Nintendo brings the 80’s to the Switch

Nintendo are bringing some of their 80’s arcade games to the Switch! Including the original Mario Bros. and Balloon Fight, the fun begins September 27th.

With no official Virtual Console launched on the Switch just yet, these arcade titles are set to be some of the first classic games heading to the new console (other than a bunch of pretty decent NeoGeo games). Nintendo announced their new Arcade Archives initiative during their Nintendo Direct presentation. The downloadable titles will be Switch Ports of Nintendo Arcade games from the 1980’s. The first batch of titles include:

• Mario Bros.
• Vs. Super Mario Bros.
• Vs. Balloon Fight
• Vs. Ice Climber
• Vs. Pinball
• Vs. Clu Clu Land
• Vs. Punch-Out!

An interesting point of difference between this upcoming set of releases and past virtual console ports is that these are straight from the arcade rather than ports of the NES versions of these titles. For those who may not have heard of Vs Super Mario Bros. it is the arcade version of the classic NES game (and the first Mario Bros. platform game) that features slight changes to items and a scoreboard! A nice touch for the traditionalist who wants the authentic 80’s experience.

The Arcade Archives program also follows tendency to release these retro games individually rather than as pack (a la Namco Museum). Nevertheless, this is only the first set of titles. Although Nintendo had effectively left the arcade business by the 90’s to focus on their consoles, it can’t be denied that their contribution to the arcade scene in the 80’s was groundbreaking.

What classic Nintendo arcade games has the big N left out?