Unless you were one of the lucky ones who manage to snag one of Nintendo’s mini NES systems when they debuted nearly two years ago, you may have thought you were out of luck when Nintendo cut off the supply—or at least may have been left wondering when they’d produce more. Now, you’ve finally got what you’ve been waiting for, unless you went the eBay route and spent an absurd amount of money to get one any way, in which case, you may not be quite as thrilled about this news.
Nintendo says that the NES Classic Edition will return to stores on June 29, and it’ll remain there alongside its counterpart, the SNES Classic Edition, through the end of 2018. The HD-ready retro consoles were both hits in their own right, with the SNES version selling even more quickly than its predecessor, although that could have been fueled by the NES’s lesson that there was no waiting and expecting to buy one later, just as much as by the SNES’s lineup of classic games.
That lineup includes well-known classics like Super Mario World, Super Mario Kart, The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, Donkey Kong Country, Super Metroid, Star Fox, and Super Mario RPG—many of those being series-defining titles that solidified the franchises that would fuel Nintendo for years to come, not to mention the never-before-released SNES Star Fox sequel. But for me, the NES Classic had even more absolutely unforgettable gems, not just containing the roots of many of those franchises, but titles like Mega Man 2, Techmo Bowl, Bubble Bobble, Dr. Mario, and more.
The question that remains is how many of those NES Classic titles will be available on the Nintendo Switch’s online service, free with players’ subscriptions. We already know that Balloon Fight, Dr. Mario, Super Mario Bros. 3, Donkey Kong, Ice Climber, The Legend of Zelda, Mario Bros., Soccer, Super Mario Bros., and Tennis will be available, significantly cutting into the NES Classic’s library, since all of them except Soccer and Tennis are NES Classic games. With 10 games still left to be announced for the service, there’s likely to be even more overlap.
On the other hand, the never-ending issue with Nintendo’s “virtual console” downloadable games, whatever they decide to call the feature going forward, is that games don’t transfer over to newer consoles, which makes the NES Classic an appealing option to provide reliable access to classic titles no matter what happens in the future of the Switch’s, or its successors’, online services. Alternately, you could still have a working NES and your own game library, but it doesn’t exactly look great on today’s TV screens, though there are upgraded, 3rd party NES consoles that do, with widely varying degrees of quality and price. Choose wisely.
(via The Verge, image: Nintendo)
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