Five N64 Games Remain Off Nintendo Switch Online

Donkey Kong 64 arrived on Nintendo Switch Online on June 4, 2026, after Microsoft cleared the path. Diddy Kong Racing did not come with it.

Nintendo can already stream GoldenEye 007, Banjo-Kazooie, Banjo-Tooie, and that Kong platformer. Five other Nintendo 64 games still need a working cartridge and console, and the holdup is who owns them, not whether the console can run the code.

The 36 Games Nintendo Will Stream

The official Nintendo 64 Classics listing names 36 titles for Expansion Pack members on Switch and Switch 2. GoldenEye 007 is on that list. So are both Banjo games, Jet Force Gemini, Killer Instinct Gold, Blast Corps, and Donkey Kong 64. Mischief Makers, Diddy Kong Racing, Space Station Silicon Valley, Castlevania: Legacy of Darkness, and The World Is Not Enough are not.

Nintendo dated the N64 Classics product to October 25, 2021, and still copies the line that more games are on the way. Switch 2 adds a CRT filter and a rewind tool on top of save states and online play for up to four people. The library is no longer a thin sampler of first-party hits. Third parties already sit on it, including Ridge Racer 64, Harvest Moon 64, and Treasure’s Sin & Punishment.

That last name matters for Mischief Makers. Treasure built both games. Nintendo published Sin & Punishment and put it on the service. Enix published Mischief Makers in Japan, Nintendo published it in the West, and the cart never came back as a digital product.

RARE GAMES ALREADY IN THE 36

• Banjo-Kazooie: Rare’s bear and bird platformer, now on the Classics list after Microsoft licensed it back.
• Banjo-Tooie: The sequel sits on the same list, which undercuts the idea that Rare’s N64 catalog is frozen.
• GoldenEye 007: The Bond shooter whose worldwide sales Microsoft put at more than 8 million when it bought the studio.
• Donkey Kong 64: The June 4, 2026 addition that proved Nintendo and Microsoft can still cut a Kong deal.
• Jet Force Gemini, Blast Corps, Killer Instinct Gold: Three more Rare N64 games Nintendo already cleared for the same app.

Once those titles moved, the leftover Rare ask got louder, and it has a name people still type under Nintendo posts.

Diddy Kong Racing Is Still a Microsoft Problem

Rare made Diddy Kong Racing for the N64 in 1997 with a story mode, 20 tracks, and karts, hovercraft, and planes. Banjo and Conker raced in the original roster. Nintendo of America executive vice president Peter MacDougall said Nintendo kept Donkey Kong, Star Fox, and Diddy Kong when it sold its stake, and that those properties stayed with Nintendo.

Microsoft announced a $375 million cash purchase of Rare on September 24, 2002. MacDougall said Nintendo sold its 49 percent interest and that the entire company went to Microsoft. The press release said five of the top 20 best-selling N64 games came from Rare, and that the studio had sold nearly 90 million games, averaging 1.4 million units a title. Donkey Kong Country had sold more than 8 million copies on Super NES. GoldenEye 007, Microsoft said, topped 8 million worldwide.

Our mission at Rare has always been to make the industry’s best games for the widest possible audience. Teaming with Microsoft gives us the best opportunity to accomplish this goal.

Chris Stamper, chairman and technical director of Rare, Microsoft announcement, September 24, 2002

Twenty-four years later the split is still visible on one racing cart. Diddy Kong is a Nintendo character on a Rare game whose supporting cast includes animals Microsoft took with the studio. The Nintendo DS remake, out in North America on February 5, 2007, replaced Banjo and Conker with Tiny Kong and Dixie Kong for that reason. Tiptup stayed. The original N64 version never got a similar edit for a modern store.

THE $375 MILLION HANDOVER

1. September 24, 2002: Microsoft buys Rare for $375 million cash and folds the studio into its Xbox lineup.
2. February 5, 2007: Nintendo publishes Diddy Kong Racing DS, with Banjo and Conker gone from the roster.
3. October 25, 2021: Nintendo 64 Classics launches as an Expansion Pack library.
4. May 28, 2026: Nintendo of America says Donkey Kong 64 arrives for members on June 4.
5. June 4, 2026: Donkey Kong 64 goes live on Switch and Switch 2. Diddy Kong Racing does not.

The June addition killed the old excuse that Microsoft would never let a Rare Kong game back onto a Nintendo box. It left a narrower problem: a racer whose mascot Nintendo owns and whose friends Microsoft owns. Through late September 2026, people asking Nintendo for N64 additions still named that racer first, often in the same breath as Mario Kart 64, which is already on the service.

Four-player arguments about which cart to load have not gone away either. Some still pick Diddy Kong Racing for the adventure mode and the three vehicles. Others say it never matched Mario Kart 64 and that Nintendo has no reason to hurry. Both takes can sit next to the same fact. The game you need for that argument is still a grey cartridge.

Four Other Landlords Hold the Other Four

Diddy Kong Racing is the loud holdout because it shares a face with a Nintendo mascot. The other four games are stuck for different reasons, with different companies, and none of those companies is in the business of feeding Nintendo’s subscription app.

WHO STILL HOLDS THE FIVE

Mischief Makers shipped in Japan on June 27, 1997, and in North America on October 1, 1997. You play Marina Liteyears, a robot maid who grabs enemies and shakes them. It is a side-scroller on a system sold as a 3D machine, which is why it sold quietly and then turned into a cult cart. Enix put it out in Japan. Nintendo put it out everywhere else. Sin & Punishment, the Treasure game Nintendo owned outright, is already in the 36. Mischief Makers would need Treasure and the Enix catalog to agree on a rerelease, and that meeting has not happened.

