Former Nintendo Of America president Reggie Fils-Aimé has said fans shouldn’t get their hopes up about more Earthbound content.
Earlier this year, the Earthbound series (or Mother as it is known outside of the West) received renewed attention after Nintendo announced that both Earthbound and its predecessor Earthbound Beginnings would be added to Switch Online’s SNES and NES apps. Also, Earthbound character Ness has been a central figure in the Super Smash Bros. games.
A third game in the series was released for the Game Boy Advance in 1995 but the title was never given an official English version despite the producers wishes.
Speaking on the Kinda Funny Gamescast Fils-Aimé spoke about his desire as a fan
to see “older franchises with a new look” like the recently released The Legend Of Zelda: Link’s Awakening game for Nintendo Switch. “I’d love to see something with Kid Icarus and a new direction there,” he continued before host Blessing mentioned Earthbound.
“Oh, how long did it take until Earthbound and the Mother franchise came up,” laughed Fils-Aimé. “Don’t hold your breath,” he continued before adding “I’m not there, I don’t know what’s going on.”
He went on to explain that former Nintendo CEO Mr Iwata “really understood the passion that fans had for the Mother series. And you need to remember that it was under his watch that Earthbound Beginnings was first brought on to the Virtual Console platform. The company knows that there’s a lot of passion for that franchise.”
However, Fils-Aimé dashed hopes by adding “thinking about how to make it current, thinking about how to make it bigger than just the, you know, the relatively small group of fans that desperately want to see Mother 3 or something next in the Earthbound series, that’s what the company I’m sure has been thinking about. And they just haven’t figured out yet the solution to that, or at least they haven’t been prepared to talk about it.”
He added: “The company has some forty plus franchises that every once in a while they go back, dust off and bring back as well as newer franchises that they’re constantly playing around with. It’s been a while since we’ve seen a brand new take on Donkey Kong but who knows. Like a fan, I’m just waiting.”
In other news, Nintendo Switch Sports is already making people smash their TV screens.
It comes after Nintendo customer service has repeatedly reminded customers to wear the wrist strap while playing.
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