Nintendo announces the mini-NES

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**curran12**

http://kotaku.com/nintendo-announces-the-mini-nes-will-play-30-classic-g-1783660997

Spoiler:

$60 for something like this, heck, color me interested this holiday season.

**infinite_array**

1. Going to be a Christmas ask, along with a second controller.

2. I wonder how these games will look on my 4k TV.

3. ~~Is the cartridge port just for show? Or will that be usable for other NES games?~~ No cartridge support.

4. Mini SNES please?

**jreilly89**

Looks pretty awesome, although some of those games are hard as hell (Looking at you, MM2)

**Nevelon**

I can feel my thumb blistering already.

Need to forward this to The Wife with “hint hint” written all over it.

**Desubot**

Neet

though i already have a raspberry

**Col. Dash**

Oh yeah, so getting one of these. need to start hinting at my wife now. It has Zelda so she will not be hard to convince.

**Nostromodamus**

*heavy breathing intensifies*

**jreilly89**

Anyone know why it comes with Punchout!!! featuring Mr. Dream and not the classic Mike Tyson's?

**Necros**

Probably because Tyson begged for money and Nintendo said LOLno

**Monkey Tamer**

I've already got a pretty sweet set-up on my pc with nestopia, but this is great for kids. I'll probably get one when the baby monkey is old enough.

**jreilly89**

Monkey Tamer wrote:
I've already got a pretty sweet set-up on my pc with nestopia, but this is great for kids. I'll probably get one when the baby monkey is old enough.

Argued with my brother about this. Sure, I could take a Raspberry Pi, download emulators and a ton of games, and build a better Mini NES (or Genesis or SNES) for cheaper, but for the time and money involved, I think the Mini NES is a better deal. I don't have the time nor the motivation to learn how to do things with the Raspberry Pi, I'd rather just plug it in and play.

**feeder**

jreilly89 wrote:
Anyone know why it comes with Punchout!!! featuring Mr. Dream and not the classic Mike Tyson's?

Because, endearing film cameos and animated series aside, he's still an unbalanced lunatic who beat and raped a woman and tried to eat an opponent. Not exactly Nintendo quality.

**jreilly89**

feeder wrote:
jreilly89 wrote:
Anyone know why it comes with Punchout!!! featuring Mr. Dream and not the classic Mike Tyson's?

Because, endearing film cameos and animated series aside, he's still an unbalanced lunatic who beat and raped a woman and tried to eat an opponent. Not exactly Nintendo quality.

So? It was still hugely popular, and it seems like a poor move to include a lesser version of it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punch-Out!!_(NES)#Reception

**kronk**

curran12 wrote:
http://kotaku.com/nintendo-announces-the-mini-nes-will-play-30-classic-g-1783660997

Spoiler:

Looks like we might be playing Zelda this holiday after all—just not the one we expected.

Nintendo today announced the mini-NES, a new $60 machine that will come pre-installed with 30 classic Nintendo games. It’ll also come with an HDMI cable, a power adapter, and what Nintendo is calling an NES Classic Controller, “patterned after the iconic design of the original NES controller.” It’ll be out in stores on November 11.

Here’s the full list of games, via Nintendo:

Balloon Fight™
BUBBLE BOBBLE
Castlevania™
Castlevania II: Simon’s Quest™
Donkey Kong™
Donkey Kong Jr. ™
DOUBLE DRAGON II: THE REVENGE
Dr. Mario™
Excitebike™
FINAL FANTASY®
Galaga™
GHOSTS’N GOBLINS®
GRADIUS™
Ice Climber™
Kid Icarus™
Kirby’s Adventure™
Mario Bros. ™
MEGA MAN® 2
Metroid™
NINJA GAIDEN
PAC-MAN™
Punch-Out!! ™ Featuring Mr. Dream
StarTropics™
SUPER C™
Super Mario Bros.™
Super Mario Bros. ™ 2
Super Mario Bros. ™ 3
TECMO BOWL
The Legend of Zelda™
Zelda II: The Adventure of Link™

$60 for something like this, heck, color me interested this holiday season.

It's on my christmas list.

**feeder**

jreilly89 wrote:
feeder wrote:
jreilly89 wrote:
Anyone know why it comes with Punchout!!! featuring Mr. Dream and not the classic Mike Tyson's?

Because, endearing film cameos and animated series aside, he's still an unbalanced lunatic who beat and raped a woman and tried to eat an opponent. Not exactly Nintendo quality.

