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How Nintendo Classics Would Emulate Game Peripherals

Published on 15 Aug 2026

I randomly felt like talking about a deep subject: How would those apps deal with peripherals for the systems it is emulating. I’d love to spin some positives here and there than just talking shit, and I would actually talk about everything in a bit more detail when relevant.

NES

Zapper

Very much missing. Haven’t found any traces of it in the emulator, but the game would just be treated as a Zapper game, and you would just aim at the screen with a gyro.

I would make it work with every controller setup, and there should definitely be a recenter button as gyro aiming can still be iffy especially on Switch 1.

I’d even wonder about the idea of making a Zapper reproduction where you put a Joy Con inside. But Japan had a very realistic gun so I dunno how that would work there.

Wii U Virtual Console already showed a good example of it, and they even removed the flashing entirely (I assume it’s just hidden, the user just doesn’t see it.)

R.O.B.

That seems dumb, but it’s still something that I think they should do.

You can just simulate a ROB. Have a 3D model of it, have some really rudimentary physics engine that’s very fast to process to manage gyros for Gyromite and blocks for Stack Up, and you’re already good. They would definitely remove the flashing when it communicates to ROB similar to the Zapper.

But you could go the way further about it, and you could provide automated setups for it, especially for Stack Up where everything is kind of burdened to the player to even say if they won or not, we could remove that this time around.

…If you really wanna go crazy though, I’d say to make a custom bluetooth R.O.B. device with literally everything. No need to point at the screen, it can just receive the command from the Switch 1/2. It would probably cost $100 again, but I’ll bet you people would pay… including me. Also make it Labo compatible or something, make us be able to use it outside of it, I think it would be fun.

Family Basic

You can really just pull a similar thing to the SNES Mouse for mouse exclusive games, warn the player to use a USB Keyboard. We can use USB Mouse so surely that can work too.

I think it would be cool to let players program games on it, even if it’s very limited, and simply provide a simple cheat sheet containing all the Basic syntax and all the graphics.

…But I don’t know if Nintendo would do that much effort.

Famicom 3D System

This is something that might be problematic to emulate. Some games are compatible with it to provide a 3D effect, it works with a shuttering effect where basically the game draws the left frame and tells the device it is the left frame, then the right frame and tells the device it’s a right frame, and so on.

It’s only relevant for 8 games on Famicom, and among those is only one Nintendo game that has never been rereleased: Famicom Grand Prix: 3D Hot Rally, which has very very wacky effects.

It’s where you could probably take the Virtual Boy stereoscopic 3D management code, based on the game instead of the entire app. But I don’t see it happening.

Super NES

Super Scope

You might feel like it would be similar to the NES Zapper, you would be right… to some extent.

The Super Scope, even if it’s a light gun, it works differently. This peripheral can tell where it is aiming at on a CRT TV without needing any flashing cues. However, it does require a calibration where you aim at the center of a bull’s eye so it can center the sensor.

You can simply force a specific calibration when it comes to inside the emulation itself, avoiding a lot of confusion.

However on the outside of the emulation, in how we have to manage the controller to then properly input into the emulator, I have two ways on how to manage recentering from a gyro perspective:

There’s also one other thing about the Super Scope: It has two modes when you turn it on, either ON, or TURBO.
TURBO is a mode where the normal Fire button would repeat firing unlike in just ON. I’d like to say that the emulator would automatically set it to TURBO or ON depending on the game, it is an instruction that is usually told from the title screen. I don’t think I’d heard of a game that wants you to change it, but if so, then I think it should be a setting on the View/Change Controls menu.
Definitely a lot of ways to simplify playing Super Scope games for most users.

There’s then the case of Tin Star, which supports the Controller, Mouse and Super Scope. This game can actually switch between all 3 on the fly, however, Super Scope would elevate the brightness of the game if used to help it sense the screen. I wonder if they would hack the game to never use the higher brightness colors like with GBA games that are compatible with Game Boy Player. It’s definitely worth doing that in my opinion. I really wonder if the game could have a new option in View/Change Controls where you can switch between the 3 or something like that.

Metal Combat Falcon’s Revenge is also a game that requires the emulation of a new chip, the OBC1. That chip is very easy to emulate though, like, a lot easier than everything else, because it just recalculates stuff for sprites.

Would you also maybe want some sort of Super Scope peripheral to buy? They could do that, but I think I would pass on such a thing, it gets really tiring after holding it for a while, though save states would definitely make this a lot manageable for shorter sessions.

