> They should also do a SNES version with Super Mario World and the DK Country series.
Both versions should be able to log in to the Virtual Console and download games/saved games and upload saved games, that is the least I would expect for a $60 USD price tag in 2016.
> > They should also do a SNES version with Super Mario World and the DK Country > series. > > Both versions should be able to log in to the Virtual Console and download > games/saved games and upload saved games, that is the least I would expect for a $60 > USD price tag in 2016.
Should, but can't. According to the big N, this is it. No updates, add-ons, or using your own games. They had nothing to say about SNES or N64 versions at this time, but of course that at least doesn't mean anything.
Quote: Will the mini-NES be able to connect to the internet?
Quote: No. The console is a standalone device, so it cannot connect to the internet or any external storage devices. The game lineup was chosen to provide a diverse mix of popular and recognizable NES games that appeal to a wide variety of players. Everyone should be able to find multiple games to enjoy.
On the same note: does Nintendo plan to sell other NES games for the mini-NES beyond the 30 it comes preloaded with?
Quote: No. The console is a standalone device, so it cannot connect to the internet or any external storage devices. The 30 games included with the system were chosen to provide a wide variety of top-quality, long-lasting game-play experiences.
Are there plans for other mini-consoles, like a mini-SNES or mini-N64?
Quote: We have nothing to announce at this time.
Just because people have been asking: safe to say it can't play old cartridges, right? (Based on the image it looks like an NES cartridge would have around the same width as the entire console.) Does it open up at all?
Quote: The console does not use physical media and therefore the Chamber Lid does not open.
The unanswered question is what hardware they have in there. Modern hardware with an emulator like they have on the Virtual Console? NES-on-a-chip? (with all the "its not the same as the genuine hardware" that goes with it). Some new hardware implementation? (e.g. new custom NES ASIC or something) Something else?
I've always wished Nintendo would do a rerelease of the original NES along with a few new NES games. When I first spotted the article's headline, I got my hopes up but then I read the article and I was just like blahhhh.
Do you know how much it would cost to sort out all the licensing, get all the games rated etc. make sure they're not going to trigger epileptic fits etc. (an important part of the approval system, even for the VC stuff)
Also the last thing they're going to allow is people to run their own ROMs, because somebody would put a nude hack of something on there and parents on the internet would go into meltdown.
Has one of these re-releases where you can only get 30 games ever been a hit? It's never enough and really just cheapens the perception of the original. Neo-Geo Gold comes to mind, what a hunk of junk. With this NES they should have at least left the door open for more game compilations in the future.
> Has one of these re-releases where you can only get 30 games ever been a hit? It's > never enough and really just cheapens the perception of the original. Neo-Geo Gold > comes to mind, what a hunk of junk. With this NES they should have at least left the > door open for more game compilations in the future.
I guess it gives them reason to keep clamping down on romsites?
Also they're so cheap to produce it probably costs Nintendo nothing, it's actually quite funny they're basically doing their own Famiclone when we've had them for the past 15 years at least.
Even big name shops on the highstreet sell rip-off Nintendo hardware without a license.
it's clearly some enhanced NES with optional extra colour modes and sample playback, half the games are hacked NES titles tho. the cloned hardware isn't even perfect, some glitch badly on scrolling / raster effects. Most annoyingly buttons 1 and 2 are in the wrong order so playing Lode Runner (which even retains it's original title, unlike all the others) is nearly impossible ;p Not that the joystick is actually usable either, it misses most directions, but it makes a nice desk ornament.
The video seems to show more of the 'original' games than the NES ones, but don't be fooled.
> > Has one of these re-releases where you can only get 30 games ever been a hit? It's > > never enough and really just cheapens the perception of the original. Neo-Geo Gold > > comes to mind, what a hunk of junk. With this NES they should have at least left > the > > door open for more game compilations in the future. > > I guess it gives them reason to keep clamping down on romsites? > > Also they're so cheap to produce it probably costs Nintendo nothing, it's actually > quite funny they're basically doing their own Famiclone when we've had them for the > past 15 years at least. > > Even big name shops on the highstreet sell rip-off Nintendo hardware without a > license. > > I have one of these > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=knfdVXZApvM > > it's clearly some enhanced NES with optional extra colour modes and sample playback, > half the games are hacked NES titles tho. the cloned hardware isn't even perfect, > some glitch badly on scrolling / raster effects. Most annoyingly buttons 1 and 2 are > in the wrong order so playing Lode Runner (which even retains it's original title, > unlike all the others) is nearly impossible ;p Not that the joystick is actually > usable either, it misses most directions, but it makes a nice desk ornament. > > The video seems to show more of the 'original' games than the NES ones, but don't be > fooled.
There's some speculation that this thing is basically a Wii Mini without a disk drive.
I think this is an okay idea, but I do not like the fact that it only has 30 games and you can't buy more. It would be great if you could buy this and use whatever NES Virtual Console games you already own on it, or if you could buy more game packs. But this is Nintendo, though. So of course it's crippled.
