Hamster Talks About Porting Nintendo Arcade Titles Onto The Switch

Mario Bros. for the Nintendo Switch marks the first time a Nintendo arcade game gets brought to the Switch under the Arcade Archives series but how did Hamster go about porting Nintendo Arcade Archives titles to the Switch.

Speaking to Nintendo Dream, Hamster’s CEO, Satoshi Hamada, said that he had proposed the idea of a Nintendo Arcade Archives to Nintendo personally and the idea was already being discussed even before the Nintendo Switch was revealed to the public.

When both sides agreed to the idea, Nintendo and Hamster had to decide which games to port first, Mario Bros was quickly chosen as it was a game that “would have the best impact as the first title, fits well with the Switch, and makes everyone happy”. It also helped that the Joy-cons easily allowed for two-player mode just like when the game was in the arcade.

However, putting the 30-year-old game onto the Nintendo Switch was no easy feat. Although Nintendo did help out, development was done by Hamster themselves. Interestingly, developers who had worked on Mario Bros. arcade machines 30 years ago were brought back to debug the port.

Hamada hopes to put more Nintendo Arcade Archive titles on the Nintendo Switch in the coming months with one being released every three to four months.

You can read NintendoEverything’s translation of the interview with Hamada here.