We spoke about previously on here a few months ago of leaks hitting the internet which what seemed to be Gameboy emulation leaks for the Switch Online service. Whilst we can't confirm if these leaks are real just yet. I think it's fair to say a few months on and we are getting closer to September/October, which is the likely time of the year we'll see another Nintendo Platform hit the Switch Online.
Whilst some critics have been complaining about some of the games dropping for N64, SNES and NES on the service recently, claiming the lineups to remain lacklustre. This Poke Fanatic has been delighted to see Nintendo recently give us Pokemon Snap and Pokemon Puzzle League for the N64 service online. I loved the original Pokemon Snap when I was younger and I've never gotten chance to play Pokemon Puzzle League, so it'll be interesting to give that a bash this evening. As I have just noticed it pop up myself.
Pokemon Puzzle league averages around £30 on eBay for a lose cart and overall with the cost of N64 carts, games being added to this service do continue to provide great value for money overall on a yearly membership. So I want to see more niche N64 titles hit the service.
Other games that have hit Switch Online over recent months, I was a big fan of Pinball on the NES, it's simple and easy to pick up and play. After a long shift at work, I love Pinball games. I was big into Pinball Fantasies on the Amiga CD32.
I would also like to add that Nintendo have given us 4 Kirby games for the SNES recently. Kirby games are good fun and I've been pretty happy with the offerings from Nintendo over the last couple of months overall.
I digress at this point.
Coming back to Pokemon. Whilst it's likely in my opinion we will see GBA games this year hit the Switch. It's likely we'll only get:
You may be saying that GBA emulation that already exists is brilliant. You're not wrong. I've been a big fan of mGBA for my Windows PC and it's been playing Pokemon Emerald perfectly for me during our live streams. However, Nintendo will be building their emulation from the ground up and this can take a bit of time. They are paying their employees to build these emulators and aren't just using other emulators such as what we saw in the RetroN 5. RetroN 5 had great GBA emulation, but the RetroN Sq had terrible GBA emulation out of the gate at launch, because the team at Hyperkin built their own in house emulator.
So my prediction will be that we get the aforementioned Pokemon games on GBA Switch Online within the first year of it launching. Then it's likely we will see a full fat 3rd gen title such as R/S/E or Fr/Lg around late 2023 or perhaps even early 2024.
Whilst that isn't what most of us are hoping for, it's been a fair while since the Switch has been released. I daresay Nintendo will take their time curating new titles for the service. I believe this will be because they'll want to take Switch Online as a service over to any new next gen system they develop and maintain the existing ecosystem with the existing subscription models in place.
Whilst some critics have been complaining about some of the games dropping for N64, SNES and NES on the service recently, claiming the lineups to remain lacklustre. This Poke Fanatic has been delighted to see Nintendo recently give us Pokemon Snap and Pokemon Puzzle League for the N64 service online. I loved the original Pokemon Snap when I was younger and I've never gotten chance to play Pokemon Puzzle League, so it'll be interesting to give that a bash this evening. As I have just noticed it pop up myself.
Pokemon Puzzle league averages around £30 on eBay for a lose cart and overall with the cost of N64 carts, games being added to this service do continue to provide great value for money overall on a yearly membership. So I want to see more niche N64 titles hit the service.
Other games that have hit Switch Online over recent months, I was a big fan of Pinball on the NES, it's simple and easy to pick up and play. After a long shift at work, I love Pinball games. I was big into Pinball Fantasies on the Amiga CD32.
I would also like to add that Nintendo have given us 4 Kirby games for the SNES recently. Kirby games are good fun and I've been pretty happy with the offerings from Nintendo over the last couple of months overall.
I digress at this point.
Coming back to Pokemon. Whilst it's likely in my opinion we will see GBA games this year hit the Switch. It's likely we'll only get:
- Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Red Rescue Team
- Pokémon Pinball: Ruby & Sapphire
You may be saying that GBA emulation that already exists is brilliant. You're not wrong. I've been a big fan of mGBA for my Windows PC and it's been playing Pokemon Emerald perfectly for me during our live streams. However, Nintendo will be building their emulation from the ground up and this can take a bit of time. They are paying their employees to build these emulators and aren't just using other emulators such as what we saw in the RetroN 5. RetroN 5 had great GBA emulation, but the RetroN Sq had terrible GBA emulation out of the gate at launch, because the team at Hyperkin built their own in house emulator.
So my prediction will be that we get the aforementioned Pokemon games on GBA Switch Online within the first year of it launching. Then it's likely we will see a full fat 3rd gen title such as R/S/E or Fr/Lg around late 2023 or perhaps even early 2024.
Whilst that isn't what most of us are hoping for, it's been a fair while since the Switch has been released. I daresay Nintendo will take their time curating new titles for the service. I believe this will be because they'll want to take Switch Online as a service over to any new next gen system they develop and maintain the existing ecosystem with the existing subscription models in place.
