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Nintendo re-releases NES as mini console
- boulos 10y agoAww no Contra at launch. (They do have non Nintendo titles though like Megaman 2, so it's not just a first party issue)
- throwaway2048 10y agoSuper C is Contra II
- strictnein 10y agoSlightly different Konami code for that one too: Right, Left, Down, Up, A, B Gets ten guys, if I remember correctly.
- danielweber 10y agoAnd "Fire" changes from the weakest weapon to the OP weapon.
- vblord 10y agoI'm actually really excited about this. I just wonder if my kids will be as addicted to the old school games as I was.
- Haul4ss 10y agoI played a bunch of old NES games on an emulator in the early '00s. Two things stood out: (1) the graphics really were pretty lame, and (2) games I was addicted to as a kid seemed a lot more tedious as an adult. Not saying the classics don't stand the test of time, but some of those old games are better as a memory.
- disease 10y agoI did the same thing when a bunch of emulators were coming out in the late 90's and early 00's and my big takeaway was that the majority of games from my childhood were not very good, but a few games such as Galaga and Ms Pacman and a handful of other arcade games have stood the test of time very well.
- tcj_phx 10y agoI have tried to play some of the old games that I used to spend hours on - most of them are very slow. But my cousin got Herzog Zwei (1989, Sega Genesis) working on an emulator, and we have a little duel when I visit. Best game ever. :) https://youtu.be/C19GSXp246M https://youtu.be/C19GSXp246M
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- Donzo 10y agoI was just cheesing out, getting excited about playing Final Fantasy again, and then I remembered the process of buying 99 health potions, and how exceedingly tedious it was. I'm not sure that I'd have the patience to do that again as an adult.
- pawn 10y agoPro tip for Final Fantasy that I still remember: One of the easiest parties to play through the game with is 3 Fighters and 1 Red Mage. You can get through most of the fights with minimal damage, and the Red Mage has what you need for boss fights and the occasional enemy that is strong against physical damage but weak against certain magic. You'll find yourself never needing to buy 99 potions.
- jsmeaton 10y agoI mostly agree with you, but I wonder if it feels worse because of the emulation and controller/keyboard. If I can get my hands on one I definitely will though if it's less than $100 (AU tax).
- smaili 10y ago> Sadly you can't use your original NES carts with the console - something even the most basic "Famiclone" offers - and there doesn't seem to be any means of getting new games onto it. Would it really have been that much extra effort to make the console backwards compatible?
- fredoralive 10y ago> Would it really have been that much extra effort to make the console backwards compatible? Depends if it's a NES on a chip type system like most clones, or if it's something like an ARM SoC device running an emulator[1]. If it's the former it would be possible with just space issues for the slot, the latter would be quite hard, certainly more trouble than worth for a cheap novelty device. [1] It uses Wii controllers and has save states so it seems a bit more than the average clone at least.
- nsxwolf 10y agoIt would have been much larger. As in, the exact size of the original.
- carrier_lost 10y agoThere was a later version of the NES console that was smaller than the original: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nintendo_Entertainment_System_(Model_NES-101) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nintendo_Entertainment_System_...
- Tomte 10y agoIncluding a compatible cartridge reader? Of course that's a lot of effort and costs, making the price point untenable. The beautiful thing about his console is that for the price of a new Nintendo game you're getting the console and 30 games, without any hassle (swapping cartridges etc.). It's certainly a compromise, but a very enticing one.
- mikejmoffitt 10y agoThe NES cartridge's pin pitch is nonstandard, and making a new slot for it is actually a very expensive endeavor. You can get "close" with standard parts, but the resulting tolerance is extremely low.
- thisisandyok 10y agoLaunches Nov 11. This should be some nice competition for those knock offs you see at the mall around Christmas time.
- mpg33 10y agoEmulators/knock-offs is probably a large reason why Nintendo is releasing this. Just wished they had went a little step further and released a version that came preloaded with every NES/SNES game. They probably could have gotten away with charging $150+ for something like that while simultaneously killing the knock off market.
- imtringued 10y agoThose might not all be NES/SNES games https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jHepjitYJmM&feature=youtu.be&t=311 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jHepjitYJmM&feature=youtu.be...
- mistermann 10y agoPlease have Super Sprint, please have Super Sprint......nooooooooooooooo! Oh well, I'll probably buy one to play games with my kids, most mainstream games today are too complicated to learn and I don't really find them fun despite how technically amazing they are.