... come to think of it, I wonder if this is also part of a plan to get Famiclones out of the market?
I guess it's kinda cool that it's an official product that will be available before the holiday season. At basically 2 bucks a game plus the hardware it's not a bad option for casual users and gets a retro feel into their homes.
Hardcore/experienced users are probably better off sticking with emulation or the real hardware with real carts/flash cart.
> If you were hired by Nintendo to select the game list, which ones and how many? > > > The game list isn't very exciting and most of the arcade ports are a complete waste > > of time. They could do better than this.
Not so sure how much licensing money they wanted to put into it. I would assume they were not going to spend much more money on anything beyond existing available titles in the Virtual Console - seems that most of those titles are already available there.
Definitely as many as possible and for which ones, that would take a while but from a quick look at their list, the things that first popped into my mind other than the arcade port problems (Pac-Man and no Rygar lol) were not having the first Double Dragon or Contra or MegaMan. They had some good picks that I would keep but if I was kept to 30 games I'd probably toss 15 of their choices. What about Battle Toads and Micro Machines. Must haves. RC Pro-Am?
Agree that Pac-Man is a waste, and that they shouldn't have selected the sequels of those other games over the originals. If they were forced to choose one Pac-Man port, the Tengen version of Ms. Pac-Man was better. I would've also skipped Castlevania II and gone with Castlevania III with the enhanced music.
I wonder if Super Mario Bros. 2 is the real one from Japan called the Lost Levels or in fact the version they release in the US which started out as a different game that was turned into Super Mario Bros. 2?
> Definitely as many as possible and for which ones, that would take a while but from a > quick look at their list, the things that first popped into my mind other than the > arcade port problems (Pac-Man and no Rygar lol) were not having the first Double > Dragon or Contra or MegaMan. They had some good picks that I would keep but if I was > kept to 30 games I'd probably toss 15 of their choices. What about Battle Toads and > Micro Machines. Must haves. RC Pro-Am?
You could order one and customize it with thirty games of your choosing (not realistic)
or.....
It was Internet connectable and allowed you to purchase more games in the future as they become available (doable, but no one @ the corporate level gets neat ideas like that)
Nintendo should just release a dedicated Virtual Console box that alowed you to browse/buy games from everything they released up to the gamecube or N64 at least.
$60 for 30 NES games just isn't worth it. I had an old CRT lying around so last year I got a Raspberry Pi 2 with a case, controller, and 16GB microSD for less than $60. It has 1235 NES games on it. And also all the MAME roms and every other console game from 1975-1995.
> $60 for 30 NES games just isn't worth it. I had an old CRT lying around so last year > I got a Raspberry Pi 2 with a case, controller, and 16GB microSD for less than $60. > It has 1235 NES games on it. And also all the MAME roms and every other console game > from 1975-1995.
For the casual user or busy parents with kids, all that stuff you mention is much more difficult to assemble and turn it into something that just works when comparing it to some mini box that connects to someone's 8 out of 10 HDMI inputs that aren't in use
> I wonder if the controller that is included is really identical to the original > official controller. On the official website, it says: > > "Play NES games the way they're meant to be played—with a full-size "original" > controller." > > http://www.nintendo.com/nes-classic > > But I have my doubts that it's not going to be identical. It will probably be close, > but not identical.
The shape may be the same, but I think the plug is smaller.
> > I wonder if the controller that is included is really identical to the original > > official controller. On the official website, it says: > > > > "Play NES games the way they're meant to be played—with a full-size "original" > > controller." > > > > http://www.nintendo.com/nes-classic > > > > But I have my doubts that it's not going to be identical. It will probably be > close, > > but not identical. > > The shape may be the same, but I think the plug is smaller.
The ports are the same as on a Wiimote. In fact, you can also use it on Wii/Wii U as a classic controller. I wonder if that means you can use a different classic controller with this? That would ruin the experience of course, but still some would prefer a more comfortable controller. Writing this brings to mind swapping controllers around back in the day with consoles and computers that used the standard 9-pin port like Sega and Atari.
> I wonder if that means you can use a different classic > controller with this? That would ruin the experience of course, but still some would > prefer a more comfortable controller.
Yes you can according to Nintendo:
"Use your Classic Controller™ or Classic Controller Pro™ (sold separately), or buy a second NES Classic Controller."
> All of the ROMs for some shitty, hacked-up old version of MAME, sure.
The Raspberry Pi 3 I have is running Mame2010(v0.139).(I switched the Rpi 2 for a 3 in April) It can play everything from 1975-1995 at full speed with the exception of 3D arcade games such as PSX and Saturn(SH-2) based hardware. It also can't handle Cave SH-3 games. But most 2D games including Capcom System III run fine on it. It can also run all PS1 ISOs at full speed.
