The Wii, 3DS and Wii U era brought with it a lot of fresh Nintendo staples, one of them being the Virtual Console. While Nintendo had re-released some of their classic games in the past, the Virtual Console let retro fans purchase digital versions of their favorites from consoles and portables gone by. It was a service that was updated nearly every week, offering gamers new glimpses back into gaming’s past.
The Virtual Console platform was eventually phased out by Nintendo in favor of what we have now, Switch Online: Nintendo Classics. Instead of letting customers piecemeal the retro titles they want, the various Nintendo Classics apps take much more Netflix-style approach to legacy gaming. These apps, which focus on old platforms like the NES or N64, see games added sparingly to their collections. For the price of a Switch Online subscription (or Expansion Pack in some instances), you get complete access to everything the Nintendo Classics apps have to offer.
While there’s no “right” or “wrong” approach to offering retro titles digitally, plenty of Nintendo fans were sad to see Nintendo sunset the Virtual Console service for the Nintendo Classics platform. To this day people continue to beg for Nintendo to return to the Virtual Console delivery method, and today’s news is only going to make those voices grow even louder.
We’re not sure of the reasoning, but Nintendo has officially set out to refresh the trademark for Virtual Console. Some people might take this as an idicator that Nintendo is looking to return to the idea, but that’s purely speculation. This trademark refresh could also be nothing more than Nintendo protecting their brands and terminology. Just look at how many times the Eternal Darkness name has been re-upped by Nintendo, yet nothing has come of it.
We’ll keep an eye on this situation to see if there’s any movement one way or another. For now, take this as probably nothing more than a bit of housekeeping on Nintendo’s part.
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