During recent days, a couple of interesting patents have shown up under Nintendo’s name:

The first one hints at the possibility of a SNES Classic: an image of the Super Famicon’s (SNES Japanese counterpart) controller, filled in December 5th. What stands out the most is the fact the picture isn’t showing an actual SNES/Super Famicon Controller, but a simpler version, akin to what the NES Classic’s controller looked like compared its original.

The possibility of a SNES Classic, while unconfirmed, seems just natural by looking at the success of both the NES’s revival (sold out entirely) and at that of the SNES back in the day, where it served as home of cult classics and hyper successful games alike – it was such a beloved and powerful console, there’s people still developing for it.

The second patent filling takes us a bit closer to the present, to the year 2002 where a very unique horror game released on the GameCube: Eternal Darkness, product of Rare’s then partnership with the big N, blew all of our minds by challenging everything we knew games could do: playing you out of your sanity, making you believe the console turned off by itself, tricking you into thinking the game crashed so you’d reset it, messing up your controllers (and controller sockets!), and much more.

So, with a patent for the game itself surfacing, the least we can expect is this legendary GameCube title being among the first featured in the rumored GameCube Virtual Console, and at best, they do a Sin and Punishment 2 and give us a sequel (highly unlikely considering its origin, but the Switch does sell itself as third-party friendly so we can’t be sure).