Nintendo of America Finally Comes Through For Earthbound Fans

Poo, Jeff, Ness, Paula from Earthbound

It doesn't take a genius to know that Earthbound has to be my absolute all time favorite video game. I remember being 12 years old, going to a friend's house and being introduced to Earthbound. Oh the horror once I realized that I loved this game, but had to go home without it! Eventually, I was able to borrow it and finish my first-time experience with Earthbound.


It is no secret, from the moment the Virtual Console came about on the Wii, Earthbound fans salivated at the idea of playing it again. I'm sure there were many, like me, whose SNES broke for some reason or another and the games went into storage and somehow disappeared (ahem brothers and sisters out there) into oblivion. Then once you were out on your own and figured to hit up eBay to see if you could start your new collection of the classics only to find Earthbound was at nauseating prices. Then you find out that Nintendo of America, or NOA, had absolutely no plans to release Earthbound on the Wii VC even after getting a rating from the ESRB. Then there were rumors over the whole music and copyright infringements (which I never believed and still today call bullcrap). It seemed like there was no end in sight for us to finally be able to play again as the silent protagonist Ness with his new friends Paula, Jeff and Poo. For an AWESOME history lesson on Earthbound check out this guy's videos about it By Clicking HERE It is the best videos out there. Just pardon the language and innuendo.

Skip ahead to the Wii U. We got an announcement from a Nintendo Direct that said the VC on Wii U was coming. They decided to do a trickle down (ridiculously STUPID) one game a month for 30 cents with the guise of celebrating the 30 year anniversary of the Famicon. I just think it was a cover that they were not ready with a respectable lineup, but just my opinion. It didn't take long after the announcement for some Nintendo fans to look at the Japan Nintendo Direct only to discover that Japan was getting Mother 2 (or Earthbound stateside) for the equivalent of 30 US cents. ARE YOU KIDDING ME???? Fans from all over the globe were outraged to say the least. Miiverse was full of complaints and drawings, rumors about the copyright junk swirled again, and people were getting their torches and pitchforks out ready to riot. Nintendo finally got their heads out of their butts and realized that they could make some scratch on us. So they came out with another Nintendo Direct and in less than probably 30 seconds they announced Earthbound would be released in all regions.

FINALLY brothers and sisters, it is HERE......well sort of. There is no release date for it yet. If I were Nintendo I would put a ton of emphasis on this release. There are people that are interested in buying a Wii U just to get their hands on Earthbound without the need for emulators and roms. We all know the Wii U could use a nice jump in sales! After months of a painful drought (seriously Nintendo Lego City was your crown jewel for the spring?) we Wii U owners have SOMETHING to look forward to. Pat yourselves on the back Nintendo, after about 6 months of doing very little right concerning the Wii U, you stepped up and knocked it out of the park with the hypothetical cracked bat!

The thing that makes me the happiest is that there will be a new generation of young gamers that will get their first experiences in the Mother world. Who knows? Maybe they were waiting because they are developing one of those Old School to New School HD remakes. I believe they finally saw that demand was too high to ignore and fans all over the world were reaching their boiling point regardless of a HD remake. Nothing has been even hinted that Nintendo is pursuing an HD remake so don't get your hopes up. Seeing is always believing.

I hope Nintendo learns something from this. I hope they begin to listen to their fans and most importantly their customers. Also I hope they start to take a serious look at the home console market trends and demand. While there are many out there that think this will be the last generation of home consoles, and they could be right, there is still lots of money to be made. Here's hoping this is the beginning of new things from Nintendo of America. History isn't on their side, but us fans are rooting for you. Prepare to battle Gygas one more time folks!!! Buzz Buzz is clearing his throat for the encore presentation.