- jawilson2 10y agoI have an NES and SNES emulator on my PC, and a wireless XBox controller. My kids have been mainlining Mega Man 2 (my 5 year old beat it last week), SMB, and they are strangely hooked on Pac Man and Galaga, which my 3 year old loves now! The 3 and 5 year old also love newer games like Minecraft (the 5 Y/O is finally starting to enjoy building, instead of just flying around with a diamond sword and a bucket of lava f'in shit up), and my 7 year old plays a lot of NBA 2k16, but they are in love with the classics right now.
- pbhjpbhj 10y agoNintendoland on WiiU has ton of fun simple games some of which are just point-and-click, some are just movement; really good with younger kids IMO.
- strictnein 10y agoUsed to play Super Sprint with a friend for hours and hours. To keep racing, only one player had to come in first, so we'd take turns, with one player trying to win the race, and the other running interference. Fun times.
- chrisabrams 10y agoNo duck hunt!? What gives?
- thisisandyok 10y agoLight guns aren't super great on modern TVs: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5128407 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5128407
- jasonkostempski 10y agoI can't believe there hasn't been a good modernized design of a light gun. The lag and inaccuracy with the Wii style sensor bar stuff kills the experience. I used to have the Captain Power Powerjet XT-7 [1] and even that was a better than anything of late. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qR2emUs-Fj8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qR2emUs-Fj8
- jandrese 10y agoIt seems to me that it should be possible to mount an actual camera in the gun now and have the system simply compare what it sees on the gun camera vs. what it is displaying on the screen. We have the computer power to do stuff like that now. It won't work for retro-gaming, but it's a possible path forward for gun games on modern consoles.
- andrewclunn 10y agoWell I just got a Nintendo hard-on.
- sctb 10y agoPlease comment civilly and substantively, or not at all.
- kriro 10y agoI own an NES and quite a few games but this seems like an instabuy for me. Solid list of games. Metroid, Castlevania 1+2 and both Zeldas. Tecomo, the Mario games, and Ghost 'n' Goblins to keep you frustrated. Pretty cool actually that they chose to go with the small form factor.
- yoodenvranx 10y agoPersonally I think Bomberman is missing, we had tons of fun with it (although we used to play super bomberman 5 on SNES)
- spilk 10y agoIt's almost as if they priced it so every 35-ish year old in the USA would buy one instantly. I know I'm in that camp.
- hoodoof 10y agoGod I hate being nickle and dimed. It should include everything needed - two controllers and a power supply FFS.
- delecti 10y agoThe power supply is USB. I'm more than okay with not getting yet another USB brick with every new device. Not getting the controllers to me is a separate issue, but it does include one, and as far as I can tell, only the original NES, 30 years ago, ever came with more than one controller.
- kalleboo 10y agoEspecially if this thing is going to sit under your TV - I think most TVs these days have a few spare USB ports you can steal some power from.
- Zancarius 10y ago> and as far as I can tell, only the original NES, 30 years ago, ever came with more than one controller. If my memory serves me correctly, my SNES came with two, but I certainly believe that was the last offering from Nintendo that did. Later bundles might not have included the additional controller, though.
- davb 10y agoPersonally, I'm glad to see less devices ship with a USB AC adapter. I've got too many to count. I've slowly started giving them away to friends and family when someone's breaks, but I've still got a few ranging from 0.7A to 2A. For many things, it's not one adapter to one device - most of the time, my phone, Kindle, PS4 controllers and camera all share a single charger (and a single USB A to micro B cable). I was frustrated that some Nintendo portable consoles don't come with an AC adapter, until a few years in, I had bought a couple of special edition consoles and realised I've got three Nintendo DS chargers. Their adapter design has been stable for many years, so only first-timers actually need to buy a charger. I suspect the NES mini will ship with a bundle via the official Nintendo store that will include an AC adapter for those in need of one. They'll also likely do a two-controller option too. Their bundles are really appealing for the portable consoles. I don't think any console ships with two controllers unless it's part of a bundle or special edition these days.
- littletinman 10y agoBEST NEWS EVER!!! Since I only have old cartridges on a wall for display, I'm actually pretty happy I won't need to use those.
- tootie 10y agoPlaying Tecmo Bowl with a roster of late 80s players is like double nostalgia for football fans. The legend of Tecmo Bo Jackson will live forever.
