Nintendo Something To Consider, ‘Earthbound’ Fans: It Appears Peaceful Means Of Bringing About An ‘Earthbound’ Rerelease Have Failed You Yet Again

[Jason]

Something To Consider, ‘Earthbound’ Fans: It Appears Peaceful Means Of Bringing About An ‘Earthbound’ Rerelease Have Failed You Yet Again

WWW.THEONION.COM

---

Well, well, well, JRPG fans. Look where we find ourselves yet again. For years, you’ve tried to get Nintendo to re-release Earthbound, and, once more, they’ve callously spurned your pleas without a second thought. Time and again, your peaceful means of bringing about an updated version of the 1995 cult classic have…

 

[BloodyHell]

I know this is a joke article, but I thought there was legal reason they couldn't re-release Earthbound?

 

I have a boxed copy, and a repro cart (because I wanted to keep the box copy sealed). It's one of my favorite SNES games. It and FFVI are my only sealed, boxed games (bought before prices got stupid). 

[GameDadGrant]

7 hours ago, BloodyHell said:

I know this is a joke article, but I thought there was legal reason they couldn't re-release Earthbound?

 

I have a boxed copy, and a repro cart (because I wanted to keep the box copy sealed). It's one of my favorite SNES games. It and FFVI are my only sealed, boxed games (bought before prices got stupid). 

 

There's no legal reason they can't re-release Earthbound. In fact, they've already re-released several times recently(ish). It's on Wii U Virtual Console, NEW 3DS Virtual Console, and on the SNES Classic Mini. 

 

It's not on Switch (at least, not yet!)  because Nintendo gonna Nintendo. 

[Derek]

I bet they are secretly giving it a 'Link's Awakening' makeover and going to give everyone a very Merry Christmas in 2022. 😀

[Fizzzzle]

I know it's not a problem for EarthBound, but a reason why a lot of older Japanese games don't get re-released or remade or whatever is because Japanese IP law is completely byzantine. In some cases, the art assets, the music, the code, and basically every individual element can exist as their own separate IPs that the publisher doesn't necessarily own the rights to, and in cases where the companies that made those assets don't exist anymore, it can become a nightmare.

 

At least a couple of the studios that worked on EarthBound are still around (HAL Labs is still around, and I think Brownie Brown just goes by a different name now), and I think Nintendo just owns the rights anyway, but yeah... Japanese IP laws are nuts.