Nintendo has announced that a new batch of Nintendo 64 games will be coming to the Expansion Pack tier of its Nintendo Switch Online subscription service.
As detailed in the latest Nintendo Direct for September 2022, the following eight titles — as well as the long-rumoured return of GoldenEye 007 — were announced as coming sometime this year or next:
- Pilotwings 64 - 2022
- Mario Party - 2022
- Mario Party 2 - 2022
- Mario Party 3 - 2023
- Pokémon Stadium - 2023
- Pokémon Stadium 2 - 2023
- 1080º Snowboarding - 2023
- Excitebike 64 - 2023
It's a fine list, although the fact that the Pokémon Stadiums relied so heavily on importing your own Pocket Monsters into the 64-bit game via the Transfer Pak makes you wonder if there might be some Game Boy functionality in the works for NSO, as per rumours.
Or not. Perhaps we'll just be slurping sushi with our Lickitungs on Switch. Hey, there are worse things to do!
In related news, Japan is getting an extra game in addition to the ones above: Harvest Moon 64.
Like the look of this lineup? Let us know in the usual place, just down there.
Further reading:
Comments 89
For me, all I see are ten colourful letters and one glorious number:
M A R I O P A R T Y 3 🤩
Nintendo: "I heard you guys like Mario Party?"
OK need a restock of the controllers now.
I had a Sepiroth reveal moment when that 007 music played. So hyped to finally get to play it after hearing about it and seeing speedruns of it for so long!!!
When I saw the Pokémon stadium games I was immediately shocked and believed that they were going to reveal the GB games for the NSO service.
No Perfect Dark? For shame!
Yeah yeah, Goldeneye cool whatever, MARIO PARTY BABY OH MY GOD YES!
I'm joking btw, I'm incredibly excited to finally play Goldeneye for the first time ever. I just can't believe we're getting ALL THREE N64 Mario party entries IN ADDITION to Pokemon Stadium 1&2 on top of that!
Between Wave Race and soon all three Mario Parties being added I think I'm finally going to end up getting the expansion. Mario Party 3 on Switch will probably be the most convenient way to play it (I have four Switch N64 controllers too!) and having the option to play online (Without the hassle of using other emulators) is a great bonus!
Jeff Grubb was spot on for Direct date and that’s the only info from him I would trust going forward. As for a Zelda focused Direct, no Zelda until the final minute. No Zelda GC ports or Metroid Prime. Unless he had proof for their existence sounds like he made them up. He was way off on his leak.
No Gameboy Advance? What if you don't like Pokemon or Mario Party.
I've just gone in and set my online not to renew.
@Fizza I know! I'm so happy! Finally!
They better play Mario Party on other than JoyCons, those tug o' war games will destroy they control sticks.
1080 snowboarding was one on my favourite games, looking forward to that one. 👍🏻
Still not going to pay for cash crab service. Sorry Ninty
Goldeneye 64 and Mario Party 3 are the highlights for me
Hard to get excited about Pokemon Stadium when they won't have Game Boy compatibility.
@Vil I was so worried they wouldn't add it for being too multiplayer focused on a service costing €50 a year, absolutely ecstatic right now. We have to get a game going in the forums whenever this comes out.
@Fizza Heck yes! Sign me up!
Oh boy, I can’t wait to avoid getting blisters again! Nintendo better have a prominent warning for Mario Party’s description. Still, I’m just happy to see the first Mario Party get resurrected after all these years, as well as 3 finally coming when it didn’t on Virtual Console. I’ve never played 3. I only watched my family play it as a kid.
Pokémon Stadium will be hugely nostalgic. Looking forward to the minigames like the sushi wheel! Still hoping for Banjo-Tooie and Diddy Kong Racing, even though if they do happen, it would still be a very long time. Silly drip feed!
Can’t believe it’s actually happening!
🥳🥳🥳
Considering they managed to wangle Pokemon Bank on the GB Pokemon games for virtual console, there could be some functionality for stadium/2, it'd be weird to include these without something. The GC ones at least had a story mode.
With all these Rare games appearing, lets hope we see Diddy Kong Racing and Donkey Kong 64! And of course GB Pokemon Games to connect with Stadium!
When is Goldeneye!? When!? I need to play this ASAP online!
Mario Party 2 and Goldeneye baby!
I wish Stadium was in that first batch, but I'm still excited!
Pilotwings, 1080, Excitebike & Goldeneye, plus the Mario Parties. Only thing left I want is Blast Corps, and maybe Conker.
