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

 

[Ssingledad7]

Its

Working

 

[Ssingledad7]

Its working

 

[DarkAkuma]

Its working

Umm... to put those images in proper context... The first one is me just getting Sloop (GBA emu) installed on my hardware. The second image IS NOT SLOOP running. Its Hiyoko, the GB/GBC emulator.

I have been able to get Sloop to boot into the menu on my hardware, but that is all. All the games crash when you try to boot them right now.

I plan to look into it more tomorrow to see if I can get past that, but I have no idea if I will be able too.

I will warn not to expect much though. These emus are dev emus. Meaning, they are to be considered still in development. Unfinished. For example, while the GB emu runs well for the little I played... it doesn't seem to support sram or save states. The GBA emu is a bit further along, but its probably unfinished in other ways.

Anyway. I posted my observations for this entire leak over in this other thread.

 

[ertaboy356b]

A GBA Looking switch lite confirmed. lol

 

[ninjistix]

GOLDEN SUN LETS GOOOOOOO BOIIIII

 

[HarveyHouston]

I wonder what they'll do for a dedicated virtual console controller like the other 4 services have seen. This is my prediction:

View attachment 306694

I imagine it probably will be something similar, shaped exactly like the GBA, but naturally without a screen. Probably my most outlandish claim would be a built in accelerometer, I could see that not being included, but there were a handful of great GBC and GBA games that utilized gyro, so it certainly would have merit.

I think more like Game Boy Micro:

I believe it's not going to have a lot of frills like you described. If any controller is released for Game Boy games (which I doubt), it will be like the Game Boy Micro here. It will be registered as a Joy-Con, with no functional screen. It might have accelerometer and rumble features, but again, I have my doubts that such a controller may even be released.

 

[Deleted member 42501]

Threads like this are so amusing as fans expect N to fulfill their fantasies or actually deliver something that isn't representative of the bare bones "minimum effort, maximum cash extraction" ideology they're known for.

Withered thinking with lateral technology is what they'll serve up. And you'll like it.

​

You know the rest...​

 

[phreaksho]

They're finally gonna release Mother 3 to the general population

 

[MikaDubbz]

I think more like Game Boy Micro:
View attachment 306741
I believe it's not going to have a lot of frills like you described. If any controller is released for Game Boy games (which I doubt), it will be like the Game Boy Micro here. It will be registered as a Joy-Con, with no functional screen. It might have accelerometer and rumble features, but again, I have my doubts that such a controller may even be released.

While I agree it may not have all the frills (though they packed rumble in the N64 controller, so ya never know), I am certain that it would be shaped after the original GBA and not the micro though, I would put money on that. They tend to go after the original model with these controllers. I would have much preferred that the NES Switch controllers were modeled after the later and more comfortable dogbone controllers, but they went with the original version, probably because the original models are so iconic.

 

[Mikemk]

I think more like Game Boy Micro:

I believe it's not going to have a lot of frills like you described. If any controller is released for Game Boy games (which I doubt), it will be like the Game Boy Micro here. It will be registered as a Joy-Con, with no functional screen. It might have accelerometer and rumble features, but again, I have my doubts that such a controller may even be released.

Hopefully they'll add support for using the NES Controllers for GBA games. they have the same buttons after all, and the NES controllers even have shoulder buttons.

 

[MikaDubbz]

Hopefully they'll add support for using the NES Controllers for GBA games. they have the same buttons after all, and the NES controllers even have shoulder buttons.

I imagine that should totally be possible. SNES controllers will work great too, but with 2 extra buttons of course. Heck the N64 controller should be a totally viable option too if held at both far sides, though why one want that control scheme is beyond me lol.

 

[MikaDubbz]

Threads like this are so amusing as fans expect N to fulfill their fantasies or actually deliver something that isn't representative of the bare bones "minimum effort, maximum cash extraction" ideology they're known for.

Withered thinking with lateral technology is what they'll serve up. And you'll like it.

​

You know the rest...​

I feel like based off the other 4 retro services they've released thus far, we know exactly what we're in for and have tempered expectations appropriately. The most outlandish thing we're doing is speculating on the controller, but I feel we're still doing that within the boundaries of what can reasonably be expected based on the controllers they've released this far.

 

[dh3lix-pooch]

Another 25bucks subscription incoming soon.

 

[EndlessEyes]

I mean we're talking about the Nintendo that allowed Wii owners to buy a NES rom(s?) that had a homebrew/emulator header in it.

That's actually a misconception (That they downloaded ROMs to resell I mean). A developer of iNES was hired by Nintendo and helped develop the NES emulator used in Animal Crossing, which was likely why emulator headers were found not only in Animal Crossing NES ROMs but also the VC ones later on.

 

[Drogy]

:Bogen:

 

[Tac 21]

man it's been a dream to play GBA games online officially.... we are getting so close to that.

there is unoffical methods but it reqiures SOO much work around no one ever does it.


this though.... man now it just needs to be REGULAR NSO and NOT expansion pass.

 

[Gozaburo]

You better buy an EZ-Flash or an Everdrive instead of this overpriced loan transactions.

 

[fmhugo]

Retroarch does :v

 

[Ajlr]

There should be hope that this is good, right???

 

[enpeaphor]

GBA on that OLED would look something special!