There seem to be more rumors than ever regarding Nintendo nowadays. With the upcoming reveal of the Switch 2 nearly upon us and Nintendo’s back catalog of games being so rich, people keep hoping for the best and any tidbit of information will set their imaginations flying. According to dataminer LuigiBlood, Nintendo is potentially going to add SNES Mouse support to its SNES Switch Online app and this would be the first time since the 90s that Nintendo has re-released any of its mouse-compatible games.
As part of the NSO update today, which included such “classics” as Battletoads and Double Dragon alongside Big Run, LuigiBlood found evidence of a rework to the SNES Mouse support code. Unbeknownst to many, Nintendo’s official SNES emulator has had Mouse support baked into it since it launched for Switch Online. There were only a handful of games released in the US that supported the mouse, but Nintendo has potentially been toying with adding them to Switch for some time.
The latest update to NSO has gone beyond simple mouse emulation via a USB mouse and into something more akin to rebinding buttons on the Joy-Con. As LuigiBlood discovered, there is now code for utilizing both controller ports of the SNES (a few games required this for mouse support), the ability to rebind the inputs for each mouse button, and something VGC calls a “different behavior mode.”
Why are we reporting on speculation? Personally, I think it would be excellent for Nintendo to re-release something like Mario Paint into the world. While it is certainly quaint in the modern era, Mario Paint was instrumental in getting people into not only art but also game development. It also had a charming aesthetic and some fun mini-games included with the package (I love Gnat Attack). It’s an important part of the SNES’ history and Nintendo has never ported it to another console, even if a fun cameo in the first Super Mario Maker did show up.
There’s also the fact that not many people got to experience the SNES mouse in its heyday. While I wouldn’t expect an NSO version of Jurassic Park to show up (the SNES version had mouse support for the first-person segments), being able to finally play Mario & Wario without having to track down a used SNES, cartridge, and mouse would be wonderful. I know emulation via PC is a thing, but Nintendo can simplify things greatly by offering it on NSO.
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Written by Peter Glagowski
Peter has been a freelance gaming and film critic for over seven years. His passion for Nintendo is only matched by the size of his collection.
