4Chan is the source of many internet leaks regarding video game files, and today is no exception; a set of three zips were uploaded to anonfiles, containing something rather interesting. Allegedly, within the files was a Game Boy emulator called Hiyoko and a Game Boy Advance emulator called Sloop, both developed by Nintendo themselves, through their European research and development team. The emulators were in NSP format, and users that downloaded the files quickly got them to work on their own modded consoles, which function and play GBA and GB ROM files. A video of the Sloop and Hiyoko emulators can be seen below, courtesy of Twitter user RatgorlHunter.

Rewind added in pre-1.0, very sloopy pic.twitter.com/b5E8xyfPJq

— RatgorlHunter (@RatgorlHunter) April 18, 2022

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Pokemon Pinball: Ruby and Sapphire and Yoshi's Island: Super Mario Advance 3 were shown to be working through the emulators, with settings within them curiously offering random matchmaking features. Given the existence of these files, it's likely that we'll be seeing Game Boy and Game Boy Advance games added to Nintendo Switch Online's game lineup sometime in the future. For now, nothing is officially confirmed.

*Another important piece of tidbit*, this was dumped from a Switch console, and not taken from Nintendo's servers, so this is *unrelated* to the other 2020/2021 Nintendo leaks. I'll still consider this a leak of its own though, as no GB/GBA NSO has surfaced yet. pic.twitter.com/SMqgJLV737

— MaxiBash (@trashbandatcoot) April 18, 2022

 

[the_randomizer]

I’m sure any other open source emulator works better than Nintendo one.

IDK, the one on Wii U was actually pretty solid, maybe because Nintendo didn't do it in-house, but hired M2 to do it and their emulators are top tier.

 

[raxadian]

My guess is either compilations or more for that stupid expansion pack thingie.

 

[M7L7NK7]

I’m sure any other open source emulator works better than Nintendo one.

It isn't like GB/GBA is hard to emulate anyway

 

[jurai]

Hmm, that part about the rom patches seem interesting. "Palette Re-tuning"?

Original gba games had their palettes brightened cuz of no backlight

 

[nWo]

Neat. I am a big fan of the GBA games. Hope this comes out sooner rather than later.

 

[Sonic Angel Knight]

Original gba games had their palettes brightened cuz of no backlight

Okay, so what does the patch do? Make stuff less bright like gameboy player or something?

 

[SuperrSonic]

It isn't like GB/GBA is hard to emulate anyway

Apparently, M2 had a hard time with Mario Advance 2. vid src.
(Every time a path is drawn when a level is finished, a black square is shown several times--NooDS has this bug too last time I tried it, but not mGBA or VBA-M.)

 

[Goku1992A]

We should have been had this…. I hope they put this on the $20 a year plan.

Although I have a hacked switch , and a vita it would be nice to get this feature

 

[scoobydude51]

Interesting, wonder if M2 is involved like they did the Wii U GBA emulator.

nope. it’s by NERD again. just like the other NSO emulators

 

[ChuckieFailure]

There is a firmware 14.1.1 update for the Switch. So......Yeah they know!

 

[CeeDee]

There is a firmware 14.1.1 update for the Switch. So......Yeah they know!

how does a firmware update to the system (which usually come out on Mondays around 5-6 PST) have anything to do with this leak, it's not like it's anything that'd be affected by a firmware change

 

[Moon164]

Cue up those Hoenn Trumpets.

I honestly don't think the Pokémon Company will make any Pokémon games available on Switch Online, we already have to pay for Pokémon Home which could very well be included in the Switch Online subscription, imagine the GB/GBC/GBA games...

I remember that 3DS Gen 1 and 2 Pokémon games cost more than other Virtual Console games, but the price was justifiable because of Pokémon Bank/Home, Multiplayer support and some ROM adjustments they made (like changes to some sprites and the Surfing Pikachu event in Pokémon Yellow and Pokeball GS in Pokémon Crystal)

 

[pokota]

my question is, how many iterations of VC is it going to take before Nintendo lets us remap the controls without remapping the entire sytsem?

 

[Nincompoopdo]

We will all be playing the GBA Advance Wars on the Switch before the Switch version is released.

 

[CeeDee]

my question is, how many iterations of VC is it going to take before Nintendo lets us remap the controls without remapping the entire sytsem?

One generation ago. It's actually a regression

 

[church_foster]

If this is native, this could be use for gba speedruns

 

[Something whatever]

Nintendo uses EZ-Flash cartridges in-house on emulation work

was Intelligent Systems busy?

 

[Ajlr]

Noice.

 

[MaxiBash]

Tweet blew up. Oops.

 

[The Real Jdbye]

Huh. Nintendo themselves use EZFlash flashcarts? That's fucking funny.
I guess official GBA dev hardware is hard to come by nowadays even for them.