Why Super Mario 3D All-Stars Took 3 Years To Make

Super Mario 3D All-Stars will bring a variety of previous Super Mario games (Super Mario 64, Super Mario Sunshine, and Super Mario Galaxy) to the Nintendo Switch. This is good news for Mario fans, and good news, just between you and me, for games journalists who write for Nintendo magazines and haven't had a single piece of news to cover since The Origami King.

We all knew that Super Mario 3D All-Stars was on its way. The game's official announcement feels like more of a formality than anything at the moment, especially considering that we're a mere two weeks away from the game's 18th of September release date.

The bigger question is: why haven't we had these classic games on the Switch before now? Why has Nintendo been so hesitant to give Switch owners a legitimate way to play N64, Gamecube, and Wii games on the platform?

The answer seems to be: Nintendo Switch Online. Yet, Nintendo's faltering subscription service seems to be causing yet more problems, as it's been hindering the release of any kind of Virtual Console system on the Switch. Were it not for Nintendo's hit-and-miss efforts to create a thriving subscription service, we'd probably have had these games available on the Switch a lot sooner.

The next big question is, why is Super Mario 3D All-Stars a limited edition release, lasting only until March of 2021? This is a more difficult question to answer, although we do give a speculative guess in the video. It seems like Nintendo might have something else planned for 2021 entirely.

Anyway, no matter what's going on, we hope you're staying safe.

Lots of love,
BretonStripes (http://twitter.com/bretonstriped) and Kotor (http://twitter.com/kotorcomics)

Sources:
https://www.theverge.com/2017/6/1/15727548/nintendo-switch-online-20-dollars-a-year
https://kotaku.com/nintendo-details-switch-online-service-will-be-20-yea-1795743981
https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2017/01/nintendo-details-new-paid-online-service-for-switch/
https://www.slashgear.com/nintendo-64-classic-gets-some-bad-news-16553997/
https://www.kotaku.com.au/2018/11/nintendos-reggie-fils-aime-on-hopes-for-an-n64-classic-switch-online-and-sakurais-smash-roster-tweets/
https://japanesenintendo.com/2019/06/27/nintendo-consider-extending-nintendo-switch-online-service/
https://thenextweb.com/gaming/2018/05/23/a-nintendo-64-console-reissue-might-be-on-the-way/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TheNextWeb+%28The+Next+Web+All+Stories%29
https://mashable.com/2018/05/08/nintendo-switch-no-virtual-console/?europe=true
https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2020-03-30-sources-nintendo-switch-2020-line-up-dominated-by-mario-games-old-and-new
https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2019/09/further-emulated-classics-on-switch-will-not-adhere-to-a-regular-schedule/
https://www.digitaltrends.com/gaming/nintendo-switch-online-snes-nintendo-64-gamecube-games/
https://www.destructoid.com/uh-oh-nintendo-warns-that-nes-snes-switch-online-monthly-release-cadence-is-off-the-table-566048.phtml
https://www.extremetech.com/gaming/284753-nintendo-begins-phasing-out-wii-virtual-console-classic-games
https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/wjm5kw/nintendo-makes-it-clear-that-piracy-is-the-only-way-to-preserve-video-game-history
https://en-americas-support.nintendo.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/41205/~/nes-%26-super-nes-%E2%80%93-nintendo-switch-online-overview-%26-faq#s1q10
Why Super Mario 3D All Stars Took 3 Years To Make