Still retailing at a firm $300, the Nintendo Switch is, for many, the current favorite in modern gaming consoles. But some of the top games coming out for Nintendo’s newest platform are little older.
A report today at The Verge shows how a Japanese company called G-mode is migrating some of its existing old flip phone games to the Switch.
“G-Mode has already remade some of its own flip phone hits like Kuukiyomi for modern platforms, but the G-Mode Archives series looks to be straight ports of the phone originals for the sake of preservation,” writes The Verge’s Sam Byford.
Although this retro move may involve updating graphics, the game play is probably going to be more reminiscent of past decades when many of these games utilized a 10-key control design (instead of Nintendo’s new L-R tabs, D-pads, Z-switchs, etc.)
It’s also worth thinking about some of the other key differences here – while newly developed Switch games might come with price tags up to $50 or $75 apiece or more, releases show that many of G-mode’s retro games will sell for around five dollars in U.S. currency.
Byford notes the “vast ecosystem” of games that were available back then, and how many of them were sold on a subscription model.
A Nintendo Life catalog shows off G-mode favorites like Burger World and Bloody Wolf, with details on versioning and more.
Tom Brown at Nintendo Wire applauds the move this way:
“In North America and Europe, many would say the smartphone boom of the late 2000’s was when mobile gaming first blew up in a big way, unless you were really into Snake,” Brown writes. “Japan, however, had its own thriving industry in the years before thanks to “feature phones”. These powerful devices, which were often flip-phones, featured many full-fledged games from big publishers – they even got exclusive Final Fantasy and Metal Gear spin-offs! … Given how few of these games were ever localized its unlikely they’ll see a release overseas, but thanks to the region-free nature of the Switch eShop there’s always the option of setting up a Japanese Nintendo Account to get a look at this strange period of video game history.”
Look for these kinds of retro offerings to expand Nintendo’s gaming empire as coronavirus leads more users toward digital play.