In line with the upcoming Nintendo Switch Presentation, many rumors and leaks are coming out regarding possible content for the company's newest console. One of the most recent, and possibly most impacting to the western market, is the rumor that Mother 3 will be released for Switch.

According to Nintendo Insider, via her Twitter account, Laura Kate Dale shared that the game will be made available for the console's Virtual Console on the second quarter of 2017. She also adds that the announcement will be included on the presentation event for the Switch.

Nintendo Everything reports that rumors about the possible localization of the game by Nintendo have been going on, with some stating that a Wii U release was on its way. While Japan may have received their Virtual Console version, nothing materialized as of late for the Western audience.

Released for the Game Boy Advance in 2006, part of the clamor for Mother 3's is due to its Japan-only release. Spanning 14 years and four game consoles, the game was initially developed for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System, but was moved to the Nintendo 64 and the Nintendo 64 Disk Drive (DD). After the DD's cancellation, it was finally released to the Game Boy Advance. The Japan-only launch is possibly due to the low sales of the second Mother game, which was called "Earthbound" in the US, released at a time when RPG genre was not yet popular to the western market.

The series has gotten a cult following in the recent years, with Mother receiving its first western release on 2015 as Earthbound Beginnings. Ness, the main protagonist of Earthbound, has been part of the Smash Bros. lineup for some time. And despite a lack of a localized translation, a ROM of Mother 3 has been unofficially translated to English by Starmen.net on October 2008.

The Nintendo Switch Presentation Event will be on January 12, 2017 in Japan, to be broadcasted via livestream.

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