Virtual Console was originally planned for Nintendo Switch

Up until the release of Switch, Virtual Console was a big thing for Nintendo starting with Wii. Players could purchase and download a variety of classic titles from past hardware. However, with Nintendo Switch and the introduction of Nintendo Switch Online, things took a turn. Buying individual games is no longer possible, and instead those that have an active membership can access classics via different apps.

Virtual Console doesn’t exist on Switch, but new evidence has come to light indicating that Nintendo was exploring the idea at one point. LuigiBlood sifted through a new leak of iQue emails and shared findings today. Nintendo and iQue previously teamed up on different projects.

Based on those emails, the codename was “Clipper” with development kicking off in 2015. M2 was also apparently involved with the project.

One interesting detail is that with this version of the Virtual Console, when starting a game in CRT mode, players would see an animation in which a CRT TV turns on. This even featured TV noise and the sound of the power button for both the Famicom and NES separately. 

Testing was done with a variety of games for the NES Virtual Console on Nintendo Switch. Aside from first-party games, Final Fantasy 1 and 3, Mega Man 2 to 6, Ganbare Goemon Karakuri Dochu, Star Luster, and more were mentioned. There was also testing for different game speeds (Slow, Normal, Fast).

Netplay was also worked on. Something interesting here is that a mode was being considered in which controllers would automatically shuffle between up to four players every 30 seconds with a countdown. There were also emojis and premade messages, including “thx”, “sry”, “plz”, and “cya”.

So what happened? Once May 2017 rolls around, Clipper apparently isn’t mentioned much in emails. That project was ultimately cancelled in favor of something different, which had the codename “L-Classics”, and leads to Nintendo Switch Online which we have today. iQue and NERD had a lot of back and forth, and NERD explained why Clipper was cancelled in favor of L-Classics:

Previously, when shipping Virtual Console titles on new platform, Nintendo relied on extensive testing for each emulator (NES, SNES, N64) on each new platform (3DS, Wii, Wii U). This approach is no longer possible, it is just too costly. Besides, players were annoyed that previous Virtual Console titles were not available at launch on the next platform, and they were angry that they had to buy again the Virtual Console titles they bought on the previous platform.
This and other factor lead to the cancelling the Virtual Console single-title approach, and the new L-Classics multi-title project. Now, the goal is to:
– ship many titles (30+) on short schedule
– maintain all the titles in the “long-run” while still adding features
– ship everything very quickly and for a very low cost on the next hardware

Also, as one other nugget, LuigiBlood also uncovered evidence that iQue was working on a Wii U GameCube emulator in 2013. Ultimately this was not used.

You can read much more about all of this from the email leaks in LuigiBlood’s post here. We also have much more Nintendo Switch Online coverage here.