Nintendo Switch Online has enabled its subscribers to play classic Nintendo games online with friends. The Nintendo Switch’s online infrastructure for emulated versions of older games is finally ready, too. While this isn’t an outlandish demand - a certain segment of the Pokémon fanbase has begged for these Swtich rereleases for years - we are at a point where it’s not just a matter of the 3DS no longer being a viable home for Red, Blue, Yellow, Gold, Silver, and Crystal. It’s time for The Pokémon Company and Nintendo to repeat what they did in 2016.
Still, it’s clear that the 3DS will soon be a complete shell of what it used to be and that Poké Transporter and Pokémon Bank’s days are numbered. While Poké Transporter and Pokémon Bank are exceptions to the impending closure, even Nintendo’s support website hedges that those apps “may also end at some point in the future.”Īs someone who still loves using their 3DS, I didn’t have a problem with the Game Boy Pokémon games not being available on other Nintendo systems - until now. While Virtual Console versions of these classic Pokémon games technically won’t lose any features when online services go away, the writing on the wall is only getting more obvious. We’ve recently learned that online 3DS and Wii U services will shut down in April 2024.
Nintendo Switch Online adds another classic Pokémon spinoff game