Goldeneye officially announced !!!
On the Xbox game pass and Switch
I have both consoles so double play
I need Goldeneye ASAP. It also gives me hope for Perfect Dark and Diddy Kong Racing.
Mario Party 1 seems like a bad, baaaaaad idea. The joycons and the Switch N64 controllers will not survive.
No GameBoy games I'm so sad
@Dev9417 You're in for a treat! 3 and 6 are definitely the best ones, I'd say!
@Ryu_Niiyama I need one so badly. I feel like I've put off playing any of the games without owning one.
@ElRoberico At this point I just set aside the money so that I wouldn't get caught with a restock in between paychecks lol.
@Ryu_Niiyama I'm about to do that as well. It always happened to me. Or I missed the restock completely. Or both.
I'm surprised at the relative lack of mention for Pilotwings 64! That was such a shock to me, it has never been rereleased before today's announcement, and from what I remember it was stuck with some big licensing issues since the company that made it is defunct. PW64 is the best Pilotwings game of the three imo- it has the most content and variety. You have four different islands where the missions take place, unlike Pilotwings Resort 3DS which all take place on Wuhu Island, which itself came from Wii Sports Resort. Plus a really chill, jazzy soundtrack. The Hang Glider theme is lovely.
Overall, quite happy with the selection. Really pumped to have the Mario Parties in their entirety since we didn't get Superstars DLC. Hopefully Pokemon Stadium will be compatible with Pokemon Red/Blue, if and when those release on NSO down the road. 1080 has a tough, but really satisfying learning curve. Not happy with the continued drip feed of one game per month though. The last big-name games left are Smash and the rest of the Rare catalog- notably Diddy Kong Racing and Blast Corps. I don't see Perfect Dark having a shot simply because of the NSO EP's ESRB T rating restriction, unfortunately.
Pilotwings 64! Love that game
Guess I'm going to have to get one year of NSO Plus just so I can play Goldeneye. It's bittersweet... on the one hand I'm so excited to play it on Switch (esp. w/ online added!) but on the other hand I wish so badly it could be a standalone release as well. Heck, I'd pay $50 just to own it permanently, versus it being tied to a subscription.
Good lineup, but the drip-feed continues, which is why I'm not renewing my sub next month.
I don’t care for goldeneye and love to see other rare games: Conker, DK64, DK Racing.
@Bass_X0 I would also love to see Perfect Dark. That game was amazing. In the meantime I do own the Xbox version, so I don't have to try to figure out how to set up my N64 on a modern TV (and then be disappointed by just how bad it looks when not being played on a CRT...). I would've never had any hope of such a thing happening, but here we are... Microsoft owns Rare, Banjo is on Switch Online, apparently anything can happen these days.
I really like this partnership Nintendo and Microsoft have had over the lifespan of the Switch so far... it has led to such pleasant surprises that I once thought I could only dream of, it continues to surprise, and leaves so many more seemingly-impossible things within the realm of possibility.
It only reaffirms my preferred duo of consoles: Switch and Xbox. Of course, PC/the Steam Deck is awesome too and PlayStation has some stuff you can't get elsewhere, but this Nintendo/Microsoft duo... I'm really liking it.
@Bass_X0 well remembered. But after 007, you can dream man
It is finished. Other than Smash Bros and the rest of Rare’s catalogue, that’s all the meaningful games on N64 that aren’t licensed or insanely hard to obtain.
@CharlieGirl Think positive! Nintendo is an unpredictable company, we could have it by the end of next year for all we know!
There is absolutely no possible way that joy-cons hold up to the original Mario Party games!
We've been recently playing Pokemon Snap so I've been using the N64 feature of my NSO account. I've been saying for years that GoldenEye hasn't aged well.....but I've always wanted to play it with my sons anyways. Now I'll have the opportunity. Pilot Wings and 1080 were some of my favs so it'll be cool to revisit them too until my year runs out.
Remember when Goldeneye was the go-to "most unlikely N64 CGC addition" joke? I'm not particularly hyped about the game myself, but it counts as the umpteenth sign of the crazy time it still is to own a Switch.
Were still missing half of the n64 library from rare
The prospect of playing all these titles (Especially the Mario Party games) with Friend-Only online is somewhat alluring, but it would be so much better if they had comprehensive typical online functionality treatment- like GoldenEye seems to be getting.
