If dreams die at dawn, then Super Soccer’s will be one of the saddest awakenings ever. The endless debate between Physical and Digital takes on a new and perhaps fatal chapter, paving the way for heated discussions about what is right and what is wrong in the commercial multiverse of modern video games.
Super Soccer, a soccer title developed for the Super Nintendo and released here as well in 1992, was a modest success: thanks to fun gameplay and a focus on trying to deliver as much of a noteworthy simulation experience as possible, it skillfully rode the wave of emotion generated by the European Football Championship held that year in Sweden.
Super Soccer, even though I consider it a good game, is certainly not the best soccer title available on the market; in fact, it will no longer even be available, literally speaking: from March 27, 2025, it will indeed be permanently removed from the catalog of titles that Nintendo makes available to its subscribers to the online service. This is a nostalgia service with which Nintendo “rewards” subscribers’ loyalty by giving them the chance to play its historic titles, from Super Mario Bros 3 to Excite Bike, passing through semi-unknown gems in the West such as the game DodgeBall (beautiful!) and, precisely, sports-themed outsiders like Super Soccer.
È the first time that a game has been removed from the online catalog of a console, and as I mentioned at the beginning, this is not good news. First of all because, in practice, the collection of games to which a user, paying, has full rights after signing the agreement with the parent company is interfered with: I give you my money as a subscriber and you allow me to play classic titles.
Come Keanu Reeves in “The Devil’s Advocate,” I shed the official robes of a sharp pen that hurts more than the sword of the chosen one in Skyrim, and I tell you how things stand: Super Soccer is a product developed by a company that evidently still holds the rights to it, and with which Nintendo has not reached an agreement to continue keeping it under its wing, the only possible conclusion, alas, is that it be removed when the license expires.
Si ritorna al nervo scoperto del rapporto che vige tra videogioco e chi lo vende, tra chi lo compra e che ne detiene la proprietà: as you know, subscribing to an online service through your account associated with one of the consoles belonging to the modern triumvirate of video game entertainment (Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo) does not mean that you have purchased the digital title for which you have spent money. The license, and therefore true ownership, remains firmly in the hands of the entity that provides you with the use of the game in question. Can you now glimpse the dark well beyond the flickering lights of the flashlight you hold in your hand? With the removal of Super Soccer, Nintendo has created a precedent, that black well from before, where sooner or later all the games we have bought in digital format could fall, and that, if the online stores were to close down, will be removed from our cloud. Forever.
The value of preservation, a concept that both insiders and outsiders often throw around, does not lie in serving subscribers the titles that made this industry great and the adolescence, and not only the adolescence, of those who write and probably read, if then with a well-aimed swipe this cultural heritage is wiped away. Preserving is life; preserving is allowing a game, a film, a song, and the emotions tied to them to exist and endure in the years to come, beyond the usual market logic. Let us give value to the physical format: let us strengthen ourselves, on the front line, the meaning of the video game legacy that only a title capable of satisfying all five senses, including touch, can give us.
Why I don’t know about you, but I’ve always hated the unpleasant guy who, at the end of the little soccer game in the courtyard, after sharing sweat, shin kicks, and scraped knees, decided to take the ball home, not caring about anyone else.
