Pokemon Emerald, Sapphire & Ruby on Nintendo Switch hope after datamine uncovers key detail

A dataminer has discovered specific mentions of Pokemon Emerald, Sapphire and Ruby in the emulator that runs Pokemon FireRed & LeafGreen on Nintendo Switch and it's sparked hope online that there could be re-releases of Gen 3.

Pokemon FireRed & LeafGreen released on Nintendo Switch on Pokemon Day (27 February) and the announcement of it days beforehand was met with widespread fanfare, with fans relieved the game was being ported to more modern hardware.

There's hope among some online the Pokemon FireRed & LeafGreen releases could pave the way for more classic Pokemon games to be ported to the Switch.

And that's been heightened after a dataminer found specific mentions of Pokemon Emerald, Sapphire and Ruby in the emulator the Switch uses to run these games.

On BlueSky, Yakumono posted: "The emulator explicitly recognises ROMs of Ruby, Sapphire and Emerald alongside FireRed and LeafGreen.

"I found this alongside the initialisation code that is related to enabling emulator hacks for specific games."

While some online are hopeful, there are others that have pointed out the original Game Boy Advance releases had recognition of Ruby, Sapphire and Emerald in their code so that may have just carried over.

To be absolutely clear, Pokemon Emerald, Sapphire and Ruby releasing on Nintendo Switch is nothing more than speculation at this time.

Elsewhere from indy100:

• Pokemon Presents 30th Anniversary: Everything that was announced
• It's really happening! Pokemon FireRed & LeafGreen officially confirmed for Nintendo Switch

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