Nintendo Renews Zelda, Metroid, And Donkey Kong Trademarks

Nintendo has swept in with another round of trademark renewals, including some big-hitting franchises. And Mach Rider. While this is probably business as usual for the big N, these freshly-filed games have a couple of things in common. So, like any sensible humans, let’s have fun and speculate!

Spotted by one user on Reddit, Nintendo has filed for four game trademarks to be renewed:

Initially, these four games — the aforementioned Mach Rider, The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap, Metroid: Zero Mission, and Donkey Kong Country 3: Dixie Kong’s Double Trouble! — look like a slightly random selection of Nintendo faves. However, there’s one big connection between the four: all of them are currently only available on the Wii U and 3DS Virtual Console stores (unless you own original hardware).

First thoughts, of course, turn to Nintendo Switch Online, which last year opened up to the Sega Genesis and Nintendo 64. Mach Rider and DCK3 wouldn’t be an issue here, as the NES and SNES are already on the service. But there have been rumours of Game Boy games coming to the service for a while now, so why wouldn’t its younger sibling, the Advance, follow?

Really, it’s just fun to speculate, so we want to stress — don’t take this as A SignTM. It might turn into something, in which case, great! It would be amazing to be able to play these on modern hardware… but it’s likely just a business doing business-like things.

But, hey, at least someone at Nintendo remembers Mach Rider!

Have some fun with us! What do you think these trademark renewals mean? And would you like to see GBA games on the NSO service? Let us know!