Super Nintendo Classic Coming in September (hollywoodreporter.com) 127
Rumors are true. Nintendo is gearing up to launch the SNES Classic, a miniaturized version of the glorious original Super Nintendo Entertainment System. The console will include 21 games when it launches September 29. A report adds: Among the big surprises: a never-before released Star Fox 2 is in the mix. Here's the full list of games: Super Mario World, Super Mario Kart, The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, F-Zero, Super Metroid, Super Street Fighter II Turbo: Hyper Fighting, Super Punch Out, Super Castlevania IV, Donkey Kong Country, Mega Man X, Kirby Super Star, Final Fantasy III, Kirby's Dream Course, Star Fox, Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island, Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars, Contra III: The Alien Wars, Secret of Mana, EarthBound, and Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts. It will retail at a price point of $80.
Holy crap (Score:3)
They went to 11 for that games list!
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So sad they didn't include Chrono Trigger!
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Oh right, I didn't realize that. Maybe due to Square-Enix still selling that game for other systems.
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Maybe FF3 isn't selling as well as Chrono Trigger.
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Yes. Here's the number of units that will be shipped:
Japan: 4
USA: 3
Europe: 2
Canada: 1
Australia: 1
Ooooh exciting... (Score:2, Funny)
But i'm going to hold out for the N64 Classic.
and all of... (Score:5, Insightful)
...51 people will actually be able to get one, instead of the 50 that were able to get an NES Classic.
Not holding my breath.
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Beat me to it. Massive hype, tiny production. That seems to be going around: the same thing is happening with the new Lego Saturn V. . .
Re: and all of... (Score:2)
You wouldn't be able to sell the thing for $80 otherwise. You can get an RPi and some controllers with a bunch more games and better emulators than either the NES Classic or this thing.
They'll keep selling new game systems at $80 until people stop buying it.
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Yes, but will there be enough? (Score:2)
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That's the entire question. We'll find out if Nintendo can learn from their mistakes.
That being said, I won't be nearly as annoyed if I don't get one of these as I was about the NES Classic. I already have most of those games loaded on the RetroPi I built when I couldn't get the NES Classic. The only thing I'd miss out on would be StarFox 2, and I figure it'll take less than a week for a ROM of it to show up
Re:Yes, but will there be enough? (Score:4, Interesting)
Yeah will be nice to finally get the completed version of StarFox 2, but there has been a leaked mostly complete beta of StarFox 2 out there for a while.
They'd have to flood the market (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: They'd have to flood the market (Score:1)
If we are lucky, they will flood the market and end up killing a bunch of scalpers.
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Yeah, right, sure (Score:3)
Considering how things played out last time with the NES Classic, I'm not holding my breath that this will ever truly become "available" to the masses for the $79.99 price mentioned in the article (and not in the summary).
A few years ago I was thinking about building an arcade cabinet. Even found working copies of several thousand old ROMs including all the classics that I plugged an uncountable number of quarters into. I could invest a couple of hours into getting all of that working on the machine connected to my TV and still be ahead of the $200-$300 a NES Classic, plus whatever $$$ this new SNES Classic will end up costing. And still play all of the games included in both the NES and SNES Classic's.
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There's a initial period where it's fun to get one, and then you realize it's an under powered console for kids. Not to mention we've played most of these games WHEN we were kids.
No thanks I'll stick with current generation consoles.
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Considering how things played out last time with the NES Classic, I'm not holding my breath that this will ever truly become "available" to the masses for the $79.99 price mentioned in the article (and not in the summary)
This is my big problem with Nintendo. You can't just go to the store and buy one at or below MSRP. You either have to sleep outside the stores for when they open, or buy one online at inflated prices.
The Switch isn't expected to be available at MSRP until next year(!). And the NES Classic was never available enough to go down to MSRP before it was discontinued.
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You can't just go to the store and buy one at or below MSRP. You either have to sleep outside the stores for when they open, or buy one online at inflated prices.