This is honestly something that should be a part of the NSO Apps officially. The NSO Apps really need to be expanded upon in many ways. Fan-Made Emulators that have been out for decades now have more options, features & functionality than the barebones official Nintendo rental offering smh.
Preferably Nintendo should combine all the NSO Consoles into one NSO Archives App (since they seemingly loathe the term Virtual Console now). Just give us all the platforms + catalogues we want on competent legal proprietary emulators i.e. with:
etc... most of which is already included in some notable free emulators out in the wild for some time now. It would be better if this was all contained in one giant categorized “Nintendo Switch Online Archives/Virtual Console App” rather than segmented with separate apps for each platform.
... Wun can only hope.
NSO- N64 needs to also add...
.. Expeditiously at that please (i.e. more frequent & voluminous drops).
… Wun can only hope.
I'm also still hoping they add Game Boy line, GameCube and/or Dreamcast NSO Apps to the base or Expansion Pak tier (rather than creating another 3rd tier) soon as a value-add to the service.
... Wun can only hope.
The coolest thing about this service is all these old games getting online multiplayer. It's too bad I just don't care about the N64.
Pilot Wings 64. Fantastic!
Never thought I would see the day.
Still puzzles me why this never got a VC release
@Gerald agreed. At least for the North American launch of the N64, Pilotwings 64 was the only other launch day game beside Super Mario 64. Hence, I played PW64 quite a bit and really enjoyed it.
They're really tempting me here dang it. Pokémon Stadium!! The memories...and Mario Party 2 is my favourite in the series. But I just can't bring myself to pay for a subscription service for games. Maybe I'm old fashioned but I want to own those games permanently so I can go back whenever I want, and pass them on in the future.
Now I just hope they'll add GB, GBC, & GBA games. Come on Nintendo... give me Gen 1-3 Pokémon games with the ability to send them to & back from Home and copy them to the Stadium games...
Can't wait for 1080
Hell yeah is all I can say.
@Bass_X0
I agree. Perfect Dark is a so much better game, especially with all the multiplayer customization options (would be awesome with the true online functionality they're bringing to 007), but Goldeneye is obviously more iconic. Hopefully more Rare games are still coming as well.
... Wun can only hope.
Btw, definitely gonna need way cheaper controller options simply for throwback Mario Party games. Not tryna ruin or shorten the life of expensive drifty Switch JoyCon or Pro Controllers playing some of those minigames.. not to mention the Cons are kinda little, uncomfortable and lack grip when playing portably and have unideal sticks.
... Wun can only hope.
Future NSO titles are looking good, Goldeneye and the Stadium games are great. Also nice to see 1080, Pilotwings and Excitebike 64.
@Bass_X0 not yet at least. Give it time, it’ll be here.
Don't expect the Stadium games to let you play the GB Games on the TV! No Transfer Pak is included on the NSO plan.
@GrailUK,
Never played Pilotwings all that much on the N64, I got it at launch with Mario 64, the latter took up most of my time as it was totally groundbreaking at the time... so looking forward to giving Pilotwings a decent outing, might even get the N64 controller.
Japan gets Harvest Moon 2, on top of the rest of the lineup. That means the west has one extra game unaccounted for, similar to the last wave. I wonder what will fill the gap? I could see it being Donkey Kong 64 or Smash, since those would be relatively easy to drop on there, but there is also the possibility of Cruis'n, since whoever owns the other half of that IP doesn't seem to be against re-releasing them. Then again, they could have another third party. Bomberman is the first that comes to mind, but they could also pull out a weird pick, and put in Glover or something. Or, they could go for the deep cut pick and pick Starcraft 64 or something of that calibur. Microsoft does own Activision now, after all (god, it feels weird using that as a positive point for these, but it is at this point). On the topic of Microsoft, while it could be a non-DK64 Rare game, I don't think its going to be, since those seem to be the headliner games for each wave. Especially not Diddy Kong Racing. If that game shows up at all, it'll be the headliner of wave 3, since it's the other game that's trapped in Rareware licensing purgatory.
This scenario does also leave another question, though. Why didn't Japan get their Pokemon Stadium 1? It feels weird that they got the same games as we did, when they have an extra Pokemon Stadium game in there. Maybe in the third wave?
@GrailUK I just pulled out my copy last week to have another go at it. Surpringly still holds up to this day aside from the blurry visuals. Flying through the caves with the jet pack takes a lot of patience.
What is wrong with them, not bringing DK64 and Diddy Kong Racing?
I’m guessing that shortly after the eshop closure they’ll announce the gameboy nso which will add the first Pokemon games to home.
