Nintendo has finally acknowledged that admirable tribute to their former CEO and president, the late Satoru Iwata.
In case you weren’t already aware, an emulation of 1984’s NES Golf, along with added motion control support, was surprisingly found to be hidden on every single Nintendo Switch.
If the date on a Switch is set to July 11th, the day in which Iwata passed away, and both Joy-Cons are then used in the “Directly” gesture that Iwata was famous for, NES Golf loads on the system.
Most speculated this was a tribute to Iwata, the game’s chief programmer, who died in 2015 at the age of 55. Fast-forward to now, and for the first time since it was found, Nintendo of America’s president Reggie Fils-Aime has recognised the discovery.
Speaking to Kotaku, Reggie said:
So, two comments on this. It was identified by folks playing around in the firmware. We’ve got nothing officially to announce for that content or what the plans are for that content. So that’s that.
A typical Reggie-response so far then: vague teasing about potential future content. However, he continued:
Certainly anything that pays respect to my friend Mr. Iwata is something that is near and dear to me personally, but in terms of that execution and what it was meant to do or what the plans are, we’ve got nothing to announce.
So while it does indeed seem to be a tribute to Iwata, there appears to be more going on there.
We’d take a guess that a Virtual Console service is being tinkered around with on the Switch and the classic games available for it will have added motion control support – possibly being activated by the “Directly” arm gesture used by Iwata. Or, of course, we could be completely wrong.
Whatever is being worked on, Nintendo is keeping tight-lipped about it, but we’re sure to find out the full details next year.