Video: MVG Investigates The Switch Online GBA Emulator Leak

I know it doesn’t matter at all but Sloop is a proper crap name

@Ooyah That's some real optimism. I could see this getting announced whenever if it does eventually release, but I'm not expecting a full Direct for at least a couple months. Otherwise, we probably wouldn't have just gotten new trailers for arguably the two biggest first party games of the year.

I think I already have every GBA game available on a more portable device with more features than NSO offers.

yes, I do think the emulator is real. Because we already had a GBA emulator on Wii U. (Developed by the same team)

However, I see 0 chance this being released on NSO.

It's as usual with "leaks" like these, there is always a hint of something true. But absolutely everything else is fake.

@Ooyah
The leak is most likely real but it provides no indication whatsoever as to when GB/GBC or GBA games will actually be added to NSO. The files and code that have been leaked date back to 2019 and 2020, which means these are all old and outdated builds.

Don't expect a Direct next week about this or you'll be sorely disappointed.

Ok, it is a fake. The EZ Flash proves it.

It’s pretty early from the N64 NSO…. I would expect this after a rollout of at least another 7-10 N64 games. So I’d expect this GBA release by the end of the year.

Even if it is real, I'm only upgrading if/when they add the Gen 3 Pokémon games. If they truly are gonna add RBY, GSC, RSE, FRLG, and Stadium 1 & 2, along with other spin-off games, that'll be the big hook for me and a lot of other people, not even counting all the other great games to finally make the service worth it.

@ShadowofTwilight22 Did you not own a 3DS or Wii U? 'Cuz GB, GBC, & GBA games were on both consoles' Virtual Consoles...

@luigiblood wrote up a post on it that's also worth looking at imo https://luigiblood.tumblr.com/post/682337295386476544/whats-the-deal-with-the-gbgba-emulator-leak

@shoeses
Man i miss the virtual console.

What's incredibly embarrassing is that this hasn't already been released by Nintendo. Their Switch could run NES, SNES, Gameboy, GBA, N64, Gamecube, Wii, and that's just their in-house consoles. To give the Switch Online service some legit value, these should already be a thing. There should be an overabundance of titles and consoles to enjoy. If we look at the online streaming classics angle as a streaming service, it's beyond poor. Netflix, Hulu, etc., none of these companies asked for a subscription from customers by dropping 40 things to watch and then trickling out a few every month or so. It's laughable that this is Nintendo's answer to fighting ROMs

@BlackenedHalo You'd be surprised how many times Nintendo has used standards made by outsiders for literal decades, this isn't evidence by any means that it is fake lol

@larryisaman

The Sloop is a very nice pub in Sussex, England.
Last time I went, they did good roast meat sandwiches.

@Ooyah I doubt we will have a direct this week, why would they give us release dates for XC3 and Splatoon 3 when they plan to do a direct a week later?
And yes one could argue that they wanted to get them out of the way but would it really matter if the direct would be 5 minutes longer?

@Ooyah idk about a direct, but I wouldn't be too surprised if this got shadow-dropped this week

I could see these being rolled out sometime after the previously announced N64 titles have all actually been added to the service. I believe there are still two, Pokemon Snap and Kirby 64 that have been announced but not added. I'm sure we'll continue to see N64 games added after that but to be honest the N64 didn't have a particularly big library so I think the drops will slow down quite a bit. Dipping into the absolutely massive Game Boy, GBC, and GBA libraries would be an easy way to keep up the drip feed once the popular N64 games start to run out.

@BlackenedHalo The EZFlash mention is exactly why I think it’s real…if you were going to fake this why would you include the flash card stuff? That’s surely something you’d stay away from if you were trying to make it convincing.

NERD are an external team in Paris…if it’s easier and quicker to just grab an EZFlash over tracking down Nintendo’s official solution for 20 year old hardware in their vaults for whatever purpose they need it for I can see them doing it.

