There Will Be No Virtual Console On Nintendo Switch After All

Video game giant Nintendo on Monday night finally outlined how its upcoming paid online service for the Nintendo Switch console will work. In addition to the ability to play games over the internet and store saved data in the cloud, anyone who pays the fee will get access to a library of classic Nintendo Entertainment System games, Netflix-style.

However, according to Kotaku, it will not be under the Virtual Console name Nintendo used to distribute old games for a decade.

A Nintendo spokesperson confirmed to Kotaku’s Jason Schreier that the Virtual Console banner, which at one point encompassed countless games across several consoles, is no more. The new subscription model does not appear to have a catchy name like that, but from now on, that is the way classic Nintendo games will be available to Switch owners.

The Virtual Console launched in the early days of the Wii console and that iteration of the service eventually grew to include support for multiple non-Nintendo consoles. NES, SNES and Nintendo 64 games were joined by selections from the Sega Genesis, TurboGrafx-16 and more. Games were purchased individually, usually priced between $5 and $10.

The Wii U and 3DS editions of Virtual Console were a bit more limited, and users had to re-purchase games they bought on Wii instead of just getting access to them from the jump. Popular games would mysteriously be missing from the service and, in an era when other companies release massive collections of classic games for less than $60, charging $5 for the right to play “Super Mario World” again stopped making sense.

Starting in September, Switch owners who pony up $20 per year will have unlimited access to a library of NES games that Nintendo promised would expand beyond the 20 games that will be available at launch. Regular updates will theoretically bring new (old) games and, with any luck, Nintendo classics from the SNES, N64 and maybe even GameCube consoles.

It just will not have a distinctive name anymore.