Topic: Three Imports And Game Boy Color Zelda-Like Added To Switch Online Basic Libraries

[Shaymin]

Two of those imports being Nintendo games.

http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/news/64754/three-imports-and-game-boy-color-zelda-like-added-to-switch-online-basic-libraries

The retro libraries for the basic tier of Nintendo Switch Online have added four titles, though it may be more accurate to refer to them as Famicom and Super Famicom updates.

• Downtown Nekketsu March Super-Awesome Field Day (1990 - Famicom) is a four player action sports title that is one of the most beloved titles in the extended Kunio-Kun franchise. It has been previously re-released on Switch as part of the 2020 Double Dragon & Kunio-Kun Retro Brawler Bundle.
• Joy Mech Fight (1993 - Famicom) is one of the last Famicom releases from Nintendo before the transition full time to the Super Famicom, and was known as both the first fighting game from Nintendo after Urban Champion and for possessing some of the Famicom's highest quality audio and video.
• Kirby's Star Stacker (1998 - Super Famicom) is a Super Famicom remake of the 1997 Game Boy puzzle game, in which Kirby and the friends from the Dark Matter trilogy have to clear fields of stars.
• Quest for Camelot (1998 - Game Boy Color) is the sole game in this update wave that previously released outside Japan. The overhead action title is based on a poor-performing 1998 animated movie of the same name from Warner Bros., and was developed with assistance from Nintendo despite being published by the late Titus Interactive.

[Ian Sane]

How did Quest for Camelot end up on this service?  It's based on a movie so presumably there are some publishing rights issues involved here.  So who goes and obtains the permissions from Warner Bros to re-release a videogame that's over 20 years old that was never very popular that is based on a movie that wasn't very popular?  And this isn't a storefront for individual sales, this is for a subscription based service.  No one is going to sign up for the service for this game but presumably Nintendo will have to give Warner Bros some sort of payment for it.  Doesn't make business sense to jump through this many hoops unless the game itself has a big fanbase like Goldeneye or the old Ninja Turles games.

The only angle I can see is that since Nintendo co-developed it that maybe they will lose some copyright claim or something like that if the game is out-of-print for too long.  Or I wonder if Warner Bros now owns the game and is trying to get figured into Nintendo Switch Online and this is one of the only titles they could offer.