Posted in: Games, Nintendo, Nintendo Switch Online, Retro Games, Video Games | Tagged: game boy advance, nintendo, nintendo switch
Nintendo's Official Game Boy Advance Emulator Leaks Online
Fans of the Game Boy Advance may finally be getting the console's library on the Nintendo Switch after a leak appeared online today. Ever since the NES was emulated to Nintendo Switch Online, those who loved the portable line of consoles have been chomping at the bit to see when anything from the Game Boy would make its way to the same emulator system. Well, it looks like they finally have a glimmer of hope as a brand new leak happened today that has got all of social media buzzing.
The image you see below has been making the rounds the past few hours, in a tweet that's been going viral from @trashbandatcoot. As you can see from the imagery, which originally came from 4chan, it appears someone has leaked an emulator system officially made by Nintendo featuring Game Boy Advance titles. What you're looking at has been identified as a Nintendo-developed GBA emulator with the codename "Sloop", as well as a Game Boy emulator called "Hiyoko". Both of these have been developed in recent years by the Paris-based NERD team (Nintendo European R&D), which is the group that created the NES and SNES Classic Mini consoles and the ones used to develop for Super Mario 3D All-Stars.
The shorthand to this is that anything that was created and could be played on a Game Boy console between 1989-2008 is now on the table for a possible Nintendo Switch Online library. That's a hefty chunk of Nintendo history that could finally see the light of day on a modern console and expose newer gamers to titles they've probably heard people talk fondly about. Such as the original Pokémon titles, the original version of Link's Awakening, and old-school Tetris. But some of us are hoping for games that never made it to the west, like this little gem you may have heard of called Mother 3, which was only released in Japan for the Game Boy Advance. We can only hope!
If Nintendo does make any kind of announcement for this, the earliest we'll hear about it is in June when they do their next major Nintendo Direct feed. Which, we assume, might be incorporated into Summer Game Fest. We'll just have to wait and see.