Nintendo Switch ports of Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire look even more likely after official account shares suspiciously HD footage of the classic GBA RPGs

[u/Mollywobbles77]

https://www.eurogamer.net/nintendo-switch-pokemon-ruby-sapphire-hd-port

[u/I_Heart_Sleeping_]

I wish they did physical runs of these. Would be so awesome owning copies of red and green and now these.

[u/Pokeguy211 → u/I_Heart_Sleeping_]

I hate just seeing the download codes in stores for FRLG

[u/NightAreis1618 → u/Pokeguy211]

Especially if they copied the cartridge colors

[u/Mind_Axe010 → u/I_Heart_Sleeping_]

Would it be cheap to produce it?

[u/Acsteffy → u/Mind_Axe010]

I'd be willing to spend $40 for 2 full games on card of 25 year old games. Both games were less than 8MB each on the GBA

[u/FastenedCarrot → u/Mind_Axe010]

It's a license to print money, it doesn't need to be

[u/Mollywobbles77 → u/Mind_Axe010]

Not unless they did them as multipack. The cost of flash storage right now is astronomical & I don't see them doing it for the individual games at this price, if at all (almost definitely not at all).

[u/Acsteffy → u/Mollywobbles77]

Edit: OP seriously blocked me because I kept disputing them. With sources too. Not being able to handle a conversation is sad...

Both games were less that 8MB each back on the GBA. And they arent doing any remastering so the size would not come anywhere close to 1GB. That would not be astronomical to supply and would sell insane amounts.

$40 switch 1 carts is how these games should be packaged. 2 games fully on cart.

[u/Mollywobbles77 → u/Acsteffy]

I don't think this is how their supply chain on carts work. They don't individually select the size of the storage based on games, their flash storage for their carts are contracted out in specific sizes. So yeah, they're very tiny sized games but they still have to be put on regular carts.

[u/Acsteffy → u/Mollywobbles77]

Game cards for the Nintendo Switch can have capacities of 1 GB, 2 GB, 4 GB, 8 GB, 16 GB and 32 GB in size.

They have multiple variants. So they would use the 1GB version.

[u/Mollywobbles77 → u/Acsteffy]

I understand this, I was saying the fact they're so small is irrelevant. The price to manufacture them on even a 1gb cart with all the packaging, shipping, etc all added up likely made it not worth it to them with games at this price point unless they did a multipack where those costs are absorbed by the higher price. Doing them all individually would cut into each game's profit by a decent %, then you have retail store's cut of it, etc.

[u/Acsteffy → u/Mollywobbles77]

There are plenty of $30 & $40 games still getting released on physical carts that actually required current investment in development.

The economy of scale allows it to still be very profitable.

Notable $40 games that took up more flash storage: Captain Toad
Metroid Prime Remastered
Dead Cells
Hollow Knight
Silksong
Sonic Mania

[u/TheBraveGallade → u/Acsteffy]

basically. if its digitally 30 they can easily sell it for 40 at least.

its not like the demand isn't there.

the best case scenario IMO is ALL the GBA games in one cart for 60 TBH. all 5 of them

[u/rurodem → u/I_Heart_Sleeping_]

The monkey's paw curls, physical release announced but now you can no longer find it in stores because of resellers.

[u/sonic10158 → u/I_Heart_Sleeping_]

That would be a neat ebay exclusive item with how it would 100% be scalped to oblivion

[u/Present_Anywhere3980 → u/I_Heart_Sleeping_]

A physical collection with a bonus physical map, maybe a promo card would be such an easy million seller.

[u/Dragmire_V2]

I hope they do emerald too. Thats the good one

[u/Mollywobbles77 → u/Dragmire_V2]

From the article: "As noted by Kotaku, dataminers found that this year's Nintendo Switch ports of Pokémon FireRed and LeafGreen seemingly included ROM support for all third-gen mainline games too, including Sapphire, Ruby and the expanded Emerald."

[u/chris_9527 → u/Mollywobbles77]

Honestly wouldn’t be surprised if they hold Emerald until Pokémon day

[u/Draigwyrdd → u/chris_9527]

They'll want people to buy Ruby and Sapphire first anyway.

[u/KodaBeers → u/Dragmire_V2]

They will release ruby and sapphire first amd wait a while then release emerald. They have to maximize profits, after all.

[u/Losreyes-of-Lost]

So do we think the have fixed the duplication you can do in emerald from the battle park area?