Famicom 3D System

Surprise, one game actually supports this, Hyper Zone, by HAL Laboratory, but it’s clearly something Nintendo did not really support.

I don’t think they would ever acknowledge this, but I think it would be cool to see a Mode 7 game in 3D.

Satellaview

That one can honestly be worth a post of its own, and I might do one. Also, I need to remind that I made an explainer post about it, which you can read by clicking here.

Emulating the Satellaview itself, and the BS-X cartridge, aren’t really the complicated part. The complicated part is whether or not Nintendo has effectively backed up Satellaview games in their entirety and the audio if they use it, and if the rights are cleared for the audio.

The games that don’t use any audio should be easy, and could just be included on the SNES app. Some of them are definitely worth rereleasing, with rarely any serious language barrier problems.

However, the soundlink games are more complicated: They’re all voiced in japanese, and usually they have tons of japanese text to the point of being a requirement to understand how to play. You could make subtitles, but that does not really entirely solve it either. Dubs could work, but how many languages we would need to do it with?
There’s really tons of questions around how to repackage those games outside Japan.

It’s really hard to say if they would bother. The Nintendo Museum does acknowledge it 2 times though!

Nintendo 64

Voice Recognition Unit

Hey You, Pikachu! is a game that is sometimes talked about in some places about its NSO inclusion.

The problem about this device though, is that it is the device itself doing the voice recognition, not the game, meaning it’s the emulator that has to have the burden to do that part itself, and it has to do it twice: one for Japanese, one for English.

Honestly I don’t know if it’s truly worth it. The Switch 2 does come with a sort of voice recognition in the system, so maybe this can be leveraged, but it’s not as simple as plugging that to the game, unfortunately.

64DD

I have mentioned this in another blog post in a lot more detail, if you wanna read it click here.
There is also the explainer post that you can read by clicking here.

But to sum it up in how I think about it today:

Transfer Pak

Kind of a missed opportunity, because for once, all consoles are on the same system.

Unfortunately, Pokémon Company has high standards for the management of the individual pokémon, and Pokémon Stadium 1 & 2 are simply not allowed to use it.

Mario Golf and Mario Tennis could make use of it, but instead, you can’t. Mario Tennis on Game Boy already has all Transfer Pak content unlocked, Perfect Dark on N64 actually unlocks the cheats that Transfer Pak allows to unlock. However, Mario Tennis N64 does not have the Transfer Pak content unlocked, but the game was added to the service way before Game Boy was launched, so maybe they were still thinking about it until they decided not to do it. It would still be cool to at least unlock them if we can’t have them otherwise like with the GB version.

Controller Pak

This one is actual nonsense, because the emulator actually supports it.

Just to be clear: I am referring to the memory card pak for the controller. The Controller Pak is its official name.

I do not understand why it hasn’t been used yet, even by games that don’t even support the Rumble Pak. It’s still something that I find unbelievable.
But then the Donkey Kong 64 update changed some of the code in relation to those paks, the 4 controllers can have different paks each now. It would be cool to finally have something.

One more mention for a specific game: WINBACK. This game has both single player and multiplayer, it can use both the Controller Pak and Rumble Pak. However, it has the worst support for both of them. N64 games usually allow you to switch between Controller Pak and Rumble Pak when prompted.
Winback is one that cannot let you switch ever, meaning if you want to enjoy both for the single player, you have to put the Rumble Pak on Controller 1, and the Controller Pak on Controller 2, sitting unused, only for saving. And no, I tried to mess around quickly on how we could swap them, you can’t without some deeper hacking that makes sure everything stays stable.

I would not be surprised if Controller Pak would never be supported on this game just because of how much of a mess it is, because now you have to have a choice between whether you want to play for single player in the way I mentioned or multiplayer where all controllers would have the Rumble Pak. I don’t think they would bother.

Game Boy (Color)

Super Game Boy

Let’s get that out of the way first: All Game Boy games on the app are emulated as Game Boy Color, regardless of the filter chosen. This is a smart move that maintains compatibility with save states, and I stand that it is a very good idea, the filter only changes the colors on the screen.

The problem however is that having Super Game Boy would break save state compatibility. There are emulators around that can actually emulate both Super Game Boy and Game Boy Color at the same time, but the problem is that Nintendo has standards: They seem to only emulate the games in the ways they were tested as back then, meaning this hybrid approach is out of the picture.

