Nintendo has made some surprising big announcements for Mario Day, and they involve Switch Online.
Three games are coming to the Switch Online Expansion Pack, all of which are Mario games.
Mario Vs. Donkey Kong is a 2004 puzzle platformer on the Game Boy Advance. It can trace its lineage to the Donkey Kong arcade game, and it itself starts the Mario Minis franchise. This is the same game that received a Switch remake in 2024.
Mario’s Tennis is the rarely seen 1st game in the Mario Tennis franchise, and that’s because it’s on the Virtual Boy. The franchise started with seven playable characters, singles and doubles, and a choice of one set, three set, or tournament matches.
Mario Clash, also on the Virtual Boy, is that answer to the trivia question of what Virtual Boy game should have been the system seller.
It reimagines the pre-NES Mario Bros. with Mario taking on Koopa Troopas on different levels of pipes and ledges, now viewed as the foreground and background.
These are all fun games but the real question is why they were announced early. It suggests that Nintendo has bigger announcements on March 10, Mario Day itself.
