Maybe I'm misunderstanding what you all meant earlier when it was said the release of older games didn't set the world on fire - leave me alone, Rol - but it seems to me they were pretty popular on the 3DS eShop:

https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2023/03/pokemon-game-boy-titles-dominate-3ds-eshop-charts-ahead-of-service-closure

What do you think caused that sale spike for the Pokemon games according to your link?

Street Fighter IV 3D Edition is on that same list in the link, you think it set the world on fire when the superior version (Ultra Street Fighter IV) is still available to buy on 3 other platforms and was available for the same price or even less?

The eshop domination was due to FOMO because the 3DS eshop was closing. That happens with every closure, the best games with the biggest followings get the most purchases. But having the 3DS eshop close was a "set the world on fire" situation for any pokémon fan. Now if they want to transfer old pokémon they can't unless they obtained and paid for their Pokémon Bank service apps. Big sad.

And those older games are still such a blast to play, especially on official hardware. It is so nice.

Like I said, maybe I misunderstood the term "set the world on fire."

You said, "They probably think it wouldnt be worth it lol", and I was really responding to that moreso.

My point wasn't that it wasn't that a bunch of Game Boy ROMS were selling Palworld numbers, but that those older Pokemon games were the most popular VC games on 3DS. Without looking to see if there is a source to verify this claim, I'm pretty sure that this was the case before the announcement and deadline of the eShop closure.

https://www.ign.com/articles/2016/04/28/pokemon-re-releases-sold-over-15-million-worldwide

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_Nintendo_3DS_video_games

These sources say the RBGY family sold 1.5 million units as of April 28, 2016, and doesn't count units sold as part of a hardware bundle. The second source is Wikipedia, so you're welcome to take it with a grain of salt, RGBY is tied for 41st in the list of best selling 3DS games, and there are no VC games higher in the list.

Whether they think those numbers are worth it, I don't know. But dusting off a few GB ROMs for next to no effort for guaranteed millions of sales on a console more popular than 3DS seems worth it to me.

If Game Freak was a fully internal studio and Nintendo had total control of the IP, then Nintendo tells GF that development for some of those titles are moving to the new console, and GF does what it's told. GF doesn't have to care about selling a new console, but Nintendo does, and there are few more convincing salesmen than Pokemon. A Black 2/White 2 built from the ground up for 3DS that launches within the first half year or so of the console's launch likely changes the trajectory of the system.

Regarding Z-A, I assume nothing. Like you said, Legends Arceus released in January, so there's precedent that GF and TPC aren't hardline about making a holiday season deadline. I've already posted that they sure as hell don't care about a new console release and will give Nintendo the finger about Switch 2.

If I had to put a dollar on it though, I'd still say late Q3 or Q4 2024. November 2025 is a long time away for a game just announced. Legends Arceus was announced in Feb. 2021 and released 11 months later. That's a longer time between announcement and release than other modern projects associated with Nintendo, but still not the better part of two years.

Plus, GF already has plenty of experience with the Switch and the game's engine, and plenty of reusable assets. Therefore, development time should be shorter (and as far as I know, we don't know how long Arceus or Z-A were/have been in development).

Finally, and without further knowledge of upcoming releases this year, it would make sense to make Z-A Switch's big Christmas game. I'm sure we'll learn of more releases in June and September, but I could see Z-A being Switch's last big hurrah.

I don’t disagree. RBGY 3DS was a huge hit.

But the Pokémon Company wouldn’t put their mainline games on the NSO. If they did, Nintendo would have to keep track of how many people are playing the mainline games and give The Pokémon Company a cut of the earnings. Nintendo doesn’t want that, they want to keep all the earnings. Plus then they would have to code the mainline games to not have a pause, and rewind option. Or you’d be getting lost of “hacked” ‘mons. And how would they connect that to Pokémon Home? That is more coding. 

The Pokémon Company instead would just re-re-re-release RBGY and re-re-release GSC and re-release RSE with their own cartridges (like Super Mario 3D All Stars) and have them be around for a limited time (more FOMO). That seems like the more likely scenario.

A lot of publishers choose to go that route with old games that they could have put on NSO: Capcom with Mega Man, Square with Final Fantasy, Konami with Castlevania and so on.

