The ESRB has published a rating for Nintendo World Championships: NES Edition.
The ESRB has rated the game an E, and indicated that it has mild fantasy violence, and interestingly, in-game purchases. They also provide this description:
“This is a collection of 2D challenges and platformer games in which players traverse through various modes (e.g., speedrun, survival). Several challenges involve reaching specific points, while others prompt players to defeat small enemies or survive brief battles.
Some games depict pixelated characters using small swords or arrows to strike at enemies; enemies typically get stunned or disappear in a flash.”
In an update to our story a few hours ago, Pyoro just quote tweeted their earlier post, saying that “This is literally “Nintendo World Championships: NES Edition” lol” Pyoro’s reaction is even more amusing when one sees that people started creating conspiracy theories about there being 5 SKUs of the Switch 2, based on an untouched picture of the original cartridge from 1990.
So this game sounds like an interesting departure, based on a new game idea. While I would personally like to see Rad Racer join Tetris and Super Mario Bros in the Switch Online library, it will certainly be interesting to see what Nintendo has come up with here.
Nintendo has had an interesting history when it comes to DLC and microtransactions. This may sound crazy now, but they really are one of the last companies to not embrace DLC, season passes, and similar monetization models, with the conviction that they should make games that feel complete when they are released.
Their first dalliances with microtransactions where two playful titles on the 3DS, Rusty’s Real Deal Baseball and Nintendo Badge Arcade. And then they introduced the amiibo product line, which creates a unique value proposition, as it doubles as a literal physical product as well as a content/play pattern provider, across multiple titles.
But Nintendo formally got into the microtransactions and gacha business when they started making games on mobile, in partnership with Japan’s biggest mobile game companies. And it’s very strange to think about it, but the five years they spent making million dollar revenue generating games have ended up being a wash. Their most successful title, Pokemon Go, is still a significant revenue driver, but clearly past its peak.
We can see Nintendo successfully making micro-games based on platforming challenges; a prior title, NES Remix, was built around playing small segments of classic video games. But the Nintendo World Championships branding suggests this is something else entirely. Could this be a title where people compete at playing games like Super Mario Bros, NWC style, online?
Among other things, this is a clear indication that Nintendo does still have a few games slated for the Nintendo Switch, and they aren’t quite ready to retire their current behemoth just yet. We may learn about more such games in a month’s time, too.
