into specifics and might confuse those still playing games on the system or fans of games only available on Wii U or 3DS. Omdia Principal Analyst Matthew Bailey explains Nintendo’s user base argument in more detail, highlighting the massive gap between the number of people playing the Switch as opposed to the Wii U.
“While Omdia expects the number of Switch consoles in active use to exceed 90 million on a global basis this year, the Wii U’s global active installed base will drop under one million in 2022,” he explains. “Even when you include the more enduring 3DS family of consoles into the equation, the Switch still comfortably accounts for over 90% of Nintendo’s total active console install base.”
If one is going off just the numbers, it’s sensible that Nintendo would want to focus on the majority of its players. Bailey admits that “Switch users are already reaping the benefits of Nintendo’s singular first-party development focus on one platform.” Still, one might argue that Nintendo should just let the eShops remain up even if it isn’t actively updating or maintaining them.

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“As these systems age, they require patches, security, special contracts, updates, and personnel that know how they were built (and maintained),” his Twitter thread explains. “As time goes on, there are security holes, servers, code, infrastructure, etc., that can’t be brought up to modern standards. It becomes a constant struggle between maintaining legacy systems, paying people to do so, and trying to keep up with global regulations. It’s not cheap by any means. They can’t just ‘leave the lights on’ and stop supporting them. What if someone hacked the payment processor?”
With every passing year, the Wii U and 3DS eShops likely became more expensive to maintain and an increased security risk for the video game publisher. Instead of investing the time and resources into pleasing a smaller amount of players, the easier option is to turn everything off entirely. While he isn’t affiliated with Nintendo, Game Over Thirty’s assessment aligns with what we’ve heard from Nintendo and Omdia.
"The Wii U’s global active installed base will drop under one million in 2022."