So? It was still hugely popular, and it seems like a poor move to include a lesser version of it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punch-Out!!_(NES)#Reception

It's likely less about the perceived quality of the game, and more about Nintendo not wanting to be associated with the trainwreck of a person Tyson is.

**kronk**

feeder wrote:
jreilly89 wrote:
feeder wrote:
jreilly89 wrote:
Anyone know why it comes with Punchout!!! featuring Mr. Dream and not the classic Mike Tyson's?

Because, endearing film cameos and animated series aside, he's still an unbalanced lunatic who beat and raped a woman and tried to eat an opponent. Not exactly Nintendo quality.

So? It was still hugely popular, and it seems like a poor move to include a lesser version of it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punch-Out!!_(NES)#Reception

It's likely less about the perceived quality of the game, and more about Nintendo not wanting to be associated with the trainwreck of a person Tyson is.

It could also me a royalty/licensing thing, as in, "We don't have to pay Mike Tyson to use his likeness on Punchout with Mr. Dream but we would have to pay him for Mike Tyson Punchout."

**KingCracker**

jreilly89 wrote:
feeder wrote:
jreilly89 wrote:
Anyone know why it comes with Punchout!!! featuring Mr. Dream and not the classic Mike Tyson's?

Because, endearing film cameos and animated series aside, he's still an unbalanced lunatic who beat and raped a woman and tried to eat an opponent. Not exactly Nintendo quality.

So? It was still hugely popular, and it seems like a poor move to include a lesser version of it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punch-Out!!_(NES)#Reception

It's the same game just with a reskin on the last fighter. I like Tyson a lot, the guy is my fave boxer of all time, but back in the day Nintendo distanced themselves from his crazy so why change it?

Also I told my wife someone needs to get this for Christmas. Don't care who, just someone. As far as how it looks here in the states, you might be surprised at how clear and nice these games look. I have a Retron5 with HDMI hookups on a 1080 TV and man do these games look great. I've only ever seen these games on crappy RCA cables until my retron5 and I was floored

**jreilly89**

feeder wrote:
jreilly89 wrote:
feeder wrote:
jreilly89 wrote:
Anyone know why it comes with Punchout!!! featuring Mr. Dream and not the classic Mike Tyson's?

Because, endearing film cameos and animated series aside, he's still an unbalanced lunatic who beat and raped a woman and tried to eat an opponent. Not exactly Nintendo quality.

So? It was still hugely popular, and it seems like a poor move to include a lesser version of it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punch-Out!!_(NES)#Reception

It's likely less about the perceived quality of the game, and more about Nintendo not wanting to be associated with the trainwreck of a person Tyson is.

I don't have a Wii, but I'd be curious to see if the one on the Virtual Console is the regular or Mike Tyson's. Wikipedia doesn't really specify which version

**Melissia**

Will it be able to play classic NES cartridges?

If not, not interested.

**Gitzbitah**

Melissia wrote:
Will it be able to play classic NES cartridges?

If not, not interested.

Oh my- you know, allowing that, and then rerelasing bulk blocks of games on cartridges, perhaps by year or series, seems like a very natural expansion opportunity for this product.

**infinite_array**

Gitzbitah wrote:
Melissia wrote:
Will it be able to play classic NES cartridges?

If not, not interested.

Oh my- you know, allowing that, and then rerelasing bulk blocks of games on cartridges, perhaps by year or series, seems like a very natural expansion opportunity for this product.

No cartridges, no expansions.

Thinking it over, I think making it expandable is probably a bad idea, because at that point you might as well buy a Nintendo console that supports Virtual Console. This is marketable to the masses of people who may have played these when they were younger and don't play video games, who don't know about emulation, and who would likely buy one of those knock-off emulators that you can buy in places like Hot Topic - the ones that are just controllers you plug into the screen.

I'm going to buy this because I can't really be bothered with building an emulator, all of these games were before my time so it'd be cool to have a relatively cheap place to have them all, and I know my dad will get a kick out of seeing games that were around when he was younger than I am now.

**Melissia**

However, a lot of games I did enjoy aren't on the list, so even less reason for me to buy it compared to emulation. If they had cartridge support, or expansion of some kind, there'd be reason for me to care.

Like... where's Rygar, for example? Bionic Commando? And so on.