I can understand not being able to walk into a store and buy one. Each store has a certain number in stock at any given time, and once they run out, they run out.
What I don't understand is, why don't they let you order in online, and then let Nintendo fill the orders on a first-come, first-serve basis? Like... ok, I get it, you don't have any in stock right now. But then when you get a shipment in two weeks, you'll just run out immediately because scalpers are making a job out of buying up all available
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I can understand not being able to walk into a store and buy one. Each store has a certain number in stock at any given time, and once they run out, they run out.
The last remaining high street Game (the capitalisation is deliberate) retail chain here in the UK didn't even get "new" NES Classics. What they did have though, was lots of UNOPENED pre-owned ones. With a scalpers price to match. That sort of shit should be stomped on by Nintendo.
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And yet millions of people have gotten it at MSRP.
It varies by country. Some get plenty, and some have a chronic shortage.
The US is one of the countries where you just can't find it for $299 unless you can sleep outside a store when they arrive and the employees aren't scalpers.
Re: Yeah, right, sure (Score:1)
I bought a Switch at MSRP a few weeks ago.
It was sheer luck, though. There were four at the store. Went back a few hours later and the three I didn't buy were gone.
Still Waiting for the NES Classic (Score:2, Interesting)
Nintendo should be manufacturing additional NES Classic units instead of shutting their production down (Which has already occurred) and then announcing a Super Nintendo Classic. They haven't remotely met demand for the first retro console yet. Many of us were looking forward to it from the second it was announced, but there were no pre-orders available online, so we waited, and tried to buy it release day, and it sold out instantly. Several "click-a-thons" were announced by Amazon, Walmart.com, etc. tha
Third-party game licenses (Score:1)
Nintendo should be manufacturing additional NES Classic units
And get sued out of existence for copyright infringement if the original deal with the third-party publishers specified a limited number of units. Or would you prefer a limited-functionality NES Classic with all third-party games cut out?
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And I'm sure those third party companies would be more than happy to renegotiate a gravy train. Sure maybe the price has to go up, but at $70, I'm sure NIntendo could raise it to $100 to relicense the games. It's not like those games were making much money otherwise sitting
For the Price? (Score:1)
RPi SNES emulator for your games (Score:2)
Cheaper, and likely not legal to use in your jurisdiction.
If you're like me and already own almost all of these games on the original cartridges, then you can probably legally play them on a Raspberry Pi. But if you were to buy all of them on ebay, you'd spend quite a bit more than $80. (EarthBound and Super Mario RPG are both pricey), and Star Fox 2 isn't even available.
And then how much for the ROMs? (Score:2)
How much would the ROM licenses for your Raspberry Pi solution run you? They wouldn't even be available for first-party games, which outnumber third-party games in this collection.
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This device is intended for people who lack such an extensive cartridge collection. Though you are outside this device's market, this market exists nonetheless.
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It was really easy to put ROM dumps onto the NES classic and expand its library. Really easy.
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Yes yes, of course. And building your own gaming rig is more cost effective and a better experience, especially with the Steam sales than any console could ever be, which is why both Sony and Microsoft's console divisions are having their staff fling themselves off balconies before they get pinkslipped.
Or maybe it's that doing the RetroPie thing is outside of the technical capabilities of 99.5% of the population which is why things like this sell like hotcakes?
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I also have a Retropie, but I'd have to disagree with you on it's a superior product from some perspectives. Yes you can throw thousands of ROMS on it and emulate a dozen or more consoles very well, but the downside is that you have a lot of work to do yourself to get it to work. And even then sometimes things don't line up perfectly. Every time you switch controller types you have to manually re-map things in MAME for example - and the Retropie mapping in the UI doesn't go through to MAME at all so you
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And that's leaving out the accuracy component - which the Pi is too slow to do perfectly. Just look at the system requirements for Higan for NES and SNES.
