After many years of waiting and speculation, Satoru Iwata finally announced that EarthBound would be released on the Wii U Virtual Console in this announcement video. This was during the April 17th, 2013 Nintendo Direct, following MOTHER 2’s re-release in Japan only a month prior. Iwata states the decision was made to bring the game to the Virtual Console due to the passionate wishes from fans, displaying images from MOTHER 2’s Miiverse board.
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