TPC would find it more beneficial to itself to go that route too, so I believe it.

For putting Mainline Pokémon on NSO, let’s agree to disagree. Personally, I think that would be amazing, and a huge reason to get NSO. But wouldn’t be the reality.
If TPC puts their mainline on NSO, how much percentage of income would they receive? If TPC puts their mainline as a physical cartridge, how much income would they make?

TPC is much bigger than all of those companies.

What are we disagreeing about? The profitability for TPC?

I can't answer any questions about how much of a cut it would receive for putting mainline games on NSO. I'd love to know what the breakdown is for it between publishers and Nintendo. I'm sure the NSO apps are collecting data on games played and times playing them, so I wonder if that's factor. If someone has a source where Nintendo or publisher shared details, please share it here.

But the fact is that each console on the NSO app is missing big titles that were retail released on Switch in some shape or fashion. The only Castlevania games Konami has allowed on it are Bloodlines and lol Legends, meanwhile there are two Castlevania Collections containing the NES trilogy, two SNES games and three GBA games. Ditto Contra, except for Hard Corps. The only Mega Man game Castlevania has allowed on it is The Wily Wars. TWW isn't part of the several Mega Man collections containing all of the NES and SNES games. The only mainline Sonic game on it is Sonic 2, but you can get the original quadrilogy in Sonic Origins, to say nothing of other Genesis collections. Square-Enix hasn't released anything with Final Fantasy in the name on it, but you can get the FF Pixel Remasters from the eShop. There are a bunch of SE RPGs that were on the SNES that have gotten eShop releases and collections as well, like Romancing SaGa, Mana and others.

So based on publisher's actions, it seems more profitable to them to release their games themselves then allow them on NSO. TPC is just as much in it for themselves as all of the others. And like you said, someone would have to go out of their way to recode the classic games on NSO not to have a pause and rewind option to prevent duping, so if someone has to go in and touch code, might as well make it a full-blown SKU and release it on eShop or put it in a box in retail.

We were first discussing if TPC would ever put the mainline Pokémon games (Red, Blue, Green, Yellow, Gold, Silver, Crystal, Ruby, Sapphire, Emerald) on NSO.

There is no doubt that TPC would gain lots of money from putting their games on NSO. But there is doubt that they would put it on the NSO. 

This is what I do know about NSO. Nintendo tracks game play time to the minute, they track how many times you've opened a specific game, they have 3rd parties titles (Konami, Capcom) being licensed for Genesis NSO (so we can conclude that all 3rd party titles are licensed as well). Nintendo owns 33% of TPC along with Game Freak and Creatures Inc (Nintendo is the publisher, Game Freak is the game developer, Creatures Inc are merchandise, anime, trading cards). They all have equal say* involving the future of Pokémon.
*This is just what I think about the TPC (cannot confirm but also cannot disprove): Creatures Inc. forces Game Freak to make a new generation game everytime they want to sell new cards, and produce a new anime. Creatures Inc. hasn't been very pushy lately (last 2 years) since they are releasing new episodes of Pokémon Horizons, and many other smaller animes like Pokémon Concierge.
Game Freak COO has stated that they will be talking about taking their time releasing game to ensure quality, which is why we have no new pokémon game releasing in 2024 as of now (I personally think they will release something for the holiday).

Nintendo would make so much more money if they convinced Game Freak to put their mainline GB/GBA games on NSO. But that would require more work for NSO GB/GBA because then they would have to make sure that those games need to connect to Pokémon Home, and can trade with each other (which is possible due to most GB/GBA NSO games having access to link cable), and disable savestates (or else there would be pokémon duplications of rare and powerful pokémon ruining pokémon torunaments etc). NSO (which includes GB) costs $19.99 per year for one account, then to access GBA you must purchase the Expansion for a total of $49.99 per year for one account. I feel like that is a lot of logistics of economics to determine how Game Freak and Creatures Inc. would receive money from Nintendo.

It just feels like it would be too much work. The "easier" route would be to just re-port them on the eshop for $10 for each game. Boxing would add additional costs like shipping and hardware (cartridges, case, covers). You lose money compared to no loss when on the eshop (maybe Nintendo takes a cut of the revenue, but it sounds like its worth it since so many small indie developers haven't gone physical for their releases).