**Chongara**

Melissia wrote:
However, a lot of games I did enjoy aren't on the list, so even less reason for me to buy it compared to emulation. If they had cartridge support, or expansion of some kind, there'd be reason for me to care.

Like... where's Rygar, for example? Bionic Commando? And so on.

I just think the hardcore gamer and/or retro enthusiast just isn't the target demo for this thing. If you know what an emulator is and can get it up and running you're just an advanced user and I'm not really sure they're looking for advanced users to care.

It's a handful of the most popular games in one cute little plastic package with easy setup and official endorsement. It's for the person who played these things as a kid and wants a couple of hours of nostalgia before it becomes a display item in the entertainment room. Possibly also for the odd hipster kid who is into retro gaming but isn't a general tech head and would like to take a crack some of their games dad played when their dad was a kid.

Anyone really into NES games is probably already running an emulator with ROMs of every game ever made for the system or they're a hobbyist who is still in love with the original hardware.

**jreilly89**

Chongara wrote:
Melissia wrote:
However, a lot of games I did enjoy aren't on the list, so even less reason for me to buy it compared to emulation. If they had cartridge support, or expansion of some kind, there'd be reason for me to care.

Like... where's Rygar, for example? Bionic Commando? And so on.

I just think the hardcore gamer and/or retro enthusiast just isn't the target demo for this thing. If you know what an emulator is and can get it up and running you're just an advanced user and I'm not really sure they're looking for advanced users to care.

It's a handful of the most popular games in one cute little plastic package with easy setup and official endorsement. It's for the person who played these things as a kid and wants a couple of hours of nostalgia before it becomes a display item in the entertainment room. Possibly also for the odd hipster kid who is into retro gaming but isn't a general tech head and would like to take a crack some of their games dad played when their dad was a kid.

Anyone really into NES games is probably already running an emulator with ROMs of every game ever made for the system or they're a hobbyist who is still in love with the original hardware.

While I agree on the point of emulations, not having to fuss with AV cables, cartridges, etc. is pretty damn cool. Plug in the HDMI cord and go. That was the biggest sell for me. That and not having to futs with emulators and PCs.

**Melissia**

Chongara wrote:
It's a handful of the most popular games in one cute little plastic package with easy setup and official endorsement. It's for the person who played these things as a kid and wants a couple of hours of nostalgia before it becomes a display item in the entertainment room.

Right, that's what I'm saying. It's a soulless, ambitionless, and loveless attempt to cash in on the nostalgia of their most popular franchises.

And yet it could have been so much more.

**SickSix**

As soon as I saw this it went to the top of my xmas list.

And I still have my original NES with the power pad and gun. I am heartbroken that the gun can't work on new TVs.

**jreilly89**

Melissia wrote:
Chongara wrote:
It's a handful of the most popular games in one cute little plastic package with easy setup and official endorsement. It's for the person who played these things as a kid and wants a couple of hours of nostalgia before it becomes a display item in the entertainment room.
Right, that's what I'm saying. It's a soulless, ambitionless, and loveless attempt to cash in on the nostalgia of their most popular franchises.

And yet it could have been so much more.

Considering Super Mario Bros. 1,2, & 3 generally go for $30 (for all 3) on eBay? It's a simple solution for people wanting to play the games of yesteryear with no hassle and at $60, it's an absolute bargain. Could it have been more? Sure, but a "soulless, ambitionless, and loveless attempt to cash in on the nostalgia of their most popular franchises" it is not.

Everyone clamors for the ability to play old games on new TVs, and they give it to them. Again, for $60, it's a bargain. The NES was around $250 at launch in 1985.

Please, feel free to bash on EA and Ubisoft, but Nintendo has done alright by it's fans.

Besides, SEGA did the exact same thing and no one was up in arms. Plus, it had iffy cartridge support and terrible controllers and cords for half the cost.

**timetowaste85**

Screw punch-out; where the bloody hell are the TMNT games?!

**infinite_array**

I bet someone's going to get this day one, rip it open, and figure out a way to solder some additional piece of hardware on, or just change out the insides, that'll allow people who want to run more game to have that option.

**jreilly89**

infinite_array wrote:
I bet someone's going to get this day one, rip it open, and figure out a way to solder some additional piece of hardware on, or just change out the insides, that'll allow people who want to run more game to have that option.

Probably, but again, there's an easier way

http://lifehacker.com/how-to-turn-your-raspberry-pi-into-a-retro-game-console-498561192