Nintendo’s Nostalgic Music App Honours Retro Gaming Wave
Published 21 November 2024
The retro gaming boom (see Pop Culture & Media Futures 24/25) is generating growing appetite for nostalgia-inducing gaming music: there’s been a 50% increase in user-created retro-gaming-themed playlists on audio streaming service Spotify (The Guardian, 2024). In response, Japanese gaming giant Nintendo has launched a mobile streaming app dedicated to music from its past and present iconic games.
Launched as a free app (for both Apple and Android devices), but requiring a Switch Online subscription, Nintendo Music surpassed 1.2 million downloads in its first four days of release (Nintendo Life, 2024). Its music collection spans soundtracks and theme music across nine generations of consoles and nearly 40 years of gaming releases, from Nintendo Entertainment System’s (NES) retro classic Super Mario Bros (1985) to recent ‘cosy gaming’ Nintendo Switch title Animal Crossing: New Horizons (2020). Users can search for tracks by game, character and console, or explore curated themed playlists, such as Good Night, Walking, and Powering Up.
A ‘spoiler prevention’ feature allows users to prevent music from games they’ve yet to complete from cropping up on playlists. In addition, they can extend tracks by up to an hour for ongoing ambient music – mirroring the background audio they’d hear while playing their favourite games.
The music app extends an ongoing commitment to fans of Nintendo’s legacy games: with a Switch Online subscription, gamers can also access a library of first-party emulated games from previous consoles. Nintendo began retro game emulation (making old games playable on modern tech) for the Switch in 2017 with 20 titles from the NES. Most recently, it introduced Game Boy Advance games in 2023.