Nintendo Switch’s January update adds Western languages to SNES data

Earlier this week, dataminers found evidence that SNES games could be on their way to the Nintendo Switch by uncovering 22 titles within the code. Not only do these remain following yesterday’s update to the platform, apparently new information has been added that could suggest a release sooner rather than later.

It’s exciting enough to see The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, Super Mario World and Super Metroid all listed, but according to Twitter user and dataminer OtherEhm, these games are now receiving various Western languages in their descriptions that were not present within the December update. Sadly, it seems as though Super Mario World is currently the only one in English, but the near fully translated line-up suggests that this could be the launch line-up for SNES games on the Switch.

Existing language descriptions as of Jan 16th. This is very likely our SNES launch lineup. Mario All-Stars is an outlier because it has an Italian description, but no other non-JP language. pic.twitter.com/Ffxi7B04dL

— wii phone (@OtherEhm) January 16, 2019

Star Fox, Star Fox 2, Stunt Race FX, Super Soccer and Yoshi’s Island remain exclusive to Japan currently, with no Western translations currently included in the code. Otherwise German, Spanish, French, Italian, Dutch, Portuguese and Russian players look to be getting the remainder of the roster in their native tongue. While this could be indicative of Nintendo including exclusives in the SNES games for Switch, it could also simply be a work-in-progress.

There’s no mention of a release date, but if true, the list is looking infinitely more complete than it was previously. Of course, none of this is official without Nintendo’s say on things, and the company has yet to reveal anything in the pipeline.

KitGuru Says: I’m particularly sad that Yoshi’s Island looks to be in Japanese only, as I loved that game as a child. Still, getting the chance to potentially play Kirby’s Dream Land 3 would be wonderful having missed it the first time around.

Become a Patron!