- paulcole 10y agoWas Bo in the original or just Tecmo Super Bowl?
- boha 10y agoMost definitely the original.
- brebla 10y agoNo. Tecmo Super Bowl (also for NES) is the one with Bo. First to have licensing to support it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tecmo_Super_Bowl https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tecmo_Super_Bowl Shame they used Tecmo Bowl - is far inferior to Super Bowl.
- bdz 10y agoIn the original, so the one included!
- disease 10y agoIncluding Baseball Stars would have probably pushed me over the edge of buying this thing.
- compiler-guy 10y agoNo Tecmo Superbowl makes me very sad.
- chongli 10y agoHDMI out? I wonder if they're going to simulate NTSC TV artifacts such as colour bleed and dot crawl. These artifacts are important for correctly rendering NES games according to their original design [0]. [0] http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/KylePittman/20150420/241442/CRT_Simulation_in_Super_Win_the_Game.php http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/KylePittman/20150420/241442/C...
- Bahamut 10y agoThey probably have an emulator already built, given that they sell NES Virtual Console games & have quite a history having ported their games to various platforms (goes as far back as the Game Boy Color I believe with having ported Super Mario Bros. - that is over 16 years ago).
- foldor 10y agoIf we're counting ported games, I might count Donkey Kong on the NES as their first attempt, though I'm sure someone can find an earlier example.
- Bahamut 10y agoWell, I guess they do have a longer history if you count arcade games too. You're probably right on that front.
- rangibaby 10y agoid Software's Keen series was a result of them porting Mario for PC but being denied a license by Nintendo.
- ataylor284_ 10y agoReimplemented, not ported. They wrote it from scratch, using innovative techniques to get the smooth side scrolling that was supported by hardware in consoles.
- sur5r 10y agoAm I the only one to miss Tetris from the list of games?
- petetnt 10y agoIIRC licensing Tetris in general is an incredibly hard process, which is why it always takes ages to get actual licensed ones on any platforms.
- mathgeek 10y agoYou should look up the history of Tetris on the NES. It's an interesting story and probably still why it can't be included here.
- ethagnawl 10y agoThis article gives a nice 10,000' history. The Rights to Tetris Were Originally Owned by the Soviet Union - http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2011/02/the-rights-to-tetris-were-originally-owned-by-the-soviet-union/ http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2011/02/the-rights-t...
- emodendroket 10y agoPretty cool. It'd be nice if you could add games somehow.
- uptown 10y agoReading these game names just tickled a part of my brain that hadn't been activated in quite some time. Can't wait to play these again.
- bdz 10y agoIt's a pretty good deal for $60 but I hope there will be some way to add more games through emulation or download or whatever. Also I want to see a Nintendo Classic Gameboy once. Please!
- peatmoss 10y agoGiven the relatively poor screen quality of the Gameboy (my memory is foggy, but seems to remember ghosting and generally bad refresh), I wonder about creating an E-Ink Gameboy Classic...
- phjesusthatguy3 10y agoWhile it's a GBA clone instead of the original Game Boy, there's the K1 GBA that can play original carts and has a cartridge that will accept a microSD for roms. I was really interested in them a couple of years ago but then I found emulators for my PSP.
- danso 10y agoI'm amazed at the ridiculous pricing for these games. On Wii U, all of these classic games would cost $5 each. $60 for a physical device and 30 games is extremely generous by Nintendo standards. Edit: if only it had River City Ransom...
- Vexs 10y agoTBH 5$ is pretty fair pricing- average user is only going to buy one, maybe two NES ports, and serious retro buy-all-700 games people already have it all. It's only overpriced by maybe a dollar or two. But yeah, 60$ for the kit? Crike that's cheap.
- fredleblanc 10y agoI've always found the virtual console a place where Nintendo could do better. I want to buy a license to a game and have it follow me as I upgrade to new (Nintendo-made) hardware. For example, I have Kid Icarus via the Wii Virtual Console, and Mega Man on the 3DS Virtual Console. Why can't I play those in both places? Why do I have to pay _another_ $5 to play Mega Man on the Wii U? Especially now that Nintendo's online account stuff has shaped up to be pretty good. I'm not even sure if I can play the Wii-purchased Kid Icarus through my Wii U… or do I have to load up the Wii virtual console and then download it onto there? (That I haven't checked.) I don't need all 700 games to be happy, but for $5 per game — for something that we know is basically just an emulator/ROM, I feel like I shouldn't get penalized for continuing up the upgrade path within the company.
