Over the weekend, the Switchbrew Nintendo Switch homebrew claim they found a copy of NES Golf hidden inside the system software for the hybrid home/handheld console, and now someone else says they have unlocked it.
In a tweet, Pixelpar — who regularly posts about gaming news and tidbits on Twitter and Reddit — shows a video of a Switch running Nintendo’s 8-bit golf game for the NES. This is something Nintendo has never talked about or confirmed, but it isn’t out of the realm of possibility considering other people have discovered a functional NES emulator baked into the Switch. That emulator is apparently ready to run NES Golf, and Nintendo has even allegedly updated that classic with motion controls. Lot of gamers already play NES classics like this on PC using widely available Nintendo Entertainment System emulators, but Nintendo could potentially try to set its genuine copies apart from free, pirated ROMs by adding extra features. So motion controls in the original NES Golf is possibly just the beginning.
Check out Pixelpar’s video for yourself:
It's 1984 all over again… pic.twitter.com/PXBY2aCMcD
— Pixelpar (@pixelpar) September 18, 2017
NES Golf first debuted in 1984, and it never turned into one of Nintendo’s major franchises. That doesn’t mean it didn’t have a lasting effect on the publisher’s games. In fact, NES Golf served as inspiration for one of Nintendo’s most popular games ever: Wii Sports. The courses in the golf game for Wii Sports were taken directly from Golf for the NES.
But while many Nintendo fans could take or leave Golf, the game’s inclusion in the NES as well as its support for motion controls could reveal how Nintendo plans to treat its library of classics on the Switch. The company has already talked about giving players a couple of NES and Super Nintendo games each month with extras like online play as part of its $20 annual premium subscription service. But it seems likely that the publisher has at least tested out other enhancements as well, and that could mean more games get motion support.
Nintendo hasn’t said much else about how it plans to use its immense back catalog on the Switch, but with fans uncovering secrets like NES Golf, the company may have to come out and tell customers exactly what is going on.