SNES games head to the New 3DS eShop - including Earthbound & Zelda

Nintendo has announced that classic games from the Super Nintendo Entertainment System, arguably one of the greatest game machines of all time, are to head to the New Nintendo 3DS in a new expansion of their successful Virtual Console system.

The titles will only be available to owners of the marginally more powerful New Nintendo 3DS machine.

European gamers will be the first to get their hands on an RPG via this new system with Earthbound, which is now already out on the eShop in that territory alongside Super Mario World. They'll be followed on the 10th by A Link to the Past and Super Metroid, on the 17th by Super Mario Kart and F-Zero, and on the 24th by Donkey Kong Country and its sequel. 

Gamers in North America, meanwhile, get their hands on Super Mario World, F-Zero and Pilotwings today, with Earthbound arriving alongside Donkey Kong Country and Super Mario Kart on March 24th. A Link to the Past, Super Metroid and Donkey Kong Country 2 follow on April 14th.

These Virtual Console releases come with a 'Perfect Pixel Mode', which allows the games to be displayed precisely at their original resolution as outputted by the original SNES hardware. As of now it remains unclear if third parties will join this initiative - something we're most interested in given the strong pedigree of the SNES as an excellent Japanese RPG machine.