- james-skemp 10y agoI understand the multiple buying is because, unlike Microsoft and Sony, they never really invested in their online network to support this.
- JonathonW 10y agoThe Wii U shop knows what VC games you've already purchased for Wii, because it offers upgrade pricing for most of them. And there are a few games out there that do cross-buy between the Wii U and 3DS shops. The multiple purchase issue is a strategic/marketing issue, not a technical one.
- scolfax 10y agoOne word: Bionic Commando
- janvdberg 10y agoI understand the aesthetic value but to be really useful/fun a wireless controller would be better.
- vlunkr 10y agoIt says you can use the wii Classic controller, which is wireless
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- foldor 10y agoThe Wii Classic Controller is most certainly wired, just it's wired to the wireless Wii Remote. You may be thinking of the Wii U Pro Controller which is fully wireless.
- Millennium 10y agoI wouldn't mind if it were just the fact that the Wii Classic Controller is wired. What bugs me is that the cable is really, really short: only long enough to run into something that you'd be expected to hold in your lap. Of course, that's exactly the use case it was designed for, so it made sense in that context. But it causes problems when you then want to plug it into something several feet away, like, say, the console.
- DSMan195276 10y agoThe Wii Classic Controller is wired. The port on the front of this console is the same port on the bottom of a Wii Remote, which makes it pseudo-wireless in a way, but there's no Wii Remote in this case so it is just wired.
- happycube 10y agoYup, it's I2C with a 1394-ish connector (which makers have taken advantage of before), so it is very easy to implement... with the added side benefit of selling a few of the standalone controllers for Wii[U] virtual console use. The console itself is probably a simple ARM chip - the BCM2835 in the first-gen Raspberry Pi would work perfectly, among tons of other possible SoC's. It will probably be under a plastic blob, but someone will find out sooner or later ;)
- davb 10y agoI'm really interested in the architecture of this thing. I'm guessing ARM running a NES emulator (rather than ports of the games), since they've got such great experience doing that on the 3DS. If it's hackable, this would be a fantastic gadget. As a project box alone, it looks really pretty. HDMI out, USB power, and controller inputs make it really appealing. Depending on headers and connectivity inside, hacking a USB port or SD slot for expansion would be a fun project. There are already Wii controller accessory to USB adapters available. And at $9.99 for the controllers, those could be fun too (to be used separately on other platforms, like the RPi). That's not to say I won't be getting one purely to play as intended, but I would be interested in picking one up to hack.
- intoverflow2 10y ago> I'm guessing ARM running a NES emulator Really surprised people expect it's anything more than one of these but with official licensing. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nintendo_Entertainment_System_hardware_clone https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nintendo_Entertainment_System_...
- rtpg 10y agoBecause the hardware clones are not sufficient. You need to make a sort of menu system + deal with hardware connections. Simple ARM chip + software emulator means you could just do everything one one chip without headaches. Plus it'll likely be cheaper.
- pjc50 10y agoThose are usually rolled into the hardware clones in various ways. e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C64_Direct-to-TV https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C64_Direct-to-TV (single chip ASIC C64) It could be software emulation, but that's slightly less reliable, and has a boot time which may not be negligible.
- davb 10y agoI'm leaning towards ARM just because Nintendo already has a huge supply chain and manufacturing complex geared towards this architecture. They're extensively bought into the ARM ecosystem. They already have a NES emulator on ARM (3DS NES Virtual Console). ARM SoCs are so incredibly cheap (look at the low volume RasPI with its HDMI output and now WiFI). The Nintendo hardware engineering teams have extensive ARM experience. There will undoubtedly be a business requirement for platform security (wrt the bundled games). This is, from Nintendo's perspective, a solved problem on their portable console platform. Over a long period and at high volumes, sure - a NES hardware clone might make for a cheaper BoM. But that's not where the cost is here. It's in the engineering, initial supply chain and manufacturing startup. Sticking with ARM keeps all of those costs down. Build a lightweight OS (based on the 3DS/2DS OS), able to run the same the same binaries, with the same libraries and you've cut out a massive amount of software engineering work and expense. Ship some stripped down 2DS/3DS hardware, and you've saved a lot of hardware engineering work and expense. I'd actually be surprised if it wasn't extremely close to the 3DS/2DS in terms of architecture, minus the IO, battery and secondary ARM CPU.