I hope we do get Game Boy Online, that would be huge being able to play some of the great multiplayer GBA games like Kirby Nightmare in Dreamland, Kirby and the Amazing Mirror, Zelda Four Swords, Mario Kart Super Circuit, etc. This would be great if it actually happens! (Hopefully)

Of course we are getting gba games at some point. NSO is a service for delivering the virtual console to Switch. I guessed we’d get mega drive games (much like we’ll get pc engine at some point). Whatever deal Nintendo made for WiiU looks like it got carried over.

For a company that has a plumber for a mascot they sure do have a lot of leaks.
Might be time for Mario to call it quits on his plumbing career.

Now about that Sloop name.
Well call me Sloop Dog.
Pretty sloppy of Nintendo, or should that be sloopy

Makes me want to sing
Sloop, there it is, sloop there it is!

Alright, I'll leave.

@Ooyah I would love a new Direct myself, but I'm not holding my breath for it. Then again, with E3 being cancelled, and Nintendo still needing to make a few announcements regarding new games, and also having to drop the trailer for the upcoming Mario movie, it would be nice if they could get it out sooner rather than later.

I figure a direct is next month considering E3 got cancelled.

The Gameboy family will likely get announced in September, like they've done for all the previous additions. GB and GBC for standard NSO and GBA for Expansion Pak.

I only ever had a GBA, and I can't remember a single one of the games I had for it. So I'm guessing I won't be rushing to try any more.

With the gigantic NSO maintenance on Tuesday morning (everything NSO is unavailable for a few hours), I'd guess Nintendo will announce some NSO stuff on Monday. Won't be a general Direct given the recent Three Hopes, Xenoblade 3 and Splatoon 3 news.

It’s not at all embarrassing if Nintendo are the ones that leaked it.

@ShadowofTwilight22
You’re not the only one that forgot about the WiiU, to be fair. 😄

Whether or not it's real, I want The Minish Cap to be one of the first games to release. It is by far probably the most important Zelda game to play before Breath of the Wild 2 comes out.

On a related note, there's this podcast I follow that commented about this leak, and they assumed that (paraphrased) "it will just be as garbage as Nintendo's other Switch emulators" - completely forgetting or not caring that only the N64 emulator had issues, and that those have been mostly fixed since launch. It irks me off to no end.

I'm really hoping this turns out to be real, because I would love to play Game Boy Advance games again. I did already get the Expansion Pack for my Switch Online subscription on my birthday the other day, so GBA games would be great for the Expansion Pack.

Sloop? Really..? Hmm.. Must've heard that word at some point last week, and had it rattling in the back of my mind when I started doing my SmileBASIC game for the week!

A sloop, btw, is a small boat with a single mast. Not really sure what that has to do with a gameboy, unless one of the devs once spent some time along on a boat with only a gameboy to keep them company..?

@Jayenkai Several emulators have boat names: Canoe is SNES, Hovercraft is N64.

@LuigiBlood But which one gets to be Titanic? VirtualBoy or WiiU??

As some have already mentioned, this supposed leak happening now doesn't mean they'll be coming right away. There's no correlation between the two.

I personally expect GB/GBC/GBA or whatever else they have in mind to come during the second half of the year like the previous services. Around the time when people are running out of their subscriptions if they started their subscription from day one, to entice them to keep their subscription going.

I think the announcement will likely be in e3 season

@BrazillianCara - Because it'd be embarrassing for Nintendo to mess up NES/SNES emulation. Nintendo's emulation offerings have always been lazy though, even going back to the Virtual Console. You'll never get nearly as many features or options as on any free community emulator either. Why does it irk you that Nintendo is held to a higher standard, especially when they're charging for it?

I can't believe I went through that video, all MVG did was relay existing information.

Literally he could have just written on Twitter: there are no hints of a homebrew emulator being used, so a leak is more likely.

