Another classic game license expires and the famous Cave shmup is removed from the Switch eShop

Another classic game is about to disappear from digital shelves due to licensing issues. Hot on the heels of the furore surrounding the cancellation of Forza Horizon 4 – a move that forever blocks one of the best racing games of modern times from being purchased or, more importantly, made unavailable – comes news that another game is being removed from the lineup. This time it’s the more niche, but equally important for other reasons, cave shooter game Mushihimesama, which will disappear from history as far as the Nintendo Switch version is concerned.

The Switch has been a good home for many classic arcade shooters like Cave. Some of the best shoot-’em-ups of all time have found a player base on Nintendo’s handheld, so this is very annoying at best and shows little consideration for players at worst.

Mushihimesama is a Japanese shmup that is incredibly difficult and expensive to obtain in physical form, so the last hope for many who wanted to play this bullet hell classic was the downloadable Switch version. Yes, that’s now with the reasoning: “Due to the expiration of the Nintendo Switch licensing agreement… it will be discontinued on August 10, 2024.”

So it will be available for another month and if you buy it, you can keep it and even download it again later. But this again shows the fragility of digital products.

And like Forza, in a few weeks the only way to get hold of Mushihimesama will be to pirate it and play it through a Nintendo Switch emulator – remember those, you can’t get hold of those so easily these days, nor can you get a modded early Switch.

Mushihimesama (or Bug Princess) is still available on Steam and there has been no mention of it being delisted, but one wonders which license is expiring and preventing further sales in handheld format.

If you want to buy it on Switch before it’s gone forever, you’ll have to shell out $19.99 for this special piece of gaming history.