- fhood 10y agoYou know, if the controller or lack of some game really bothers you just get a raspberry pi.
- iuguy 10y agoI'm amazed noone here has mentioned RetroPie[1]. A model B Raspberry Pi or even a Zero (if you can get one) should play NES games perfectly fine. You can get USB NES controller adapters pretty cheap or some knock-off USB NES controllers instead. I have a SNES-USB adapter for my setup that takes two SNES controllers. [1] - https://retropie.org.uk/ https://retropie.org.uk/
- ashark 10y agoI'd personally recommend Lakka[1] (Kodi's distro modded to boot straight to Retroarch) over it, having used both. Worth it for fewer problems with controller mappings, if nothing else. Boots to a usable GUI in ~3-4s on a Pi2, which is nice. If you're using a Pi it's easy to try both before deciding, so may as well check it out. Anyone in the market for hardware, I've found that the abilities of various devices tend to be overstated. Pi2 was in fact good enough for close-to-perfect NES, almost good enough for perfect SNES (fine for many games if you can tolerate the occasional slowdown or audio glitches), could play Mario64 acceptably but pretty much no other N64 games. Bizarrely decent at Playstation. I'd imagine the Pi3 is pulls off SNES very well, just judging from the specs, though I don't have one yet. Be aware that these games will not look right without beefier hardware that can handle CRT shaders to (sort-of) correctly fuzzy-up the image. So, not a Pi. I now run Lakka on an Asus chromebox, which was about double the price of a Pi with a decent power adapter and not-hideous case, but can do the CRT shader thing and handles later consoles much, much better. Emulation on x86 tends to be more stable and better supported (faster) in general, so know you'll be on second-class (though rapidly improving!) platform if you go ARM. Try out several controllers before settling. I found that the easiest solution (XBox360) failed my usual test of Punch Out and Super Mario. Couldn't block or dodge worth a damn in Punch Out (unsurprising given the 360's Dpad's reputation) and kept running into bottomless pits in Mario (I found switching between the "A" and "B" face buttons to be too slow). The 360 controller made it feel like the emulator input was lagging, but it in fact wasn't. PS3 controller works well for me. Wii Classic Controller Pro is even better, but I have yet to find a to-USB adapter that isn't messed up in one way or another—last one I tried would periodically register a bunch of wild analog stick input for no obvious reason, making it useless for N64 and Playstation. A big Retroarch-specific benefit of a PS3 or Wii Classic Controller is that you can use their home/menu buttons to bounce to the Retroarch menu, saving you from configuring a button combo for that—IIRC the 360 controller wouldn't let me use its home button for that purpose. [1] http://www.lakka.tv http://www.lakka.tv
- skrowl 10y agoThat's a cute idea, but my NES classic edition is my phone / tablet - https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.explusalpha.NesEmu https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.explusalph... That said, I'd buy this thing from Nintendo if you could add games to it. I'd give them an extra $1 or $2 per game. Gotta have Tetris & RCR!
- agumonkey 10y agoHaaa Bubble Bobble. Infinite Levels. ps: no cartridge, no blow. sad ;)
- sorenjan 10y agoThis would probably work great as a Raspberry Pi case. Too bad the connectors on the front aren't USB, although I'd probably use Bluetooth for controllers anyway.
- jonnycowboy 10y agoThis will be a great alternative for the kids instead of a complex PS4 or Xbox. Especially considering the controller size is much more in line with their hand sizes.
- jason46 10y agoWhat are people going to do when they find out these games are "hard". and OMG those are some great games.
- bitlax 10y agoGood luck playing StarTropics without the submersible letter! :P
- petetnt 10y agoThe Virtual Console version (which I assume this device runs too) contains the letter in the manual. See this video on how it works: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_g_u4KUlW9A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_g_u4KUlW9A
- Karunamon 10y agoI'm curious to see how accurate the emulation is. If you grew up on these systems, even small variations in things like timing and sound will stick out like a sore thumb. Normally you'd expect Nintendo of all people to get it right, but from what I've seen of the Wii virtual console titles, they frequently don't.
- Jyaif 10y agoI hope they didn't just bundle the games and called it a day. They have such a big catalog of games they could do things like "Complete game X and Y, and unlock game Z". Things like that are super cheap to do, but add a lot of value to the product.
- jabbernotty 10y agoI am not sure how actively limiting access to part of the game catalog would be added value.
