Nintendo Will Delist A Switch Online Game For The First Time, But Only In One Region

Nintendo Switch Online subscribers have enjoyed re-released games for a variety of retro consoles for years now, but it seems that the titles on the service are not necessarily permanent. That's because Nintendo has announced that it will remove the Super Famicom sports game Super Formation Soccer on March 28, better known as Super Soccer in the US. However, this removal only applies to Switch Online in Japan.

As spotted by VGC, this will be the first time that a game has been removed from the Switch Online retro library. However, it's worth noting that Nintendo has not announced plans to remove Super Soccer from the European or North American versions of the retro library, so you can still play it for now in those regions.

It's not immediately clear why the Japanese version of the game is getting removed from the service, or whether it's a sign of more delistings to come. However, it's worth noting that the Super Formation Soccer IP appears to be owned by Spike Chunsoft, whereas Super Soccer was published by Nintendo, indicating that there's likely a rights ownership disparity by region. In today's digital gaming climate, games are often delisted for a variety of reasons.

Legendary game designer Hideki Kamiya panned the move in a recent tweet. "Hey hey hey... I guess subscriptions are no good after all," he wrote, according to a machine translation. "Seriously, bring back the Virtual Console." Though the Wii, Wii U, and 3DS Virtual Console service had its own delistings over the years, those who bought those removed games (like Street Fighter 2) still had access to them afterward.