Space Station Silicon Valley came from DMA Design in 1998, the same Scottish studio that built Grand Theft Auto. You play a microchip named Evo that hijacks robot animals on a broken space station. Take-Two published it, then folded DMA into what became Rockstar North. Rockstar’s later compilations never brought the N64 game forward. A studio that now lives on open-world crime sequels has little use for a 1998 animal-possession puzzle platformer, even one that still plays unlike anything else on the system.

The World Is Not Enough, out in North America on October 17, 2000, is the other Bond shooter on N64. Eurocom built it for Electronic Arts after EA took a multiyear Bond deal with MGM. GoldenEye 007 is already in Nintendo’s 36 because that one was a Rare game Microsoft could license. EA’s film tie-in sits in a different stack: studio, publisher, and the Bond rights holders. Nintendo streamed one 007. It cannot stream the other without EA and the film side saying yes.

What a Working Cartridge Costs Now

Used-market prices show which of these titles collectors already treat as scarce. PriceCharting’s public guides, built from completed sales, put a wide gap between a common racer and a late Konami adventure that never left the N64.

USED CART PRICES ON PRICECHARTING

The Diddy Kong Racing cartridge prices still look like a common N64 sports title, about $29.99 loose, because Rare printed a lot of them. Complete copies sit at $98.99, and a sealed copy is $457.45. You can find the game. You cannot find an official way to play it on a Switch.

Mischief Makers costs more because fewer people bought a 2D Treasure game in 1997. Loose carts are $69.99, complete copies $214.07, sealed $380.73.

Legacy of Darkness is the tax. PriceCharting’s Legacy of Darkness loose market price is $164.65, with about one loose sale a day. Complete-in-box is $399.50. A new copy is $880.00. Konami shipped it on December 8, 1999, in North America as a thicker, repaired version of the first N64 Castlevania, with Cornell the lycanthrope added and the camera calmed down. It never appeared on Virtual Console, never appeared in Konami’s later Castlevania collections, and the used market has priced that absence.

The people taking that money are sellers with working plastic, not Nintendo, Microsoft, or Konami. A subscription that already includes Ocarina of Time and GoldenEye 007 does not get a cut of a $165 Konami cart.

Konami Marked 40 Years and Left the N64 Out

Castlevania’s 40th anniversary landed on September 26, 2026. Konami’s series portal for the 40th anniversary offered the original game as a free mobile app from September 25 through October 24, 2026, plus store cuts of 80 percent off the Anniversary Collection, 70 percent off the Advance Collection, and 50 percent off the Dominus Collection. Castlevania: Belmont’s Curse, the first new mainline game in more than a dozen years, is set for October 15, 2026. Orchestral concerts are booked for Tokyo, London, and Los Angeles in spring 2027.

The production team’s note on that portal said the original Castlevania marks its 40th anniversary, that the free app was meant to share the start of the series, and that the company has much more in store. The more in store, as fans read the teaser, points at the 3D games Konami has not packed up yet: Lament of Innocence, Curse of Darkness, and Lords of Shadow. Those are PlayStation 2 and later. They are not the N64 pair.

Legacy of Darkness improved the first N64 Castlevania’s camera and stages and added Cornell’s quest eight years before Reinhardt Schneider and Carrie Fernandez. Konami later dropped both N64 games from some official timelines. The 40th anniversary campaign put the 1986 original on phones and put the later 3D games on sale. It did not put Cornell on Switch Online. For a series Konami has spent years reprinting in collections, the N64 branch is the one it still treats as a dead end.

Fan Ports Filled In During 2026

While the rights sat still, people with dumped carts and a lot of spare time built native PC versions that do not wait for a publisher meeting. Each project asks you to supply your own ROM. None of them is an official rerelease, and Nintendo can send a takedown whenever it wants.

FAN PORTS SHIPPED IN 2026

• Space Station Silicon Valley: Cellenseres shipped a native PC recompilation in early February 2026, with higher frame rates, quick loads, and a Steam Deck path, using the North American 1.0 ROM.
• Legacy of Darkness: Developer fliperama86 posted a Windows, Mac, and Linux build around June 18, 2026, aimed at higher resolution and frame rate rather than a full remake.
• Diddy Kong Racing: A GitHub port by akratch went up on August 2, 2026, with a pure original mode and a restored mode that adds widescreen and sharper filtering.
• The World Is Not Enough: YouTuber Modern Vintage Gamer had a 4K, 60 fps, widescreen PC build in progress in late August 2026 and said he would not post 1.0 until it stayed stable.

Mischief Makers got a PC attempt in July 2026 under the name Trouble Makers. Early testers called it a messy AI-assisted shortcut and pointed to a separate decompilation that was still in progress. That is the pattern for these five games now. The official catalog adds Donkey Kong 64 and sells rewind on Switch 2. The unofficial catalog adds the titles the landlords will not clear, as long as you already own the plastic.

Nintendo’s N64 Classics page still tells shoppers to enjoy a selection of classic games with more on the way. Diddy Kong Racing is not in the 36. Neither are the Treasure side-scroller, the DMA animal puzzle, the Konami werewolf quest, or EA’s other Bond shooter. The next legal copy of any of them is still a cartridge that has to boot on hardware from 1996.