Super Smash Bros. Melee is a few generations removed from the current, reigning Smash Bros. title, but its eSports presence has only grown in recent years. That’s led to many players—who are tired of lugging around old CRT televisions to play the GameCube game on—to ask for a “Melee HD,” and it sounds like they may finally be getting it, or at least something close.
It’s already been rumored that the upcoming Nintendo Switch, due out in March, will feature games ported over from the Wii U, which only makes sense as a way to showcase the undersold system’s greatest software. On the virtual console side, however, fans have been left waiting a long time to get their hands on downloadable versions of GameCube games, with nothing to show for it. Now, Eurogamer has reported that multiple independent sources have confirmed to them that the Switch will indeed feature GC games as downloadable “virtual console” titles.
Eurogamer’s record with leaked information leading up to the Switch announcement was pretty reliable, which makes this a fairly exciting prospect. While there’s far from any guarantee of upgrades to virtual console titles, playing Melee natively on the Switch should at least allow tournaments to use modern TVs. If there are upgrades, the easiest one would be a resolution bump to make the game’s visuals cleaner on HD displays (which the game really shouldn’t come without), though until an official announcement is made, we’ll keep dreaming of added online modes, as well.
There’s already a robust online community that uses emulation to play Melee in ranked matches over the Internet, so an officially supported version already has a market ready and waiting. Even without online play, an updated Melee would be good news for the game and its competitive scene’s longevity. Melee is apparently just one among the planned GameCube titles that has already been prepped for release, with Super Mario Sunshine and Luigi’s Mansion also ready and waiting, and Animal Crossing also in the works.
(via Eurogamer, image via Nintendo)
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