- rasz_pl 10y agoLet me introduce you to the wonderful world of launch day DLC.
- throwaway2016a 10y agoIt would be fun if they release a developer kit for this and allow homebrew games and firmware.
- fragsworth 10y agoIf enough of these sell, some game developers will have good reason to make NES games again.
- coldpie 10y agoI can't imagine any good reason to create an NES game today. Even if you want to go for that aesthetic, there are far, far easier ways to make games.
- ekianjo 10y agoWell NeoGeo released a new handheld portable a few years back running a bunch of classic NeoGeo games, and it failed miserably on the market.
- ascagnel_ 10y agoThe NeoGeo was always much more of a niche system than the NES. The sales method (collections of games on memory cards) and initial piracy holes (you could load up all the ROMs onto an SD card and never have to buy any collections. Also, the hardware was crap. Even though the games were made for 4:3 monitors, the system shipped with a 16:9 phone screen (likely because 4:3 screens are harder to source cheaply nowadays).
- ekianjo 10y agothe screen was not appropriate but the hardware was not crap. the controls used very high quality click-joysticks, that you find nowhere on portable consoles.
- NTripleOne 10y agoSNK aren't Nintendo and therefore don't have the same rabid fanboys backing them.
- saturdaysaint 10y agoNintendo has probably sold hundreds of times as many home systems as SNK (impossible to know exactly as SNK doesn't seem to have released numbers), which I'd predict is a fair indicator of how comparatively successful Nintendo's system will be.
- shultays 10y agoI was pretty exited but huge disappointment. Huge You can pretty much buy a raspberry pi and rest of the equipments to play NES games for same price. No cartridge slot or ways of playing other games? They obviously didn't try to make a good equipment.
- vlunkr 10y agoThis is legal way to play all those games if that's any consolation. And it's got a nice aesthetic
- mastazi 10y agoSega tried something similar with mixed results [1], the two main differences being that: 1- Sega went for a "clone" rather than emulation (even accepts Genesis cartridges) 2- Nintendo's IP in the classic gaming space is unmatched [1] http://www.gamestop.com/genesis/consoles/sega-genesis-classic-game-console/124933 http://www.gamestop.com/genesis/consoles/sega-genesis-classi...
- crawdingle 10y agoAnother difference being that the Genesis one is a licensed third party. The genesis one is pretty bad quality and while it has some good games built in there's lots of not very good one off third party games the creator built in for increased gamecount.
- mikejmoffitt 10y agoThe most recent Sega units by ATGames are emulated, and they do an absolutely terrible job. Many of them have the FM sound channels out of tune with the SSG sound channels. It's a great way to get a terrible impression of the games offered for it. The older TV Plug and Play ones, however, had a Genesis-on-an-ASIC, a native licensed silicon clone of the original chipset. These were super accurate, and could even have a cartridge slot wired to them by the enterprising modder. They ran at 3.3v, though, so things get quirky with a real cartridge without proper transcieving logic.
- D_Guidi 10y agoI wanna buy only to help nintendo make this stuff a success, so maybe they can replicate with snes...
- overcast 10y agoWow, this is going on my christmas list :) I REALLY hope they expand on this by offering game packs in the future. Such a good idea. $30 game packs full of games, would sell like crazy.
- joeblau 10y agoIt seems to be missing some critical features of the original. - Can't start a game and have the game loading screen distorted until the 7-8th attempt. - Can't blow in the cartridge until it whistles before playing - Can't stick 2 games in on top of each other Getting the game to work was half of the fun.
- artmageddon 10y agoAgreed, till it didn't :(
- andy_wrote 10y agoTowards the end of its life, my NES wouldn't work if I pushed the cartridge all the way in. I had to push it just the right depth in, such that the top of the cartridge (the part facing you when you inserted it) would lightly scrape the edge of the slot as I pushed it down into the machine. It was an art. Fun times!
- sreyaNotfilc 10y agoThat's for the Special Edition. The console will be wind powered.
- rasz_pl 10y agoyou do realize blowing on the cartridge works just as good as not walking under the ladder and avoiding black cats? As a matter of a fact it contributes to connector oxidation (moisture in your breath).
- dpcan 10y agoThe blowing on the cartridge myth was always funny. People still think they have to do it. The actual trick is to stick the game in, and after you push it down, you then slide it with your finger to the left or right about a half-centimeter to align the pins correctly, hit reset, and it's good.
