 The worst-kept secret in Nintendo history has finally been announced. Super Mario 3D All-Stars, a collection of Super Mario 64, Super Mario Sunshine and Super Mario Galaxy, has finally been confirmed for the Nintendo Switch. There's no prizes for guessing why Nintendo wanted to re-release these popular Mario titles on the Switch. The real question is, why on Earth did it take this long? After all, Mario 64 was one of the original titles available on the Virtual Console when this service debuted on the Nintendo Wii. When the Switch was first announced, fans were certain that not only Mario 64, but also Mario Sunshine, would be available soon after launch. Instead, it's taken three and a half years for the 3D Mario titles to be ported to the Switch, and the rest of Nintendo's Game Cube and Wii libraries are nowhere to be seen. Looking back at the history of the Switch, it's clear that this was actually the plan all along. According to a Nintendo spokesperson all the way back in 2018, there are a variety of ways in which classic games from Nintendo and other publishers are made available on Nintendo Switch, such as through Nintendo Entertainment System, Nintendo Switch Online, Nintendo eShop or as packaged collections. From the sounds of it, Nintendo has always been considering 3D All-Stars-style game bundles on Switch, but that may not have always been the company's plan A for re-releases. So why? If Nintendo knew that fans were eager to play classic 3D Mario titles on the Nintendo Switch, why did the company make us wait this long? Simple, Nintendo genuinely did bet everything on the Switch's online subscription service, while a packaged Mario collection had always been a possibility, the company was eager to focus first and foremost on Nintendo Switch Online. Also in 2018, then-president of Nintendo, Reggie Fisame, was asked in an interview how fans would be able to play Nintendo 64 games in the future. He made it clear that the plan was to release new titles on the Nintendo Switch online service, saying, We've now been very clear that as the consumer looks forward to engaging with our classic content, that is going to be happening more and more with the subscription service. Similarly, in a 2019 shareholder meeting, Nintendo representative director and president Shuntaro Furukawa said, Subscription-based services are becoming common in all sorts of industries, not just the games industry. Those sorts of services have already been implemented within the game industry, and it was even a popular topic of conversation at this year's E3. Nintendo also offers the Nintendo Entertainment System, NES, Nintendo Switch Online service, which allows members of Nintendo Switch Online, a subscription-based service, to play NES games. We believe that we need to further enrich these sorts of services in the future. Nintendo's policy is that we will consider whether each product we offer is suited to a subscription model as we expand our business in the future. From this, it's clear where ideas like Super Mario 35 have come from. The NES Mario Battle Royale seems like a logical way to further enrich Nintendo's subscription service. In the same shareholder meeting, president Furukawa was also asked specifically about N64 and GameCube games on the Switch. He said, We cannot provide any new information about how or in what form software developed for past platforms will be delivered to consumers in the future. Nintendo Switch Online is just one of a variety of forms in which consumers could play past titles, and we'd like to deliver them in some form. We're very aware that many of our customers have been asking for a way to play older titles like this. From the sounds of it, Nintendo went into the Switch era expecting that a Netflix-style subscription model was the smartest way of providing a virtual console-style library of games. It seems that Nintendo struggled to make this system a reality, and as time went on, the company heard increasingly loud and enthusiastic feedback from fans, asking for a better way to access classic games. Thus, Nintendo started considering repackaging some classic games as a new way of bringing titles to the Switch. Presumably, Mario games made the most sense as a trial for this system, especially with Super Mario Bros. 35th anniversary on the horizon. Then there were delays for reasons that we're all familiar with, because 2020 has been an eventful and yet also very uneventful year. And finally, Nintendo sheepishly announced Super Mario 3D All-Stars just two weeks before the package launches. Notice that 3D All-Stars is, according to Nintendo, only available until March of 2021. This certainly does sound like a trial before the rollout of similar packages. Let's hope this is the case. Some of us have been waiting for a better way to play the Legend of Zelda Skyward Sword for a very long time.