@AlienX
Seems to be what every youtuber does. Stretch two minutes worth of info out to ten

@The-Chosen-one Well at least it's not gone yet. I've been buying VC, DSiWare, & 3DS-Wii U eShop-exclusives whenever I end up with an extra few bucks. One of them was Duck Hunt since I think the Wii U is the only way to play that game on modern TVs.

@Jayenkai Obviously because pirates use ships - galaxy brain type stuff TBH.

@ShadowofTwilight22 I'd recommend you see if you can get either online for cheap now then, even if it's just for emulation. Though the 3DS library is so good I'd just recommend it period.

I love how people just say it's fake here without watching the video from someone in the industry who's made games and is up to date with hacks...like you guys know more than he does.
Nintendo may not use it, but it is real and he shows proof. If you decide not to watch, don't comment claiming otherwise as it makes you look like a Nintendo fanboy

I hope it real and that they put fire pro GBA on it.

@sleepinglion Exactly what I'm thinking, just the Nintendo library alone would be amazing to have available. The Switch has proven that it can handle huge games (Doom, Witcher, Skyrim) so games from previous Nintendo consoles would easy to just emulate. Why they don't do it is the biggest mystery of all.

I’ll believe it when Nintendo officially announces it.

The part of this report that most caught my eye was the latest updates to the emulator being from 2020. Two full years ago?? If this was something intended to be released, then where is it? If there's a more current version, why was this one leaked?

This sure doesn't sound like an imminent release to me. It sounds more like vaporware. Maybe even leaked by someone disgruntled that all their work was for nothing.

I have TBH i always preferred GBA on a small device like the Micro i think a Mini advance with pre-loaded games would be better sell

Seems like it'd be a lot of work to fake, having to go so far as to develop 2 separate emulators that are brand new and not based on already existing GB/C and GBA emulators. I really don't doubt the legitimacy of this one. Nintendo has left unannounced content to be datamined in their games and systems before, wouldn't be surprising to see it happen again. Though you'd think they'd have learned to better hide or simply not include this kind of content so early by this point.

Why are they even worried about porting games we already bad on wii u and 3ds? Give us gamecube ports at least. I must be the only one who didn't game during that Era and would appreciate seeing gsmecube games on modern consoles.

@ModdedInkling I never played it, so can you elaborate more to why?
I will track a copy if I can.
Without spoilers please.

@SteamEngenius me too!

Least we forget, the 3DS was fully capable of GBA emulation, but Nintendo did nothing with it after the ambassador program.

I don't really care personally as I am part of the MiSTer FPGA master race.

@Pak-Man Ambassador program games were not emulated, they ran natively. Which is why they didn't have save states etc.

@Dr-M
Breath of the Wild 2 put a great emphasis on the Zonai and the sky, both of which have more to do with The Minish Cap than Skyward Sword, contrary to popular belief. This is due to the striking resemblance between the architecture of the Wind Tribe from The Minish Cap and the Zonai architecture from Breath of the Wild.

The Minish Cap also features various locations in the sky, and because it takes place after the events of Skyward Sword, the locations all throughout Skyward Sword have likely evolved into the locations we see in The Minish Cap.

Lastly, with the Master Sword being broken, it's likely to be reforged in a similar manner to the Picori Sword, which was broken at the beginning of the game and then reforged into the Four Sword.

As a side note, Hidemaro Fujibayashi, director of Breath of the Wild and its sequel, also directed Skyward Sword and The Minish Cap. Within Breath of the Wild's concept art were supposedly a Minish village, but that was cut from the final game.

A lot of this speculation overall came from discussions from LoruleanHistorian and Zelda Lore.

The leak Itself can easily be faked but we ARE nearing the end of the new N64 games promised, we have every major release except for Goldeneye and Diddy Kong Racing which are owned by Rare and Goldeneye Is even less likely

But maybe Pokemon Stadium could be the highlight of the next line up

@ModdedInkling thank you so much for the information, I really appreciate it.
Definitely I will try to play it since I am new to Zelda and only played Twilight Princess then the original.

@LuigiBlood wait really? Thats so cool!!