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No, this will come with a power cable, a case, and probably some firmware with the OS on it, a PI is only cheaper if you just plan on using the raw empty board as a paperweight. This also comes with the controllers, a $20-$60 value in themselves, and a load of games (Evaluating super old classic games is not really possible, but at least $20 and possibly 5 times as much). If you wanted to custom do this yourself we are talking a few hundred dollars at least.
As for more capable, your best bet would the cheap
Re: For the Price? (Score:1)
How do you spend several hundred on 'some Pi setup'? By putting the ~$50 pi board, flash and wallwart into a rare hardwood enclosure??
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Pi is $50 shipped, last I bought one.
$30 for a pair of acceptable controllers
$15 for a case
$15 for a DECENT power supply that supplies 2A or more. Lower power supplies you have a chance of filesystem corruption which is what I ran into until I stopped cheaping out on the power supply.
$20 - $800 for a MicroSD of varying size. I use a 64GB one personally, and for that size you need to spend at least $30 on a decent card or you run the same risks as a crappy power supply.
So add all that up and you're into th
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Last month I did a Raspberry Pi Zero W build for retro gaming. What I've bought was:
- 2x 8bitdo NES30 bluetooth controllers (the best in my opinion) - ~$20 each
- 1x Raspberry Pi Zero W with black plastic case - ~$15
- 8GB SD card - $0 - I've got it laying around - but it would be probably few bucks
- Mini-HDMI to HDMI cable - $2 off Aliexpress
- Micro USB cable - $2 off Aliexpress
The build took me about 3hrs. Installed RetroPie, tweaked it a litte. Most time consuming was selection of games as I didn't want it
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Factoring in a case, power, and SD, and shipping if you live in 99% of the world we are at $80 absolute minimum possible $50 more (The last Pi I bought cost me $80 in shipping alone). Two controllers get us to $120. Then to be compatible to a laptop with emulators we need a $100+ screen and a battery (maybe $40+, I don't know). Probably talking $300+.
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This also comes with the controllers, a $20-$60 value in themselves, [...]
Are you kidding, these aren't worth more than US $6.39 with free shipping from Shenzhen, China.
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Damn... (Score:2)
Gaming imitating Hollywood? (Score:2)
Is it appropriate to spend money recycling them into a new platform? I would think that rather than coming up with yet another console, wouldn't it be more effective for the customers and more profitable for Nintendo to make these games available on DVDs/cartridges for current systems?
That would leave more money & engineering talent for developing new and better hardware instead of recycling the same things over and over again?
I love playing Super Mario Kart and a number of the other games they're brin
Virtual Console (Score:2)
wouldn't it be more effective for the customers and more profitable for Nintendo to make these games available on DVDs/cartridges for current systems?
Wii and Wii U had Virtual Console, which is what you describe except provided as a download rather than as physical media. The best guess for when Virtual Console will reach Nintendo Switch is 2018, when Nintendo plans to launch the Switch's online service.
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Nintendo is the only console company that makes money on the hardware and software. Everyone else sells hardware as a loss leader for software. Ever wonder why new video games are $60 a pop?
Which is actually a pretty good price these days. Popular SNES games were $60 each, and that was 20+ years ago.
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Popular SNES games were $60 each, and that was 20+ years ago.
Geez... I thought paying $30 for Atari 2600 cartridges was nuts back in the day. I had 30 of them as a kid.
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So much for the "poor blue collar childhood" narrative...
If you remember my narrative, the girls in the seventh grade thought I came from a "poor" family because we didn't have an Apple ][ or cable TV to get MTV. But, hey, don't let facts get in the way of you poo-pooing my narrative.
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Nintendo is the only console company that makes money on the hardware and software. Everyone else sells hardware as a loss leader for software. Ever wonder why new video games are $60 a pop?
A few years ago I remember leafing through my old "Family Computing," noted the $35-$50 price that new games from most places were selling back in 1988, and I plugged it into an inflation calculator. If games were as expensive now as they used to be, we would be paying $75-$110 for every game these days.