However, they can technically bypass this by hacking the games to some extent (it doesn’t have to be a deep hack, we’re not talking about colorizing into GBC), but would they even do that? There are some videos of the games on Nintendo Today that really just uses Super Game Boy footage. I don’t feel like it’s emulated though.

I don’t know honestly if they’ll ever do it. There’s so many features:

All of this could depend on how the game is programmed around it.

There are GB games that allows 4 players, like Wave Race. The app can probably act like the GBA app on this one.

Rumble

We would almost forget how some GB games have Rumble. That seems like a no brainer honestly.

Game Boy Camera

This one is a bit complicated. I don’t know if Nintendo would bother to support an external camera on Switch 1, because the OS on Switch 1 already supported the USB Mouse which made SNES Mouse support on Switch 1 easier. It’s not impossible but I don’t know on this one.

But at the same time, if I had to be honest: I think this is a thing that would be best to be on mobile. Have the GB emulator on mobile, and adapt the emulator around it in a way that allows intuitive controls on a touch screen. I think it can be nice.

Game Boy Printer

I don’t know if that’s worth emulating, but it’s possible. There was the whole thing about the instax Mini in Japan where you could easily print from Switch, so maybe emulating the Game Boy Printer in a way that outputs into the album as a screenshot is worth a consideration.

But I feel like every printed image can be seen first through the Game Boy screen, and sometimes even in color, so I don’t feel like it’s worth it.

Game Boy Advance

Mario Party Advance

This game is actually a special case. It comes with a full physical board with it.

It’s an odd game that has a single player mode, but then comes with a mode for use with the real board. I would like to see this board simulated on the app, with online support. But they won’t do that, it seems to ask for too much effort.

e-Reader

This would ask a lot.

Nintendo actually bothered for Super Mario Advance 4, Mario VS Donkey Kong (Japan only), and F-Zero GP Legend (Japan only) to have the e-Reader content included. However they could have bothered to include the GP Legend content and Mario VS Donkey Kong content worldwide, honestly.
I don’t like the idea of missing out, especially when Super Mario Advance 4 includes content that have never been released outside of Japan, and heck, even included all Level Cards in the European version which never had them released before despite having full e-Reader support in that version (hidden, with an official way to unlock it).

Super Mario Advance 4 also has Power-Up Cards, Switch Cards and Demo Cards too, which those are simply not accessible in the rereleases, and I do think we’re missing out on that too! But it means it would necessitate a special menu just for it to let us choose a card when prompting the card scan menu in the game.

And then there’s all the e-Reader card games and content that are still never rereleased. There’s also the case of Mario Party-e, which ALSO has a real life board with it, and many other cards.

Accelerometer

Mostly relevant for basically 3 games: Yoshi’s Topsy-Turvy, Wario Ware Twisted! and Koro Koro Puzzle Happy Panechu! (Japan Only).

Considering they bothered for Kirby Tilt ‘n’ Tumble, I would believe it would happen for those too.

It would be about time to finally have the European version of Wario Ware Twisted!

GameCube

Microphone

Unlike N64, the voice recognition is managed by the game, meaning we can just input the microphone audio into the game. Simple as that.

Bongos

Emulating the Bongos for Donkey Konga (if those can even be rereleased) and Donkey Kong Jungle Beat is pretty simple, it’s just a different kind of controller.

Modem / Broadband Adapter

Very few games support these, but one of these games is Mario Kart: Double Dash, which allows to play with up to 8 GameCubes on LAN, up to 16 players total if we count co-op. This… seems like an experience worth having, honestly. Even allows each player to have their own screen.

Kirby Air Ride and 1080° Avalanche also support this in LAN as well.

Phantasy Star Online also works, but I’ll be honest: I don’t see this game being added to the service at all.

GameCube - Game Boy Advance Cable

This is clearly the biggest question.

Unfortunately, Wind Waker does not use it for the Tingle Tuner… I hope it can happen later though.

But the question is mainly for Zelda Four Swords Adventures, where it is almost a requirement. You can play single player without one, but since multiplayer is the main thing, it’s clearly something we want.

The problem about it however: the only way to reliably do it is for each Switch 2 to emulate the GameCube, and up to 4 GBAs at once to sync up per player. I admit that I don’t know how complex this might be, and I don’t really know how much the GameCube emulation can be asking of the Switch 2 (for something that works better than Steam Deck, needs a reminder) and how much we can spare for 4 GBAs at once especially when considering GameChat at the same time.

It is maybe possible that I am completely overestimating this.