Nintendo of Europe has filed several trademarks for classic game controllers—amongst them, an N64 controller.
On July 18, 2017, Nintendo of Europe filed several trademarks via the European Union Intellectual Property Office. Four figurative trademarks were created for several controllers, including those for the NES, SNES, Switch and perhaps most curious of all, for the Nintendo 64.
All four of the trademarks were filed under the same classification, which fall under goods and services and can include anything from controllers and joysticks for cell phones, parts and accessories for cell phones, and controllers and joysticks for computers to consumer video game apparatus, parts and accessories for consumer video game apparatus, and controllers and joysticks for consumer video game apparatus.
Released back in 1997, 1996 in Japan, The Nintendo 64 was home to many iconic video game franchises such as Super Mario 64, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, and of course, Goldeneye.
There is the possibility this could lead to a Nintendo 64 Mini, although due to the nature of that systems architecture, it would be harder to emulate compared to the SNES or the NES. With the SNES Mini hitting this holiday season, it would be no surprise if Nintendo was working on the next nostalgia-fueled system.
There is also speculation from the above description that the trademarks could relate to a Virtual Console-like experience for these classic titles. Nintendo currently has not stated how they want to handle the Virtual Console on the Nintendo Switch. A paid online premium service is set to release for the system, which will give consumers access to a collection of classic NES titles in a manner similar to Netflix, however, this service seems to be independent of a possible Virtual Console.
Currently, the only retro titles available on the Switch are that of Neo Geo, but are lacking any form of Virtual Console branding, suggesting that Nintendo may still be unclear on how to deploy the beloved legacy game service on to their latest console.