- wingerlang 10y agoI was under the impression that blowing into it caused some moisture to get there and improve the .. conduction?
- awesomerobot 10y ago> there doesn't seem to be any means of getting new games onto it Typical Nintendo "75% right" and "25% how did they screw this up"
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- DominikR 10y agoAs a collector I will buy this anyway, but I also must admit that the games included are actually very good ones. For example some great games like Final Fantasy 1 were never released in Europe. Also the controller can be useful for those that want to play games from the Wii Virtual Console.
- camelNotation 10y agoI can't wait to pick one of these up and play it with my daughter. She's almost 4 and plays games on my cell phone all the time. She gets the basic concepts behind simple games like these already due to the ease of using a touchscreen interface, so I'll be curious to see how quickly she can pick up on a tactile input like this. Maybe we will start with something small like Pac-Man.
- josh_carterPDX 10y agoWait, but if there are games included does this mean I won't have to blow into the box to get them to work!?! I call shenanigans!
- sdegutis 10y agoSNES was the golden age of video games. I wish people would make more games in that style. Super Metroid will never be topped at this rate, and that's pretty sad. You don't have to make games look realistic to make them addictive and fun. Give me a world I can explore, with secrets I can discover, where my character can grow and gain new abilities and combine them for unique new experiences. Stuff like that.
- douche 10y agoHave you not seen the Cambrian explosion of retro-style indie games on the PC? Quite a bit of it is RPGMaker shovelware, but there are a lot of real gems in there as well.
- buckbova 10y agoI really love the open world rpgs like far cry, fallout, witcher, and others. Metroid felt big as a kid, just not sure if it'd hold up today.
- mpclark 10y agoLooks great, but I won't be able to get very far without a Game Genie...
- em3rgent0rdr 10y agoPart of me wants to say cool, thanks for paying tribute and making accessible. Part of me wants me to say ugh, for being unoriginal and milking old products, while using incompatible controllers, especially considering Nintendo used to sue people in the emulator/ROM/clone community, who are the real heroes for keeping the magic alive. I'd rather people just spend $30 for a raspberry pi and a USB NES controller.
- Nexxxeh 10y ago>using incompatible controllers Aren't the new controllers specifically compatible with the Wii and WiiU?
- em3rgent0rdr 10y agoOk, compatible within the newer nintendo universe. But not compatible with regular usb nes controllers, probably for the only reason is to make you pay for the nintendo variety instead of utilizing the already supplied market of cheap usb nes controllers. It's not even compatible with the old nes controllers. At least with a pi, you could rewrire a nes controller to the GPIO or SPI.
- tracker1 10y agoSpeak for yourself... I'd love to see controllers with the build quality from the SNES and Sega Saturn with a true USB interface. By that I mean, most of the aftermarket controllers suck, and the USB adapters are less than ideal.
- peterwwillis 10y agoIf they had lowered the price and networked it, could have allowed us to buy new games online... weird that they didn't go that route
- syphilis2 10y agoThe title and even the image made this sound like a re-release of the NES hardware (2A03/6502 and all) with a slot to put in actual carts. That would have been a neat way to address limited functioning NES supply. Instead this is just a novelty item like so many other "Plug and Play" arcade packs that have been coming out for the past 10 years. A used Wii costs under $30, but of course people value these things differently. There are emulators that accept SNES and NES carts and plug into a TV, reading the cart data into memory. There are also emulators that try to fully emulate the hardware timings correctly such as puNES and BNES.
- scott_s 10y agoFor kinda the opposite of this - super expensive, plays all NES games as carts - check out the Analogue NT: http://www.analogue.co/products/analogue-nt-information http://www.analogue.co/products/analogue-nt-information It's apparently sold out now, but it was a $500 NES built using clones of hardware, and with modern video and audio output. Jeremy Parish has a writeup over at USGamer: http://www.usgamer.net/articles/analogue-nt-review-for-the-rich-niche-of-retrogaming http://www.usgamer.net/articles/analogue-nt-review-for-the-r...
- ilitirit 10y agoThere's also the Retron 5 that plays NES, SNES and Genesis carts. Also the Retro Freak: http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2016-cyber-gadget-retro-freak-review http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2016-cyber-... Each of these devices have their own issues though.
- satysin 10y agoSo great to see Nintendo do this! I loved the NES. I hope this sells well (I will be buying one no doubt about that) so we see a SNES mini some time. The SNES is, and always will be, the greatest console for me.