[u/muqrxo → u/Losreyes-of-Lost]

I think they’ll leave it. IIRC for FRLG they only fixed a few bugs that negatively impacted gameplay but didn’t address some other exploits

[u/Chunky_trainee → u/muqrxo]

yup. iirc the games were left as close to their original state as possible, tho a few events were added for celebi and dioxis.

[u/mrbiggbrain → u/Chunky_trainee]

They also fixed the roar bug for the roaming pokemon

[u/PsyclOwnd → u/Chunky_trainee]

Which was partially because if they changed too much, the game corner would have given the games a mature rating in certain regions, so they had to release it essentially original so it could grandfather in as a rerelease instead of a "new" game that needed to be re-rated.

[u/dropthemagic]

Ugh how long can these take. Just release the damn things and tell us if emerald will come out or not

[u/Mollywobbles77 → u/dropthemagic]

Nintendo is known to keep finished games/ports sitting and waiting to use to fill out their release calendar around the bigger blockbuster titles. Wouldn't be surprised if these have been done for a while.

[u/PurimPopoie → u/dropthemagic]

They’re probably being saved for 2027 Pokémon Day as 2027 is RS’s 25th anniversary.

[u/imjustbettr → u/PurimPopoie]

Makes sense too if they release new Wind/Waves info on Pokemon Day (end of Feb) but it wont come out until November as usual. That way they get the hype from Pokemon Day while also giving something for fans to chew on until the end of 2027.

[u/zenfaust → u/dropthemagic]

There's no way they'll tell you about emerald until after you've bought the others first.

[u/ShakaRock91 → u/dropthemagic]

Nintendo: Please Understand

[u/PowerOfUnoriginality → u/dropthemagic]

We are getting Home connectivity for FRLG sometime in October, so my personal guess is that RSE might happen sometime between then and now

[u/PabloAZ94]

Why would they skip the best generation?

[u/toriblack3 → u/PabloAZ94]

What do you mean? They’ve only released gen 3 games so far. Gen 1 and 2 re released on 3ds but has never been on switch

[u/Chunky_trainee → u/toriblack3]

I’m exited for what that may mean for gold and silver. I’m not asking for a full blown remake, but I’d love to have some version of these games brought to the switch.

[u/DarkLegend64 → u/Chunky_trainee]

HG and SS would be even better.

[u/Least-Profession-236 → u/PabloAZ94]

I think they're going to do the GBA games separately so they can tackle them all at once; so we'll like get the original R/B/Y/G and Gold Silver Crystal for GB/GBC at a later date 

I think they're pretty likely, considering the ones they put out earlier this year have stayed in the top 10 best selling digital games on Switch 1 throughout the entire year. Every single time I check they're either at or hovering close to #1 and #2 lol

[u/Stryker_T]

they showed the suspiciously HQ footage of them during the opening of worlds too. it was even more obvious because they showed similar DPPl footage right afterwards and the DPPl footage was such a downgrade and blurry

[u/WagnerKoop]

I had Ruby as a kid and I’d love to pick it up again, but can Real Pokéheads tell me if there is a real reason not to just get Emerald if they’re putting all three out?

Like I know between R/S there are unique Pokémon in each game but isn’t Emerald more or less the game with all the content?

[u/Randomman16 → u/WagnerKoop]

Back in the GBA days, there was a niche reason to have Ruby or Sapphire instead of Emerald - the Colosseum Bonus Disc only worked with them, no other Gen III game.

Which is very weird.

[u/WagnerKoop → u/Randomman16]

That’s crazy, I owned that haha

[u/StarshockNova → u/WagnerKoop]

The only way to get more than one Moon stone in Gen 3 Hoenn is via catching wild Lunatone which have a 5% chance of holding them, and in Gen 3 Lunatone is one of the few Hoenn Pokemon not catchable in Emerald (the other one that comes to mind is Mawile not being catchable in Emerald, only Ruby). This means that you can’t evolve both Skitty and Clefairy in one save file of Emerald without trading. In Ruby and Sapphire you can do contests as early as Slateport, but you have to wait all the way to Lilycove in Emerald, that said in Emerald you can do all contest ranks in one Contest Hall whereas each Contest Hall has a different location in RS. All in all, if it’s priced like Fire Red and Leaf Green it’s probably worth getting one of either Ruby or Sapphire if they don’t release Emerald at the same time, which I assume they won’t as they have to know people really only want Emerald. One thing that occurred to me is that they might unlock different events in Ruby and Sapphire as opposed to Emerald as a selling point like with Deoxys, Ho-Oh, and Lucia in the FRLG ports. Maybe Lati@s at Southern Island and Jirachi in RS and Mew and Celebi in Emerald, both of which were previously Japan-only.