It doesn’t make sense to announce before the closure from a monetary point of view but time will tell!
nothing of interest, no bomberman hero, diddy kong racing, snowboard kids, smash bros, donkey kong 64 - makes me want to cancel my membership
@johnvboy I spent ages exploring with the gyrocopter. Tons of easter eggs. If you fly near an abandoned town you'll hear ghost sound effects. Land on a road and drive in a petrol station and it will fill your tank so you can explore more. One of my fave chill games.
@GrailUK,
Sounds awesome, hope this comes out soon.
We have grown so old waiting!
I will see you in the facility, with mines, as OddJob..
Why no Smash 64?!?!?! Literally the best N64 game!
@antonio2244 Switch isn't going anywhere for the next couple of years!
Some great games coming SOON!
Still no sign of Star Soldier: Vanishing Earth, Tetrisphere or Mischief Makers. :/
SO at this point, what else do they need to add to the N64 collection? Like its been super solid with alot of the big hitters.
I wouldn't mind seeing Mischief Makers on there since I haven't really had a chance to relaly play it. I need to get my shake shake on.
There are both excitement and questions all of this but Goldeneye 007? that deserves a clapping
A nice little update for NSO regarding the N64 app. I'm especially looking forward to the Pokémon Stadium games more than anything.
I'll be honest, the inclusion of both Pokemon Stadium titles is really starting to entice me regarding the N64 Expansion pack...along with everything else.
Interesting point about Goldeneye... Xbox is getting the remastered versions, however it will NOT have online play. Online Goldeneye 64 is going to be exclusive to the Switch! Xbox only gets local multiplayer. I wonder how much Nintendo had to put out for THAT one???
I can't believe I've been waiting since 2006 to finally see all 3 Mario Party's together again! Mario Party 3 is my favourite multiplayer game ever and I'll never understand why it got overlooked on Wii and Wii U. The sad thing is with NSO I'll never own these permanently and will have to wait for a release on the next console...
I also really wish the online play wasn't just limited to friends only. I got super excited when Mario Kart 64 released only to be disappointed and when I added strangers online the lag was unbearable for anyone not located in my country which makes it even harder to enjoy.
I hope these are still releasing monthly so that MP1 will be out November, MP2 in December and MP3 in January.
@Vil time to prank call bowser or boo bells.
@Highlar They didn't have to put out anything. It's just the crappy online already built into the app. Splitscreen, friends only and lots of lag. I highly doubt it is going to be a proper, modern online experience like they added to Turok 2.
@wuntyme8
As for Turok/Turok 2 just buy the remastered games for Switch. Especially the first game suffered from the thick fog on N64, while the remaster has a much improved line of sight. And they play great!
But what about Beetle Adventure Racing and Top Gear Overdrive?
So so so happy.
When does it come out?
@somnambulance it is odd as some websites are saying 2023?! That would be too long between announcement and release.
It surely is September’s N64 game release.
I don’t know why they are being coy about the date, heck at least us know the year makes me worry the deal isn’t sorted and might fall apart
@Knightrider1 Everyone is coy about all release dates nowadays. It feels like a lot has changed on the production side of the industry the last 3-4 years (even without taking this COVID thing into account) that I feel like developers don’t even necessarily know when things will release yet, only that they seem close enough to announce. That’s my speculation anyway. I’d love if Goldeneye was immediate though.
@somnambulance I’m thinking two possibilities: First they are waiting for after the Queen’s funeral to announce - we don’t even know what game N64 is releasing this month on the service. It works make sense for it to be Goldeneye as would be close enough to 25th anniversary and let’s not forget Nintendo paid to get the game unbanned in Germany a year prior to it happening in 2023. If the game was going to release then n 2023, why spend the money.
Second, they are going to wait 6 months,, that due to the war in Ukraine, they announced the game early to see public response. If they get backlash they pull the game, if not they have given the public time to react when released.
One last thing, I think the remaster Microsoft made will be released eventually. I think it is a good strategy to get the old game out for a year for free, then in 12 months release the updated one. Assuming the deal allows them to.
@Knightrider1 I feel your logic here may indeed be accurate. I’m hoping that Nintendo pays homage to Britain with a Goldeneye release. I feel, despite the Ukraine/Russia situation, there’s only been uniform praise in the game finally coming to NSO. “Coming soon” means so many things, but I wouldn’t mind if this soon was rather immediate.
I WANT TO PLAY MARIO PARTY 3!!!
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