- rasz_pl 10y agoRIP Hi-Def NES http://retrorgb.com/hidefnes.html http://retrorgb.com/hidefnes.html Dude spend two years developing this product and literary launched last week http://www.game-tech.us/blog/2nd-day-of-packaging-hi-def-kits/#more-1294 http://www.game-tech.us/blog/2nd-day-of-packaging-hi-def-kit... price was somewhere around $150
- ilitirit 10y agoAs someone that just shelled out $200 for a PVM CRT monitor to support retro-gaming, this device doesn't appeal to me at all. I'd wager I'd get a better gaming experience via a low-lag emulator with the appropriate shader plugins. IMO, they should create a cheaper version of something similar to the Analogue NT[1], with built-in network connectivity that you can use to purchase and download legal roms. [1] http://www.analogue.co/products/analogue-nt-information http://www.analogue.co/products/analogue-nt-information
- gambiting 10y agoIt already exists. It's called a Wii U.
- ilitirit 10y agoThe Wii U only supports Limited RGB, and playing on a Wii U misses the entire point of Retro Gaming.
- mattl 10y ago> playing on a Wii U misses the entire point of Retro Gaming So does having a TCP/IP stack and a download store :)
- ilitirit 10y agoYou're missing the point. Retrogaming is about creating the familiar feeling of playing the games. A WiiU controller is not the same as a NES controller. HDMI is not the same as CRT + Scanlines. Retro gamers generally play on the original hardware with CRT screens. If they can't do that, they play on emulators with using controller input converters and shaders or scanline generators. Gaming on a WiiU does not recreate that experience. Watch the videos on this channel for more info: https://www.youtube.com/user/mylifeingaming https://www.youtube.com/user/mylifeingaming
- 10y ago
- EGreg 10y agoI would buy it if it allowed downloading new games into it. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Arcade Game! Who's with me??
- Tiktaalik 10y agoThis is a bit of a desperation move from Nintendo as they have pretty much nothing for the holidays for the Wii U with the NX still in development on the horizon. That said, at that impulse buy price point, I'll definitely pick it up and I'm sure it'll be incredibly popular with those that grew up with the system. This isn't the sort of product that really grows Nintendo's market with a new generation. I wouldn't be surprised if it outsells the Wii U this holiday.
- apozem 10y agoThis is what worries me about Nintendo. With the possible exception of Pokemon Go, they aren't capturing new users. They make money off of loyal fans who grew up with Mario and Zelda. Do kids today care about Nintendo?
- mathgeek 10y agoThe fact that they even released Pokemon Go to such rabid fanfare is more than I expected from Nintendo this year.
- krapp 10y agoI'm pretty sure kids today like Splatoon and Super Smash Bros, at least. Mario Maker seems to be popular, and I would bet most of the people who play it weren't even born when the original Mario games were out. Nostalgia alone doesn't seem to be enough to justify the mountain of cash they're sitting on, so they must be doing something right.
- bsharitt 10y agoMy kids(8 and 6) each have a 2DS and we have Wii and Mario and Zelda are among their favorites. Many of these are re-releases of old Nintendo games on either the virtual console or things like Mario 64 DS or Ocarina of Time for the 3DS, but also newer games like New Super Marios Bros and LoZ Twilight Princess. They enjoy these games right up there along size Minecraft and what ever that bear game my daughter plays.
- 10y ago
- pkamb 10y agoI'm most excited to see a Wii NES pad as an official and widely available product. Hope they do the same for the SNES pad.
- Zardoz84 10y agoWhat I need is a 700-in-1 cartridge for my 1990s NES clone.
- Al-Khwarizmi 10y agoDefinitely going to buy. I'll miss RC Pro-Am and Solstice, it would be nice to have a way to add more games to this thing, but the 30-game selection is very good anyway (the NES had a lot to choose from...)
- tracker1 10y agoNot sure why they didn't go SNES controllers, and enough hardware to support SNES and NES games... add download purchases (to a login account) and that would be gold. The SNES controller wasn't too much over NES, and the layout comparable... for example, I prefer the updated graphics versions of the Super Mario Bros series released on SNES to the original... not to mention a lot of other great games.
- kup0 10y agoWould have appreciated if they had provided more information about this. What about games that aren't pre-installed? Is there any kind of save-states/additional functionality, aside from HDMI and controller compatibility with Wii?