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I believe this is due to nowadays better hardware performances. Back then, games had often to be optimized in plain assembly and took longer to develop.
Nowadays, more high level languages and reusable libraries can be used and there is no problems deploying 200MB games on computers.
Back then, most games were work of art optimized in every part of it. Today, games are optimized just enough to run on the available hardware.
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I believe this is due to nowadays better hardware performances. Back then, games had often to be optimized in plain assembly and took longer to develop.
But games used to also be developed by much smaller teams. Today's AAA game comes with a Hollywood-sized budget that goes to the salaries of specialists -- environmental artists, texture creators, effects artists, sound effects, voice actors. Except for indy games, we're long past the point where the big games are developed by a single person or a small team. Twenty-thirty years ago, a game character could have been created by a single person. Were games better optimized for hardware in the old days? Yes,
sold (Score:1)
and its already sold out...
Will they get the controllers wrong again? (Score:2)
I only care whether it takes original controllers or not. If not, fail.
Longer cords! (Score:2, Insightful)
Hope they make the controller cords longer this time!
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What point are you trying to make? Old games had to fit on small media, this is not news.
Got mine! (Score:2)
Raspberry Pi with NES, SNES, N64 (albeit hit or miss), Sega, etc.
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Re:Got mine! (Score:5, Interesting)
The fun part about RetroPie is it automagically detects controllers on startup. Check out the Controllers section of their docs [retropie.org.uk] to see common examples.
I tend to leave my Pi on, so I have a few wired 360 controllers attached to it (power-a xbox 360 controllers [amazon.com], if you're curious). I find they work pretty well for NES, SNES, PS1, and Genesis (with minor remapping) games, and they are ergonomic enough that I don't get X-Box claw or any other hand cramps. They don't have quite the same feel as original controllers, but I find I'm able to do stuff like the Mock Ball and other timing-dependent tricks just fine. Of course, you could also just find some original controllers and get a USB adapter.
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I bought a $20-25 Logitech controller. Has two sticks, takes some playing around to get used to. I've seen USB N64 controller clones on Amazon, but they get mixed reviews. I can attest to some of them being cheap after having both a USB NES and SNES controller - shitty quality. Again, N64 games are hit and miss on it: Star Fox, Super Smash Bros work well; Golden Eye barely works; Star Wars Shadows of the Empire and Rogue Squadron do not work. If you really want N64, you can find decent N64 bundles on e
bOIng! zOOm! (Score:2)
I am surprised by the lack of Chrono Trigger.
.
Chrono Trigger?? (Score:3)
No Chrono Trigger??
Also, why not complete series like Mega Man X, X2, X3 and Donkey Kong Country 1, 2 and 3? The other two Final Fantasy would have been great too.
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Of course FFV, they added Star Fox 2 so why not FFV?
And Final Fantasy Mystic Quest, what the hell is that? Never heard of it! Nope! Never existed.
"Price point" (Score:3)
Odroid XU4 and GameStation Turbo... (Score:1)
why not Super Mario All-Stars + Super Mario World (Score:2)
Why have just Super Mario World when you can have Super Mario All-Stars + Super Mario World
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Why have just Super Mario World when you can have Super Mario All-Stars + Super Mario World
The answer to this is obvious. They've decided how many games they want on it at this price. If they add too many, no one will buy them on Virtual Console. The number of cartridges is irrelevant. It doesn't matter if they have 21 or 22 "cartridges". They likely have the exact same hardware in this as the NES classic*, and that had room for literally hundreds of games, not just the 30 included. They don't want to reduce the perceived value of their games by making them too cheap. Indeed, if they wante
I still want a NES Classic... (Score:2)
Fuuu-diddly-uck! I'm in. (Score:2)
The game lineup is amazing. Price will be a big deal.
Who hasn't heard/watched "Rawest Forest" (Super Mario RPG)?