Since launching the Virtual Console in 2006, Nintendo has officially re-released dozens of Super NES games for play on modern consoles. As that emulated library has grown, though, many have noted an important gap: Nintendo hasn't re-released any SNES games that made use of the 3D-focused Super FX chip (or the improved Super FX2 follow-up).

The Super FX chip was only used in a handful of released games, and that list includes well-remembered classics like Star Fox and Yoshi's Island (which was actually re-coded with new, non-FX-powered graphics for its Game Boy Advance re-release in 2002). But while we've been able to buy and download games like SimCity and Kirby's Dream Course on the Wii for about a decade now, Nintendo has been effectively ignoring these Super FX-powered classics for just as long.

That streak of Super FX disrespect will finally end in September when Yoshi's Island and Star Fox will show up on the Super NES Classic Edition . They'll be joined by the previously unreleased, Super FX2-powered Star Fox 2, which was completed in the mid-'90s but cancelled to avoid the shadow of more powerful 3D games on the likes of PlayStation and Nintendo 64.

While it's nice to see the Super FX getting some official attention, the question remains: what took so long? Why has Nintendo ignored the Super FX corner of its history all these years?

A Synopsys synopsis

One popular theory floating around the Internet was that Nintendo was legally unable to emulate or recreate the Super FX chip until relatively recently. As these online sources tell it, the rights to the chip belonged not to Nintendo but to Star Fox developer Argonaut Software, which effectively held a patent on the design of the chip.

While Argonaut Software dissolved in 2004, the company's hardware arm, ARC International, went through a series of acquisitions and eventually ended up as a subsidiary of chip-maker Synopsys in 2010 (Wikipedia lays out in detail how this ownership transfer went down). According to the Internet conventional wisdom laid out above, that meant Synopsys now holds the rights to the Super FX chip and was apparently unwilling to license it to Nintendo for the purposes of official re-releases (it's unclear whether these chip design rights would even legally cover software-based emulation of Nintendo-owned games, though).

Argonaut's own Dylan Cuthbert (now with Q Games) seemed to lend credence to this theory in an interview with NintendoLife. "The legal problems regarding the now-defunct Argonaut Software are probably a nightmare," he said. Many Nintendo-watchers assumed that it was only a recent expiration of Synopsys' patent that led to Super FX games appearing on the Super NES Classic.

It's all a fine story, except for the fact that it isn't true.

"Synopsys (through the Virage Logic acquisition) never had the rights to the SuperFX chip," Synopsys spokesperson Monica Marmie tells Ars Technica. "The Super FX chip pre-dates the first Argonaut RISC Core, but there is no relation between the two designs architecturally (i.e. the ARC is not an evolution from Super FX). The rights to the Super FX chip were owned by A/N Software Inc.—a joint venture set up by Nintendo and Argonaut Software, and Nintendo always held the majority control of A/N Software. When Argonaut Software was dissolved, so was the shareholding in A/N Software."

Synopsys' detailed account reinforces the recollection of Argonaut founder Jez San, who recently told NintendoLife that Super FX patent issues shouldn't be a hold up for Nintendo's re-release plans. "I doubt that's why they’re releasing [Star Fox 2]," San said. "Nintendo owns that patent anyway. I think they’re releasing it because it's time."

Just not worth the trouble?

With Nintendo declining to comment for this story, we're left searching for other potential reasons that official Super FX re-releases have been ignored for so long. There's some evidence that technical issues are to blame for Nintendo's long-delayed support.

In an interview with Famitsu (translated by NintendoSoup), a Nintendo representative said it was "difficult to bring Super FX Chip titles to Virtual Console, hence we have never distributed them via the Virtual Console service up [until] today. As for the SNES Classic, we have found a way to solve that problem, so we’ve included those titles inside the lineup."

(The Nintendo source also clarified that "There is no (physical) Super FX chip built into the SNES Classic," in case you were wondering.)

This is an odd statement, considering that homebrew Super NES emulators for the Wii seem to run SuperFX games just fine. Some emulators even allow you to virtually overclock the chip for improved frame rates that weren't possible on the original hardware. The Wii doesn't have trouble emulating more complex 3D games on the Nintendo 64, so raw hardware power probably isn't an issue.

All that said, emulator developers have suggested that the Super FX's 3D rendering methodology is "quite complex." A detailed breakdown by emulator developer byuu noted "dozens of ancillary functions" that had to be fully documented before truly accurate Super FX emulation was possible.

Perhaps Nintendo just wasn't willing to put in the work to emulate the Super FX chip on the Virtual Console despite the well-loved games built with the technology. That seems like an odd choice, though, considering cartridge-based enhancement chips like the DSP-1 (Super Mario Kart), SA1 (Super Mario RPG), and CX4 (Mega Man X2) have been emulated through the Wii Virtual Console without apparent issue.

We may never know the full story of why it took so long for these Super FX titles to see any official re-release. Eventually, hackers will probably take a deeper dive into the Super NES Classic Edition's emulation solution, much as they did for the NES Classic, which could provide some more hints to the Super FX "difficulties." For now, we can only hope that Nintendo will make enough units of the Super NES Classic Edition to satisfy the pent-up demand for these early examples of console-based 3D graphics.