> If you were hired by Nintendo to select the game list, which ones and how many? > I definitely would've put Tecmo Super Bowl on it, instead of Tecmo Bowl. But then there's NFL Player's Association licensing probs right there. RBI Baseball belongs on it. To this day it's the 'funnest' baseball vid I've played. Lee Trevino's Fighting Golf could have made a Top 60 cut I'd think; I'm not surprised it's not on this one, but it would be better than a lot of the games that are. (Again, they would proably have to cut a check to Lee Trevino; as someone else pointed out there are "commercial viability" questions all over).
As at least one other has said the arcade remakes (Pacman, Galaga, Donkey Kong, etc.) were disappointing in the 80s. Few are going to be able to get into them today.
They did well putting Kid Icarus on there. I was a little surprised seeing it included. Good insight on someone's part. A fair amount of players are going to spend most of their time on it and/or Metroid I'd think.
Someone said RC Pro-Am. Yep. Definitely. My brother-in-law bought one of those Retron systems a couple of years ago. I got him a stack of resold carts at a game store and RC Pro-Am was the first one I grabbed.
To those of us familiar with emulation this isn't anything earth shaking obviously. I'm more excited about the controller's being released, though I'm sure it's going to be less hardy and probably noticeably lighter than the original.
One of my old buds, a dude at whose house we used to drink, smoke, and tear it up on NES bitd, posted about this release on facebook the other night. To a guy like him whose not especially www-savvy this is a big deal. I'm glad guys like him will get a taste of this. It will be good for them.
Keeping the coin-op vids alive and wishing I loved stamps or coins or baseball cards, instead.
Having a couple hundred nes cartridges I would have bought one if I could have used my original carts too.
I don't know why consoles like this that they don't put original cart slots on them too. The genesis, coleco, Atari, and now this one. I would have bought one of each just to play my carts if they had included slots and put my original consoles away.
>Having a couple hundred nes cartridges I would have bought one if I could have used my original carts too.
>I don't know why consoles like this that they don't put original cart slots on them too. The genesis, coleco, Atari, and now this one. I would have bought one of each just to play my carts if they had included slots and put my original consoles away.
This will unfortunately never happen, because if they allow you to play original cartriges, it would allow anyone with a flash cart to play pirated roms. I'm sure it is a very deliberate omission.
> > Having a couple hundred nes cartridges I would have bought one if I could have used > my original carts too. > > > I don't know why consoles like this that they don't put original cart slots on them > too. The genesis, coleco, Atari, and now this one. I would have bought one of each > just to play my carts if they had included slots and put my original consoles away. > > This will unfortunately never happen, because if they allow you to play original > cartriges, it would allow anyone with a flash cart to play pirated roms. I'm sure it > is a very deliberate omission.
I understand what you're saying but to me it's a moot point as in the companies haven't produced game carts in years, some decades. As many game carts that are still out there and playable I could see a higher number of these retro consoles being sold if they did indeed contain working cart slots from the point of view of people like myself buying them in order to either put the original console away or replace a non working console.
I could also see people buying them for the games they already contain internally plus the ability to buy favorite games not included or to add other games to their library. As the manufacturing companies aren't allowing any kind of expansion either thru other game sales items or internet downloads.
still, they'd much rather sell you something else later, or have you rebuy them on a modern system (which isn't even always possible)
as I said, some of it is control too, even back then Nintendo were very fussy over what people could run on their systems, locking out anybody not paying them to develop etc. Nintendo want to know *exactly* what somebody is running on their systems, no different today.
There's also the very real possibility that the reproduction hardware just isn't that good (most of the famiclones struggle on games that require specific timing, as does MAME) or, if it's an emulator, they wouldn't easily be able to use the cartridges directly anyway* and with the number of custom chips in them that becomes a big problem.
* an emulator runs in it's own time domain, for example, often running the entire emulation in the first 20% of a frame, with the cpu idling for 80% and if you're trying to communicate with external hardware, or having to respect access times of original ROM/RAM chips, this can be a serious issue, it can already be a problem in MAME if you want to communicate with external hardware, as you really have to sync the emulation time with real-time much more often than 'per frame' and doing that causes other issues - if you divide the screen into 240 lines and sync every line then you have to make sure no part of your code that is executed each line takes more than 1/240th of the cpu time you have otherwise you won't get 100% speed. If accessing original RAM in the cart even that level of sync isn't high enough.
If you were dealing with a less complex system, such as the Megadrive, your hardware could essentially 'dump' the cartridges and just run them from RAM. MD Roms have a small header, defined by Sega, just after the 68k vectors, assuming the header information is correct, you know roughly what is in the cartridge, however that would fail for Chinese titles, Virtual Racing, and games with incorrect backup RAM info in the header (some EA stuff, Pugsy which has fake data as copy protection etc.) However, for 95% of the library you would get away with it.
NES is one of the most complex cases tho, there are no internal headers to 'hint' at things in the actual cartridges, just the ROMS and additional hardware, lots of different hardware. You'd need a database like the MAME Software List database to try and guess/identify what the cartridge was and which mappers your emulator should use even if your hardware went for the 'attempt to dump' approach. Even then, if your cart was a revision not in the database, it would have no idea how to deal with it.
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