Super Mario Sunshine is live in Nintendo GameCube – Nintendo Classics on Nintendo Switch 2. Nintendo of America’s what’s-new post is dated August 13. You need a Switch 2 and an active Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pack membership. I opened nintendo.com/us/online. Individual Expansion Pack is $49.99 a year. Family, up to eight Nintendo Accounts, is $79.99 a year. Those dollars are printed on Nintendo of America’s membership page. There is no separate Sunshine SKU. You are not buying Isle Delfino for $60. You are paying the Expansion Pack rate you already knew, or you are not going.
The 2002 GameCube game is the one with FLUDD on Mario’s back, Shine Sprites vanishing, and a resort island that decides Mario did it. Nintendo’s own copy still sells the premise the way it always has: Peach, Toads, a vacation, a mess, a false accusation, and a water pump that turns cleaning into a 3D platformer. If you have been waiting for this one to show up in the GameCube app instead of hunting a disc, the wait is over.
Switch 2 Only, Expansion Pack Only
Nintendo GameCube – Nintendo Classics is exclusive to Switch 2. Original Switch hardware does not get this app. Nintendo’s GameCube Classics store page is the one that lists Sunshine with The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker, Luigi’s Mansion, Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance, Pokémon XD: Gale of Darkness, Super Mario Strikers, Chibi-Robo!, F-Zero GX, SOULCALIBUR II, and Wario World. I am not inventing an ordinal. Nintendo did not print “10th” on the US what’s-new page. It did put Sunshine in that library on August 13.
The app itself is the usual Classics pitch: suspend points, rewind, button mapping, a CRT-style screen option, and the optional Nintendo GameCube controller for Switch 2 if you want the original shape in your hands. That pad is not required. It is also not a freebie. Nintendo’s store page is clear the controller is sold separately and Expansion Pack is still the gate for the games.
FLUDD, Goop, and a 24-Year-Old Punchline
Isle Delfino is still a sun-drenched island resort that immediately becomes a crime scene. Shadow Mario still exists. Yoshi still shows up when the plot feels like being kind. The water jet still launches you farther than your dignity. Nintendo’s US post does not promise a 16:9 remaster, new textures, or the Super Mario 3D All-Stars version. This is the GameCube game in the GameCube Classics app. If you wanted the enhanced 2020 collection port, that is a different box you either already own or you do not.
ESRB on the US post: Blood, Language, Suggestive Themes, Violence. That is the Classics app rating block, not a new adult Mario. The trailer above is from the official Nintendo of America YouTube, titled for this exact Classics drop. I fetched the video page. It is that channel.
$49.99 a Year, Not a $60 Cart
Download the Nintendo GameCube – Nintendo Classics app from the eShop on Switch 2, keep Expansion Pack active, and Sunshine is in the list. Read Nintendo’s sun-sational update if you want the official FLUDD pun in writing. Follow @NintendoAmerica and the Nintendo of America YouTube for the Classics video. I am not printing a Sunshine sticker price because Nintendo did not sell one. $49.99 is the Individual Expansion Pack year. The goop is free with membership, which is the most Nintendo sentence I will write today.