Having foregone owning the Nintendo Wii U due to a lack of interest and of games, I missed out on a lot of the hidden gems on the system. One of the bigger releases was 2016’s Star Fox Zero, from PlatinumGames and Nintendo’s EPD team.
We know PlatinumGames and Nintendo have a great working relationship, even if one of their games has yet to be seen, four years later. Now, half a decade later and one of the console’s biggest games on the Wii U has yet to be ported to the Nintendo Switch.
Speaking to VGC, Platinum’s studio head Atsushi Inaba said that if Nintendo showed interest then the developer would “definitely” be interested in considering a new version of Zero, however, this is ultimately up to Shigeru Miyamoto.
“It’s unfortunate that people aren’t able to play older games because they’re locked out of the platform, so of course if possible we’d like to bring over any of those older titles to the newer platforms,” says Inaba about porting Star Fox Zero to Switch.”It kind of depends on what’s in the realm of actual possibility, but yes, if the chance came up it’s definitely something we’d like to think about.”
Having been developed for the Wii U, the game took advantage of the unique control scheme of the console’s additional screen. To port it over to the Nintendo Switch would be a feat itself. Iterating on the subject, Inaba says Nintendo would need to approve the update controls because it is their IP under the eye of Miyamoto.
“We have to respect what Miyamoto-san wants to do.”
As for the series moving from Wii U to the Switch, it means more people get to play it. The Wii U sold poorly with 13.5 million units sold in its lifetime, the jump to Switch seems like the perfect reasoning to get the library under one console. Given other games like Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze, Captain Toad Treasure Tracker, Hyrule Warriors, Xenoblade Chronicles, and more have successfully made the leap, it would be exciting to see the full library of exclusive get a second chance.