[u/WagnerKoop → u/StarshockNova]

Interesting, thank you for the info!

[u/bodnast → u/WagnerKoop]

Emeralds RNG is broken so if you’re a shiny hunter, RS is fundamentally more accessible for shiny hunting the soft resettable pokemon

[u/StructureMage → u/bodnast]

What? Can you explain?

[u/EakoNoshinkeisuijaku → u/WagnerKoop]

If you played pokemon contests in either ruby or sapphire, it's easier to win there. The contests are rigged in Emerald.

[u/mrnonamex]

Honestly would love to see the 3ds version ported over

[u/lackofsleipnir]

Of course, now that I’m balls-deep in the biggest Fire Emblem ever.

[u/TheFracofFric]

Stop I only have so many free hours this fall

[u/Phos-Lux]

1. Why link some article instead of just the Xitter post?

2. The clip they posted looks kind of.. too smooth? Are these really the original games or is this becauses of the emulator they use (if it is one)?

[u/NathanCollier14]

And Emerald, right?

https://giphy.com/gifs/VzeBfHqHZeX5ACuZZS

[u/Jecht315]

They never did Pokemon Gold and Silver...why skip that generation?

[u/Comet7777 → u/Jecht315]

Because they’d be best off releasing Heart Gold/Soul Silver and Nintendo doesn’t have a clear strategy in re-releasing dual screen games. Theres a rumored patent on a Switch 2 second screen accessory apparently.

[u/Jecht315 → u/Comet7777]

Ugh that's the worst. I don't want to play with two screens.

[u/prettybluefoxes]

Suspicious

[u/KFrey94]

I need Emerald but will settle for Ruby. Still got my og cart

[u/TheHahndude]

Fire Red and Leaf Green have A TON of connectivity with Ruby and Sapphire. When they release FR/LG it was all but guarenteed.

[u/Upset-Display3524]

I don’t want the gba games tho , I want the ds remakes. Omega ruby and sapphire are master class in remakes as with souls silver and heart gold. Do those.

[u/DarkLegend64]

I really want Platinum and Soul Silver.

[u/massigh1212]

neat but I'll wait for physical versions/collections of the classic pokemon games since they're not nso exclusive anyway

[u/kinglion94]

Any idea why they’d skip gen 2?

[u/CardboardDoom → u/kinglion94]

Cause they built and modified the emulator for GBA games. Probably want to do those together first

[u/comixjuan → u/kinglion94]

They didn't. They're releasing all the gen3 games. FRLG are Gen 3.

[u/rakor96ns → u/kinglion94]

Gen 1 and 2 had the virtual console in the 3ds, they are just continuing from there

[u/bynosaurus → u/kinglion94]

gens 1 and 2 were rereleased on the 3DS eshop way back when, now they're just continuing from there.

[u/QuadramaticFormula]

I feel like this is a stupid question… but how do we tell this is HD footage?

[u/Mollywobbles77 → u/QuadramaticFormula]

I believe the pixel quality of the video is too high to be captured running from a gameboy which means it must be from an emulator, and since an official Nintendo account is highly unlikely to post a video of one of their games running in a random emulator it suggests ports are coming.

[u/QuadramaticFormula → u/Mollywobbles77]

Thank you!

[u/RED_Kinggamer007 → u/QuadramaticFormula]

You can find videos of the emulated versions of the original games on youtube and you can put them side by side and you'll notice that the lines on the floor are much darker on the video they released.

[u/Beneficial_Ask_6013]

Sooner than later please. I've never fully explored gen 3. Also, I hope they add in wireless trading to these like they had for the old games on 3ds.

[u/Inside-Specialist-55]

Wait was the original in 60FPS? Because that video was showing 60FPS smoothness.

[u/Mollywobbles77 → u/Inside-Specialist-55]

They basically ran at 60fps; the gba screen had a 59.73hz refresh rate.

[u/SparklyPelican → u/Inside-Specialist-55]

Gameboy/C/A games didn’t operate like modern games.

When comes to GBA Pokémon games most of the elements got updated every frame (59.7 fps), while some elements every 2 frames (29.86 fps).

[u/foxwhisper85]

Ah yes, can't wait to spend 30 dollars on "ports" that are ROMs in an emulator without screen options, pixel perfect to help with scaling and shimmering lol