Nintendo put out a press release announcing that they would both manufacture more NES Classic Editions this coming summer, 2018, as well as making more Super NES Classic Editions available at launch on September 29th than they had shipped of the NES CE all last year.
It’s good that Nintendo are finally going to potentially thwart some people who are taking advantage of shortages, but this commitment should have happened a long time ago.
Rumors have been pretty clear that Nintendo would announce a Super Nintendo Classic Edition as a successor to the Nintendo Entertainment System Classic Edition, and it turns out that the reports were true. The SNES Classic Edition will be available at the end of September on the 29th for $80, $20 more than the NES Classic Edition. It’ll have 21 games built-in total, 9 fewer than the NES Classic Edition.
Just like the NES Classic Edition, the SNES Classic Edition will hook up via HDMI, and won’t support cartridges or any other official method of loading new games onto the system. This time Nintendo are including two controllers and one of the games on the system will be the previously unavailable Star Fox 2. Although Star Fox 2 was never released, some footage was available and some versions of the ROM leaked, but this will be the first legitimate release of the game. There’s an old interview on Arwing Landing with Dylan Cuthbert who worked on both Star Fox 1 & 2 where he discusses why the game was never released:
Starfox 2 was fully completed. I was lead programmer and whilst Giles made Stunt Race FX, myself and the rest of the original Starfox team (ie. Nintendo’s artists and designers) expanded Starfox into a full 3D shooting game. We used state-of-the-art technology such as arbitrary plane clipping (which has only been seen recently in such games as Crash Bandicoot 2 & 3) to create some rather spectacular effects. (for the time)
The reason for non-release was the then impending Nintendo-64 which of course was intended to be released a lot sooner than it actually was. Miyamoto-san decided he wanted to have a clean break between 3D games on the SNES and 3D games on the new superior 64 bit system. In retrospect, he could have released Star Fox 2 and there would have been over a year and a half before the N64 came out. But hindsight is always 20/20.
Starfox 64 incorporated a lot of the newer ideas we created in Starfox 2 but it didn’t, in my view, take the genre a full step forward. Starfox 2 really was a different direction of gameplay.
Here’s the full list of games that’ll be in the SNES Classic Edition:
This collection looks great to me, Super Mario RPG is still my favorite RPG, but just as I said when the NES Classic Edition was announced you could buy a Raspberry Pi for $36 today. Load up that Pi with all kinds of emulators and use whatever controllers you want. Which feels even more reasonable when Nintendo plans on ending SNES Classic Edition manufacturing at the end of the year, which will probably make it just as difficult as it was to get an NES Classic Edition when that was discontinued.
What happens when Nintendo launches a very successful and cheap console a few months before releasing the Switch hybrid console/handheld? Jose Otero:
Nintendo will discontinue the Nintendo Entertainment System: NES Classic Edition and the last shipments will go out to retailers throughout this month.
I bet that Nintendo looked at the Classic as a mistake. It was too cheap and attractive to players as a $60 machine that got hacked immediately to enable playing every NES game anyone ever wanted. The Classic also served as a distraction for buyers from the Switch and its inevitable virtual console online shop selling you the same 30 games at $6 or $10 a pop instead of about $2.
Nintendo has never done a good job with serving their old games up on their new consoles, why start now?
Nintendo of Japan announced the Classic-ized version of the Family Computer today. The NES Classic Edition was announced way back in July. This miniaturized Famicom also includes 30 games, and will be available in Japan a day before the NES Classic on the tenth of November. The NES is still not up for pre-order, but Amazon Japan does have this Famicom available for pre-order for 5,980 yen, which is about $59 US dollars. It is possible to pre-order with a US payment device and address.
Here’s the list of games on the classic mini Family Computer:
Nintendo announced a very odd product today, the NES Classic Edition is a tiny version of the original NES that is preloaded with 30 games and includes one controller but cannot accept cartridges. They’re also releasing extra controllers, which use the Wii controller accessory port and can connect to wii-motes, for $10 each.
This is a strange product due to a few unanswered questions. What hardware is inside of it? What software will it use to launch the games?
I’m guessing that it is a further cut-down version of the Wii, a product that Nintendo knows how to make cheaply. They could then use the pre-existing NES emulation software, and interface, of the Wii, which already supports the controller interface.
The good thing about the controllers is that, if they’re similar enough, they could be used to refurbish older NES controllers.
The NES Classic Edition will be $60 when the system is released on November the eleventh. Or you could just do what a friend suggested, and buy a Raspberry Pi for $36 today. Load up the pi with all kinds of emulators and use whatever controller you want.
Here’s the list of games included with the NES CE: