Nintendo Is Launching a New, Tiny NES For $60 With 30 Games (engadget.com)

Nintendo, which has been in the news a lot lately thanks to Pokemon Go, has announced a new console. It's called the Nintendo Classic Mini, and it will ship pre-loaded with 30 games. The upcoming Nintendo Classic Mini will be priced at $60, and an extra NES controller will set you back by $10. The controller can be attached to a Wii remote for use and the Virtual Console on the Wii or Wii U. The console, which comes with an HDMI and USB cable (for power) will ship on November 11. Engadget reports about the titles: The full list includes 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 Ghoblins, 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 and Zelda II: The Adventure of Link.HotHardware has more details.

Comments

Emulation or real hardware?

[NeoGeo64]

I hope this isn't like the Retron 5, Genesis 4 or NeoGeo X. Shitty ass emulation. Needs to run fucking like a normal console.

Re:Emulation or real hardware?

[mrun4982]

Of course it's emulation. They're probably just running something similar to the Wii (U) virtual console. I wouldn't worry about "shut ass emulation" though. The Wii (U) Virtual Console is very good emulation.

Re:Emulation or real hardware?

[Anonymous Coward]

I was thinking this too. There is no way they developed this in house so hopefully they've vetted and approved whatever the subcontractor came up with.

The traditional Famiclone/NES-on-a-chip systems are pretty bad and have known issues and video/sound shortfalls. Cheap, but I doubt they've gone this route.
Nindendo does have a first party NES emulator they use to sell their games on the wii/wiiu/3Ds and it's not bad at all. Emulation is faithful and accurate enough. Supports save states and everything.

Given that you can get a powerful multicore Arm SoC based system with a half gig of ram, HDMI out, and a few gigs of storage for less 20 bucks retail.. I'm pretty certain they can put out a product that's decent if they cared to.

You're right though. There are some Negeo and Genesis emulation based "retro" consoles that are absolute dog shit. Slapped together cheap with little testing. The Genesis ones have god-awful sound that's painful to anyone who played the original console. (For what it's worth genesis sound emulation is tricky. They implemented the full z80 cpu from the SMS forb backwards compatibility with SMS games. When the system is in 'genesis' mode the z80 becomes in charge of the sound subsystem and it's VERY timing sensitive)

Nintendo's realized they have to branch out with their IP to stay relevant. Their dip in to mobile with Pokemon GO eclipsed their ENTIRE handheld business with one game in less than a week.I just hope nintendo can do this and keep their soul. Pretty much all of the other Japanese game devs have fallen.

Re:Emulation or real hardware?

[Galaga88]

There's noticable lag on the gamepad display for NES VC games at least. It's weird that Mario Kart 8 seems to stream flawlessly in realtime to the gamepad, but in Super Mario Bros. or Ninja Gaiden I can always feel the delay between button presses and the game reacting.

Of course, since this is going via direct HDMI, there should be zero lag at all.

Re:Emulation or real hardware?

[Dutch Gun]

Even tiny computers these days are powerful enough that they could run these games in an emulator running inside another emulator. As long as it's a quality presentation, it shouldn't matter to the end-user what's happening under the hood. Given that this is Nintendo with many beloved first-party titles, I'll bet it will be quality emulation.

Or, just wait until the reviews come in before plunking down $60. We'll find out quickly enough.

Re:Emulation or real hardware?

[kheldan]

Shitty ass emulation.

You kidding me? The hardware for the NES was so minimal to start with, they probably put it all, with the exception of one big EPROM for the game software, onto one FPGA, including the 6502 processor (which was, as I recall, labeled '2A03', a 40-pin DIP IC). Remember, NES was only 8-bit.

Re:Emulation or real hardware?

[thegarbz]

Needs to run fucking like a normal console.

Why? The Nintendo back catalogue plays through just fine on Wii Virtual Console. About the only thing you can't do is exploit timing bugs in the hardware to e.g. make Mario move through a wall. Otherwise their existing emulator works really well and there's no reason to believe that another effort of emulating won't either.

Re:Emulation or real hardware?

[tepples]

Even tiny computers these days are powerful enough that they could run these games in an emulator running inside another emulator.

I can confirm that that's possible on any system capable of emulating Game Boy Advance, all the way back to an 866 MHz Pentium III PC running PocketNES in VisualBoyAdvance (VBA). But I haven't had a chance to confirm PocketNES in VBA GX in Dolphin.

Re:Emulation or real hardware?

[F.Ultra]

Perhaps there is some latency due to the Bluetooth communication between the gamepad and the Wii U? I.e first the keypress have to be sent over BT to the Wii U and then the Wii U have to send the picture over BT to the gamepad. And this latency (albeit small) might not be noticeable with games such as Mario Kart due to the game design (the cars don't react as quickly as say Ninja Gaiden).

Re:Emulation or real hardware?

[Anonymous Coward]

There's noticable lag on the gamepad display for NES VC games at least. It's weird that Mario Kart 8 seems to stream flawlessly in realtime to the gamepad, but in Super Mario Bros. or Ninja Gaiden I can always feel the delay between button presses and the game reacting.

Of course, since this is going via direct HDMI, there should be zero lag at all.

regarding this, it's still possible to have noticeable lag if your TV is doing a lot of post processing.

usually, you can get around this (or make it a little better) by switching ti to Game Mode.

here's a good site that has monitor lag times.

http://www.displaylag.com/

Re:Emulation or real hardware?

[Anonymous Coward]

I hope it doesn't run exactly like my original console. Pulling the cartridge out to blow on the contacts, slamming it down in the slot and shoving another cartridge on top just to get it to work wasn't much fun.

Re:Emulation or real hardware?

[Anonymous Coward]

Not at $60. FPGAs are too expensive for a product where the total BOM cost can only be a max of $20.

Re:Emulation or real hardware?

[Blaskowicz]

um why not build a Genesis emulation console with an actual Z80 included, then :)

Re:Emulation or real hardware?

[werepants]

For a production run it will be an ASIC, but same principle applies - almost all that functionality could be hardware emulated on a single chip today, very easily.

Re:Emulation or real hardware?

[Anonymous Coward]

The funny thing about the NES being 8-bit was that one of the most typical calculations in the games is multiplying by 320, but the largest multiplier the CPU is capable of is 255, so you needed to split your multiplications over 3 or so instructions.

Re:Emulation or real hardware?

[Blaskowicz]

I'm imagining something like Raspberry Pi 1 in terms of CPU power, but with less RAM and cheaper.
Heck, with 8MB RAM and 4MB flash maybe you've got enough (assuming you need one 1920x1080 24bit buffer plus something neglectable for the rest), 16MB if you need some double buffering or whatever, or 128 MB if that's the smallest and cheapest chip with enough bandwith for the frame buffer (more than 100MB RAM stays unused).

could be MIPS as well as Cortex-A5 single core etc.

Re:Emulation or real hardware?

[kheldan]

I was just going to come back and say exactly that; yes, if it's a mass-production consumer electronics item, it'd be an ASIC, which is more or less the mass-production version of an FPGA, but their prototype would have been an FPGA until they finalized the design. Even the original NES (and the coin-op arcade game version) used a (relatively) small ASIC (40 pin DIP) that was specific to the game being run (more or less; usually, the wrong version would just have the wrong color palete; in much later titles, as I recall, they just plain wouldn't run with the wrong IC. But we used to re-label the 40-pin IC from some unpopular titles because it was the same one used for Super Mario Bros, and re-burn the 6 2764's and re-label them, too). In fact I wouldn't at all be surprised if the ASIC is a full-on SoC, including all the RAM and ROM necessary, and anything external is just glue logic and power supply circuitry.

Re:Emulation or real hardware?

[Anonymous Coward]

Shitty ass emulation.

Please clarify- by "shitty ass emulation", do you mean shitty emulation of an ass, or do you mean emulation of a shitty ass?

Thanks in advance!

Re:Emulation or real hardware?

[Anonymous Coward]

I haven't played any NES VC games on the gamepad, but I did play Super Metroid start to finish using just the gamepad as my screen, and it seemed perfectly responsive.

Re:Emulation or real hardware?

[Anonymous Coward]

So you ran a GBA emulator in order to run an NES emulator?

.....ok. I'm not calling it a stupid thing, or a smart thing. I'm simply acknowledging that it is a thing.

Re:Emulation or real hardware?

[Blaskowicz]

If you implemented "real" hardware on FPGA you would also need a scaler, after transforming that NTSC composite signal to something else.
French NES had some hardware to convert composite (PAL?) to RGB so that it could play on TVs of the day that only supported RGB and RF. That's a NES with RGB output, but not really (real RGB was on SNES, Megadrive, Master System). It was some kind of high quality composite with some crawling artefacts when scrolling (that perhaps are the same on all NES, I don't know).

Well that would be very interesting for hardware engineers to do such things but IMO they just took a generic chip meant for a DVD player etc. and ran an emulator on it.

Re:Emulation or real hardware?

[Blaskowicz]

why by 320?
at least, the screen is 256 pixel wide.

Re:Emulation or real hardware?

[kheldan]

Guess we'll have to wait for a teardown of one, won't we? You're probably right, they could have totally recreated the old hardware in an ASIC but they probably just emulated the whole thing on another processor. After all 6502 was, what, 1Mhz or 2Mhz at most? Even a piddly (by today's standards) 100MHz single-core processor could emulate dozens of 6502's at the same time with no performance hit, and 6502 only had a 16-bit address bus, so memory is no problem. Mapping old graphics to a new graphics engine wouldn't be difficult either. If they can write Asteroids hardware emulators for a PC that runs the original 6502 assembly code, while also emulating the dedicated hardware vector generator, then they should be able to seamlessly emulate NES hardware, too.

Re:Emulation or real hardware?

[tepples]

I ran PocketNES in VBA for a couple reasons. One was to verify that games work in PocketNES without having to burn them onto my GBA flash cart every time. (They never did get Big Bird working.) Another was that around 2005, VisualBoyAdvance supported lossless video codecs, and NES emulators didn't. Many would crash soon after I started recording if I chose Huffyuv from the VFW codec selection dialog. (Huffyuv was what we had before Lagarith.)

Re:Emulation or real hardware?

[tepples]

Confusion with Commodore 64 is why.

The NES picture is 256x240 pixels in size. (The video signal also includes 12 pixels of border on each side, for a total of 280x240 pixels that are stretched to a 4:3 frame. This makes each pixel slightly wider than it is tall, for an 8:7 pixel aspect ratio.)

Re:Emulation or real hardware?

[ausekilis]

Needs to run fucking like a normal console.

I've been playing games a long time and have yet to find one with that title. Or are you talking about what the adult industry is going to do with VR?

Re:Emulation or real hardware?

[Anonymous Coward]

Since Nintendo have access to the original design it is probably fairly cheap for them to do an ASIC implementation and if they intend to do a large enough run the hardware will be cheaper than what you would need for an emulated system.

Unfortunately internet is flooded with articles that doesn't care about the technology so a quick Google didn't give any images of the internals.

Re:Emulation or real hardware?

[Roman Mamedov]

They don't need FPGAs for this by now, there are now ready-made ASICs including all of that, with even their own established acronym among the retro-gamers: NOAC (Nintendo On A Chip).

Quality of the actual output produced by those may vary though, especially in the audio department.

Re:Emulation or real hardware?

[Anonymous Coward]

They could, but it would be much easier to just ditch the analog part. Apart from the palette and the pixel clock there is nothing with the graphics that is designed around NTSC specifically.
It is relatively* trivial to just take the pixel stream and scale up to a 1080p buffer and push out the image from that one.

* Compared to the fairly simple way the original video chip handles the sprites it is trivial.

Re:Emulation or real hardware?

[Noah Haders]

> Even tiny computers these days are powerful enough that they could run these games in an emulator running inside another emulator.

ninception.

Re: Emulation or real hardware?

[Anonymous Coward]

Everyone has the access to the original HW. NES is "public domain". NES clone systems have been selling for $20 here for at least 20 years now.

Re:Emulation or real hardware?

[Shirley Marquez]

The least expensive FPGAs are now around $8 in distributor quantities. Nintendo could probably get them for $5. Not too expensive.

Re:Emulation or real hardware?

[kheldan]

Just FYI, I know for a fact (since I used to repair arcade games) that at least the arcade versions of NES games came in 6 2764 EPROMs; 4 of them for program data, 2 of them for graphics data, so 32kB of program, 16kB of graphics. I'd imagine the home-version cartridges were the same.

Re:Emulation or real hardware?

[kheldan]

Interesting; I didn't know that.
Reminds me of back in the Bad Old Days when I was still repairing arcade games for a living, I thought quite a bit about condensing the original Pac Man circuitry down to a single programmable logic device, needing only RAM, ROM, and a Z80 processor to operate. Of course now you could synthesize the entire thing including all the above on a single FPGA, no problem. Too bad you'd get burned alive by Namco for doing it.

video games are for children

[Anonymous Coward]

so who cares?

Re:video games are for children

[Anonymous Coward]

so who cares?

This guy

Re:video games are for children

[ZorinLynx]

I'm sorry that all the joy got sucked out of your life. I hope someday you find it again.

Re: video games are for children

[Anonymous Coward]

*hee haw*

Re:video games are for children

[Anonymous Coward]

This is not true. Too much violence. They are for morbid adolescents.

Re:video games are for children

[jellomizer]

While proposed as a Troll, the NES games were more targeted toward children/teenagers as the main demographics.
Kids today will not appreciate these games as the new ones are far superior in most aspects. This is only targeted towards those late 30's early 40's with a nostalgic love for these games.

Re:video games are for children

[kheldan]

I second this sentiment. While I have better things to do with $60 than buy this, it's still tempting, and I can certainly see the draw of it. Small amount of money compared to an Xbox or Playstation, most of the popular games from it built right in, just plug and go. Also since no cartridges, none of the electro-mechanical problems that the original NES developed over time.

That same AC probably thinks bicycles should only be for children too young to drive, and that they should be outlawed from public roads, too. Sad, sad, sad person.

Re:video games are for children

[Anonymous Coward]

Know how I can tell you're elderly? Video games are generational. Everyone 50 and under grew up with them, and many people still play. Elderly people who grew up before video games, and got locked into their ways so they can't enjoy new things, don't understand this.

Re:video games are for children

[Anonymous Coward]

One of my favorite quotes, from C.S. Lewis

“When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up.”

Re:video games are for children

[ganjadude]

far superior based on what? graphics? sure, sound of course. but gameplay??? im not so sure (when talking triple A games anyway) there is very little "new" you got 100 FPS games sports games and racing games, but very few games with good gameplay these days. I still find myself playing older nintendo and sega games over my PS4

Re:video games are for children

[Anonymous Coward]

"Isn't that droll Delilah?" he continued. "Now doff your knickers and I'll give you a lolly!"

Re:video games are for children

[Mashiki]

By far most of the new games today only have superior graphics and sound. Many don't surpass the stories that were written and very few surpass the size that many of those NES games had, especially when jammed into that little ROM chip. Keep in mind that the vast majority of today's games also handhold you all the way through. One of the reasons why games like Dark Souls or FTL are so popular is because even if you do everything right, you can still fail and that's the end of the line.

The big draw for a lot of people is that those older games, they don't handhold you. They don't put tips in the loading screens and so on. In the end, to each their own.

Re:video games are for children

[kevmeister]

Guess you missed the article on the benefits of many games to the human brain. It is the cover article in the July Scientific American. Many are very beneficial to cognitive capabilities in adults, especially older adults.

Re: video games are for children

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sure there a few jokes to be made about his first name "Randy".

Re:video games are for children

[Anonymous Coward]

This is only targeted towards those late 30's early 40's with a nostalgic love for these games.

So, people with money and nostalgia for the original releases? What a concept!

Re:video games are for children

[Noah Haders]

i missed that issue. i was playing mario kart.

Re:video games are for children

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd buy one for nostalgia and just because they're cute, but only if they were cheaper. $60 is way too much for only 30 NES game.

Good thing I've got my Dingoo A320 (with OpenDingux). Most NES, Mega Drive, TurboGrafx-16, Neo-Geo, CPS1/2 and Game Boy Advance games work well on it. SNES emulation suffers from slowdown or frameskip, but it's tolerable for things like RPGs.

Re:video games are for children

[Anonymous Coward]

lol

Ninja Gaiden on the NES was a million times better than that garbage on Xbox or whatever.

Stop making hardware.

[Anonymous Coward]

If Nintendo would stop making hardware and release Zelda for the PS4 they would have to make several more buildings just to hold all of the cash they would make.

Re:Stop making hardware.

[Anonymous Coward]

Because that worked so well for Sega.

Seriously though, Nintendo gets a huge advantage of having the hardware, OS and game programmers all under the same roof.
If they had to reach out to Sony/MS for documentation on how their hardware works, you can be sure the quality and time would suffer. They make fun games, let them be.

Re:Stop making hardware.

[Anonymous Coward]

PS4 customers don't play kiddie games.

Not an NES

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a system that plays NES ROMS, but it ain't no NES. You wouldn't call a BluRay player a DVD player if you had to rebuy all your DVD media, would you?!

Re:Not an NES

[Anonymous Coward]

You can buy a NES for $20 pretty much everywhere go do that ya whiny ass bitch

Re:Not an NES

[Joe_Dragon]

and then add a flash card and Hi-Def NES HDM

Re:Not an NES

[dugancent]

For significantly more for $60.

Re:Not an NES

[citylivin]

"You can buy a NES for $20 pretty much everywhere"

Im not sure if thats true anymore. It was certainly true when they were sitting in water, rusting at peoples garage sales in the 90s and you couldnt give them away. However time, even a short amount like 20 years, does funny things.

On craigslist, a bare bones NES console seems to go for $60+ with no games.

i was at a retro gaming convention recently and the average price was about $100 for a NES console (controllers extra). A BNIB boxed one i saw selling for $900, but that was probably just for show.

NES games were going for at least $10-20 each. With some titles over a hundred dollars. There is a whole retro gaming scene that loves consoles! and at the retro gaming con that i went to there were at least a hundred tables of people selling old NES games. The con was packed, and many people had nes games and consoles under their arms as they left. I personally saw people paying $100 myself no problem plus $20 bucks for a nes controller or two.

Some people there were old 30-40 somethings like myself who owned a NES back in the 80s, but many more were 10-25 years old, and they were the ones who had no problem plunking down $100 bucks for a NES.

It was all a bit surreal..
I do wonder what this announcement will do to the retro gaming market. One of the big problems is finding CRT monitors for the light guns and era specific eccentricities (RF adaptors etc). I guess they didnt get duck hunt running on this thing...

Re:Not an NES

[Anonymous Coward]

Buying games at conventions is the easiest way to get ripped off, same thing with buying online.

Find a local game store (not a chain), they will trade in classic consoles, games, accessories / compatibles. I bought a NES, 2 controllers and 3 games for $80 (Mario 3, Mega Man 2 & 3) just last year. Then I had to buy an upscaler because yikes (that almost cost as much as everything else)

They also had a NEO-GEO and I was damn tempted (until I looked up how expensive THOSE carts are)

WHY THAT CONTROLLER PORT

[Anonymous Coward]

Me: >
Me: I wonder if the controllers are prewired or...
Article: "extra NES controller"
Me: I can get BRAND NEW NES CONTROLLERS!?!? PICTURES NOW
Article: >
Me: :(

Re:WHY THAT CONTROLLER PORT

[SCPRedMage]

Those ports are the same as the accessory ports on Wiimotes; you can use the existing Wii Classic Controller Pro with the mini-NES, and you can use the new NES controllers (which, as the article says, looks like the original NES controller) with a Wiimote to play Virtual Console games. You should also be able to connect the Wiimote to a PC and use the NES controller that way, too.

You can see what the controllers look like on the images of the boxes, and it's been reported elsewhere that the controllers will cost $9.99.

Re:WHY THAT CONTROLLER PORT

[drinkypoo]

Those ports are the same as the accessory ports on Wiimotes

It's still a kick in the nuts that you can't use your classic controllers if you have them lying around. Do not want. Will stick with emulation. I have yet to find a NES game that doesn't run at least as well on ye olde Xbox as the real thing, sometimes better.

Re:WHY THAT CONTROLLER PORT

[Anonymous Coward]

It would be even more of a kick in the nuts if it had controller ports you can't buy controllers for.

Re:WHY THAT CONTROLLER PORT

[Blaskowicz]

My kick in the nuts is that it doesn't come with TWO controllers like the NES did.
Too bad for leaving out Teenage Mutant (Hero/Ninja) Turtles, it was a great game (well, we mocked it in 16bit days) and would have gone well with the few other hard ones on the list.

Re:WHY THAT CONTROLLER PORT

[Merk42]

It's still a kick in the nuts that you can't use your classic controllers if you have them lying around. Do not want. Will stick with emulation. I have yet to find a NES game that doesn't run at least as well on ye olde Xbox as the real thing, sometimes better.

You can use the classic controllers on an Xbox?

Re:WHY THAT CONTROLLER PORT

[drinkypoo]

You can use the classic controllers on an Xbox?

No. But I can't use mine on this either

But will it run...

[tverbeek]

But will it run Linux?

(Imagine a beowulf cluster of them!)

Re:But will it run...

[roninmagus]

Shut the fuck up. Running Linux used to not be a given, asshole. It used to be a true accomplishment, and pardon us old guys for appreciating that.

Is it April 1st again already?

[Whorhay]

The wife is going to hate me for it but I am definitely buying this for my kids... yeah, yeah, you got me, it's really for me.

Re:Is it April 1st again already?

[Fallen Kell]

I mean, I understand the appeal of a new device like this. But seriously, if you already own a collection of NES games, you should really look into getting an original NES or top loader modded with the Hi-Def NES board. This will add HDMI output, an extremely high quality video upconverter, as well as expansion audio support.

Re:Is it April 1st again already?

[SvnLyrBrto]

Some of us though have parents who gave away our NES and game collections during that year in college that we lived in the dorms before grouping up and getting our own apartments off-campus where we could have brought our old Nintendos.

Re:Is it April 1st again already?

[Whorhay]

As a kid I was too broke to have a collection of games. I borrowed from friends and rented occasionally. The console its self was pretty sketchy as I bought it used from a family that had used the hell out of it. In the mid 2k's I bought a very nice used NES and a few games, but ended up leaving them with an ex. This looks like a very good value for the money especially since it's new hardware.

Re:Is it April 1st again already?

[Anonymous Coward]

Also I've looked into buying original NES hardware and I kept finding it being sold by dickhole price gougers on ebay. And fuck ebay cuz fuck paypal.

Re:Is it April 1st again already?

[Anonymous Coward]

Your wife will hate you for spending money you earned on something you want?

Marriage is weird.

Re:Is it April 1st again already?

[operagost]

An NES, plus a few carts, is smaller than a breadbox. I would have left an entire outfit or two at home if it meant making room for the NES.

Re:Is it April 1st again already?

[Grishnakh]

No, you need to show this to the kids and encourage them to play it so they'll appreciate some of the best video games ever made, since all the modern ones suck.

Re:Is it April 1st again already?

[Grishnakh]

Yep, it's little wonder more and more people aren't bothering with it.

Re:Is it April 1st again already?

[SB5407]

Is there an equivalent for the N64? All I can find that looks as user friendly as the NES Hi-Def board is a vaporware HDMI mod for the N64 named Ultra HDMI. There are other mods, but which one would I want to get?

Re: Is it April 1st again already?

[Anonymous Coward]

What shitty dorm didn't allow nes in the dorm ?

Re:Is it April 1st again already?

[mattack2]

I *don't* own a collection of NES games, and even though I have way more PS2 & PS3 (and likely this Black Friday, a PS4) games than I have time to play.. have always thought of "eventually" getting a Wii or Wii U or something like that -- MOSTLY to play the old games.

This is a good way for them to get a bunch of money out of me when it comes out.. I'm definitely interested in at least 15 of the games (though I guess I have one of them on the PS2 Mega Man collection).

Re:Is it April 1st again already?

[Noah Haders]

did you ever wonder, what is a breadbox? I have always wondered.

Re: Is it April 1st again already?

[Anonymous Coward]

Did you try google? It's a fucking box for bread.

Re:Is it April 1st again already?

[operagost]

I have one in my kitchen. You put bread in it.

***** THE MORE YOU KNOW>>>>>

Re:Is it April 1st again already?

[Noah Haders]

why would you tho. that is the question. why would anybody want to put bread in a box, let alone a special box designed for this singular purpose? does that make any sense?

App Store?

[Anonymous Coward]

Will there be an app store for the chance to get more games?

No Tetris?

[Anonymous Coward]

Aw, Nintendo, this was almost perfect. :(

Re:No Tetris?

[Anonymous Coward]

also need duck hunt...

Re:No Tetris?

[tepples]

The Zapper relies on the 15.7 kHz horizontal scan rate of a CRT SDTV to detect light. The vast majority of HDMI displays are LCD, not CRT, and thus lack anything remotely similar for the Zapper to pick up. To work on an HDTV, the system would need to use a system similar to the Wii Remote and Sensor Bar to determine where the barrel is pointed.

Re:No Tetris?

[Jarik C-Bol]

seeing as the controllers are entirely new, and only *look* like the original controllers, nothing is stopping them building a 'zapper' with modern tech that would work with HDTVs, other than cheapness and laziness.

Re:No Tetris?

[Anonymous Coward]

The obvious answer is cost. The Wii achieved something similar with a couple of IR LEDs and a special sensor in the Wiimote. Not only would the NES need this, it would require a way to either (a) translate it into a form that the game can understand (i.e. something based upon the position of the scanline) or (b) rewrite portions of the game itself. As it stands, Nintendo will probably make very little on this product: development costs, tooling for manufacturing, and licensing are likely going to chew away at their profits -- particularly when you consider that it is a niche product. (A large niche perhaps, but nothing compared to the typical size of Nintendo's market.)

Re:No Tetris?

[Anonymous Coward]

If I recall correctly the NES Zapper was a bit simpler than most screen pointing devices of that era.
I think the Zapper only had a light filter and the games then had to make the interesting object bright and everything else on the screen dark during a frame to be able to detect the hit.
Because of that it was possible to cheat by pointing the Zapper at a lamp to get a guaranteed hit.
That method would work just as well with an LCD.

I could be totally wrong and confuse it with another system but it fits with the blinking I recall from certain Nintendo titles.

Re:No Tetris?

[tepples]

I think the Zapper only had a light filter

The photodiode's output runs through a resonator circuit, similar to that used by remote controls to demodulate pulses, to distinguish 15.7 kHz CRT scanning from other light sources.

and the games then had to make the interesting object bright and everything else on the screen dark during a frame to be able to detect the hit.

Or if the game makes the whole screen bright, it can time from the start of the frame to determine how far up or down it is pointed. A game can use this information in one of two ways: to narrow down how many "interesting objects" it needs to test, or to directly move an object up or down. The Zap Ruder tech demo shows this, and its Pong-like air hockey simulator called "ZapPing" feels just as responsive as "Laser Hockey" in Wii Play.

Because of that it was possible to cheat by pointing the Zapper at a lamp to get a guaranteed hit.

Hardly. If the photodiode sees light just before the start of the frame, the game sees it as a disconnected Zapper. (From the CPU's point of view, the resonator produces a 1 for dark and a 0 for light, and a disconnected input is pulled to 0.)

As usual, NESdev Wiki explains it in detail.

They forgot an S

[artgriego]

They went too far back...why didn't they just make this a SNES too and include some Mortal Kombat/Street Fighter!?

Re:They forgot an S

[mrun4982]

Why not both? I'll probably buy this and I'd probably buy an SNES version as well. I wouldn't be surprised at all if we see an SNES and maybe even an N64 version if this thing sells well, which I'm sure it will especially during the holidays.

Re:They forgot an S

[Anonymous Coward]

an N64 one with 4 controller ports would be a money printing machine.

Re: They forgot an S

[Anonymous Coward]

You seem to have overlooked the key word "too" in the post you were replying to.

Re:They forgot an S

[torkus]

Somewhere buried in my garage are two modded xbox consoles which...should one go download the "omg so illegal" ROMS, would play NES, SNES, GB, GBA, GBC, MAME, and a bunch of older 1st and 2nd gen console and handheld games.

And hey...all 20,000-30,000 game ROMs happily fit in something like 25GB. I mean, of course, if you were the type of person who would posess said ROMs without proper licensing agreements from all the companies. Of course.

It's a cute idea though and for the price I might just get one myself. Hopefully there's a uSD slot so we can add more ROMs.

Re:They forgot an S

[rhazz]

Hopefully there's a uSD slot so we can add more ROMs.

I would be very surprised for an item with this price point to have any kind of scalability, especially considering they already have a platform for monetizing old content. But if it's popular enough then I bet once it has been out for a while someone will post instructions for modding.

Resist this evil friends!!!!

[SirAstral]

We should be telling Nintendo to take the time to do quality ports of these games into the current day and age. The Retro community has more respect for things like this compared to their own creators.

I will refuse to give Nintendo another drop of my cash until they get their heads out of their asses and start respecting their customers.

Re:Resist this evil friends!!!!

[zero_out]

Can you please enlighten me as to why you believe this is an inferior product? I'm not part of the 'Retro' community, so I'd be grateful to know of any better alternatives.

Re:Resist this evil friends!!!!

[SirAstral]

The fact that you need to ask is a bad sign.

I work in technology. I have stopped purchasing consoles and "Exclusive" bits of hardware where ever possible. Console needs to die, not because I am a PC gamer, which I am, but because people should not be asked to shell out $$$ just to play on an exclusive platform. The different in cost and performance are less of the issue compared to vendor lock in with game titles.

Regarding the Retro community. There are many fans like http://byuu.org/ that focus on 100% accuracy with emulation. Compound that with available Up-scaling technology and you can make an older titles visually look better without altering the original code or game-play. I cannot tell you how terrible many game ports have been and show a clear trend that game companies do not respect their IP and would rather damage it in the pursuit of money than to do right by it or the gamer community.

Do we really need to get into Nintendo's terrible history against gamers to add more fuel to this?

Booo...new controller port?

[iMouse]

I realize Nintendo wanted to update the unit for easy connection to modern TVs (HDMI), but they could have at least made the controllers backward-compatible. So much for using an NES Advantage on this thing...

Re:Booo...new controller port?

[iMouse]

I should add not "new", but new to the NES. Same connector used by the Wii.

Needs Wireless OG NES controllers

[Anonymous Coward]

If this thing came with Wireless OG NES controllers, I'd be super hyped. I really don't feel like sitting on the floor, looking up at a wall mounted 50 inch LCD.

Re:Needs Wireless OG NES controllers

[tepples]

It's not quite the same, but if you have a Wii or Wii U, you can connect one of these controllers to a Wii Remote and use it with Virtual Console games or other games that support the Classic Controller and don't need X, Y, or the shoulder buttons.

Will be interesting

[Anonymous Coward]

to see what is inside it, and if it's an emulator, will it run all games correctly, or with bugs?

Wii U network

[puddingebola]

Are retro Nintendo games available from their network on their current hardware? I guess $60 is cheaper than a used Wii?

Re:Wii U network

[turp182]

I'm not sure about other games, but, we have all of the NES/SNES/Nintendo 64 Mario games on our original Wii (they are the only games my wife plays, and she's very good at them).

NES-on-chip

[GuB-42]

So Nintendo is doing officially what the Chinese have been doing for more than a decade illegally.
They go by the name "Power Player" or "Super Joy" and contain dozens of NES games preloaded. The entire system is typically contained within the controller and the quality is very poor.

Castlevania III

[LichtSpektren]

I'm surprised they included Castlevania II: Simon's Quest, which is a fairly terrible game overall, but neglected Castlevania III. It was really ahead of its time in many ways, and although it's one of the hardest games ever made (I've never been able to beat it without save states unfortunately), it's also incredibly fun and rewarding.

I have some thoughts about this NES re-release but I'll ponder it some more before I make a comment I'll later regret.

Re:Castlevania III

[Anonymous Coward]

Castlevania III notoriously doesn't work on many clone/pirate NES systems due to the way the cartridge interacts with rarely-used pins in the slot that it uses to provide, IIRC, higher sound quality.

What's weird about that is that you'd expect this system to be emulating everything. If instead it is basically just another clone/pirate with a few extra simple mappers wired in or something, that'd be really disappointing. Clone/pirate NES systems alway seem to have an audio pitch discrepancy with the real thing, for one.

Re:Castlevania III

[Anonymous Coward]

IT doesn't have to be because of technical issues.
Castlevania is a Konami title, perhaps they just didn't want to license Castlevania III to Nintendo for whatever reason.

Controller

[Yvan256]

Too bad they're releasing the square controller instead of the better, redesigned NES-039 controller.

MMC5 Curse

[tepples]

Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse is also a much more complicated game to emulate because it uses the MMC5 mapper to expand the NES's graphical capability. (I'll admit that CV3 underuses the MMC5 compared to some other games though. It was originally designed for the somewhat less complex VRC6 mapper, but Konami probably found it cheaper to use the MMC5 than to get the VRC6 certified.)

Re:MMC5 Curse

[Anonymous Coward]

Notably this game does NOT work on the famiclone/NES-on-a-chip systems. With any luck they're using the good emulator core they made for VCS (I know it's not the best you can get but it's good enough and nintendo customers are used to it)

Winner

[Dan East]

Powered by standard USB: Win
Controllers are usable with Wii and Wii U: Win
Controllers are dirt cheap: Win
Games are automatically saved at certain points allowing resuming after power off: Win
NES styling: Win
HDMI: Win
Two player support: Win
Ability to play additional games via cartridge or download: ???

Re:Winner

[zero_out]

Games are automatically saved at certain points allowing resuming after power off: Win

While I agree with the rest of your points, I have to disagree with this one. I find the all-or-nothing approach of most NES games to be preferable. Games like Super Mario Bros. got it right with the ability to have extra lives, but forcing you to start from the very beginning if you run out. The ability to keep reloading a save state until you finally get past a certain challenge spoils the achievement, IMO. By making you start from the very beginning, it also forces you to take a break from beating your head against the same wall.

Of course, this is just my opinion, and how you wish to play your games is perfectly valid.

Re:Winner

[zero_out]

This isn't about the ability to play classic games. This is about the ability to easily play classic games. With a Raspberry Pi, emulators, etc., you have to do a lot more to make it work. I'm sure it can be done fairly easily, but people have to do the research, buy the components, load it all together, and troubleshoot any problems. You and I may enjoy doing that, but some people just want to plug it in and play.

Re: Winner

[Anonymous Coward]

No, you really don't. Have you looked at RetroPie lately? It's 30 minutes of work, and supports a lot more than the NES library.

But hey, pay for software that should be public domain by now.

Re:Winner

[Anonymous Coward]

Games are automatically saved at certain points allowing resuming after power off: Win

While I agree with the rest of your points, I have to disagree with this one. I find the all-or-nothing approach of most NES games to be preferable. Games like Super Mario Bros. got it right with the ability to have extra lives, but forcing you to start from the very beginning if you run out. The ability to keep reloading a save state until you finally get past a certain challenge spoils the achievement, IMO. By making you start from the very beginning, it also forces you to take a break from beating your head against the same wall.

Of course, this is just my opinion, and how you wish to play your games is perfectly valid.

I would agree if I was 12 again and could play nonstop all weekend, unfortunately I don't have the time to do that so I like having the saves. Plus I don't have to curse out my parents for turning off the nintendo because I wasn't playing it during a food break...

Re:Winner

[Calydor]

Considering I was playing a fully functional NES emulator (NESticle, I think it was called) some 15 years ago if not more, I really don't think there is that much work involved today. Especially not if you have a Wii (U) and access to the Retro section of the game store.

Re:Winner

[blind biker]

Powered by standard USB: Win
Controllers are usable with Wii and Wii U: Win
Controllers are dirt cheap: Win
Games are automatically saved at certain points allowing resuming after power off: Win
NES styling: Win
HDMI: Win
Two player support: Win

I agree, except for HDMI, which for me is a big Lose: it's a standard designed around DRM and not with consumer's interests in mind. There are many things wrong with HDMI. And personally, it makes the console unusable for me, since I have sworn not to have any HDMI devices in our home.

Re: Winner

[Anonymous Coward]

You do you use then? DVI?

Re:Winner

[Blaskowicz]

Here you could leave it on, hopefully it blanks the screen and sits there eating 0.5 watt.
Better yet, have the option for save/load state to be used automatically on start up and shut down, but with no backtracking (in that mode) and when you're dead and game over, you're dead. Start over or get lost.

Re: Winner

[Anonymous Coward]

DisplayPort, DVI, VGA, YPbPr, SCART - in that order. I also avoid HDMI out of principle.

Re:Winner

[Anonymous Coward]

> And personally, it makes the console unusable for me, since I have sworn not to have any HDMI devices in our home.

You are an idiot. Don't let the technology door hit your ass on the way out.

Re: Winner

[spacepimp]

Doesn't DVI actually support DRM mostly as well?

Re:Winner

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you really have a recent TV that *DOESN'T* have HDMI, or is it ok for your device to have HDMI as long as you have an alternative to use?

Re:Winner

[Dan East]

In a world where roms and emulators exist, and it's simple to have EVERY game on your computer or a Raspberry Pi, this thing costs 60 bucks for 30 games.

By the time you buy a pi, an enclosure (which won't look nearly as cool as the Nintendo designed mini-NES), power supply, HDMI cable, SD card AND a controller, you will have spent far more than $60. Then you'd have to pirate and have unlicensed copies of the games. So it's actually a very good price when you factor everything in.

Re:Winner

[Anonymous Coward]

Plus I don't have to curse out my parents for turning off the nintendo because I wasn't playing it during a food break...

Dude, your parents were dicks! : )

Re:Winner

[iridium_ionizer]

Games like Super Mario Bros. got it right with the ability to have extra lives, but forcing you to start from the very beginning if you run out.

While it is not in the Super Mario Bros. NES manual, anyone who owned an NES in the 1980's knew that pressing A+start on the start screen let you continue from the same world you last reached. (ex. died in level 8-2; continue in level 8-1). These secrets were sold in Nintendo Power and strategy guides, but most kids would share them with each other in class or when they went to there friend's home. Even without GameFAQs back then, everybody knew about A+start, the Konami code, and Justin Bailey just from word-of-mouth sharing.

Re:Winner

[Anonymous Coward]

Everyone knew about A+start? This is the first I am hearing of it. And I grew up on NES and knew tons of tricks like that for most of the games I had.

Admittedly, this might be because the game was so easy for me as a kid that the code was completely unnecessary. That, and getting to 8-1 (or the start of any world) from the start of the game takes less than 5 minutes.

Re: Winner

[ezelkow1]

yes, it does, most dvi ports also support hdcp (unless its a very old monitor)

Re:Winner

[Anonymous Coward]

Games like Super Mario Bros. got it right with the ability to have extra lives, but forcing you to start from the very beginning if you run out.

While it is not in the Super Mario Bros. NES manual, anyone who owned an NES in the 1980's knew that pressing A+start on the start screen let you continue from the same world you last reached. (ex. died in level 8-2; continue in level 8-1). These secrets were sold in Nintendo Power and strategy guides, but most kids would share them with each other in class or when they went to there friend's home. Even without GameFAQs back then, everybody knew about A+start, the Konami code, and Justin Bailey just from word-of-mouth sharing.

Not everybody, I mean I read Nintendo Power and I knew about the Konami code to get 30 lives, but this is the first time I've heard of A+start in Super Mario Bros. I got my Nintendo in December of 1986 so it wasn't like I just missed the boat. Maybe the things you thought "everybody" knew about was really more just something people around you knew about.

Use RVL-005

[tepples]

The connector is the same as that of a Wii Classic Controller (RVL-005), which is shaped somewhat similarly to the NES-039.

M is for Mortal Kombat

[tepples]

Introducing fewer products at once allows a company to gauge customer interest and not have to waste as much R&D and marketing money on products that customers are likely to reject. It also shortens the time to negotiate with third-party game publishers for permission to include the game. Finally, including Mortal Kombat would cause the whole collection to be rated M by ESRB, which shuts out the market of high school underclassmen.

Tetris is BPS, not Nintendo

[tepples]

You'll have to ask Blue Planet Software about that. When Nintendo first introduced Virtual Console on the original Wii, it mentioned GoldenEye and Tetris as games that would be unlikely to show up because of licensing difficulties.

Re:Tetris is BPS, not Nintendo

[Lirodon]

Could've just renamed it Nintendo Russian Block Stack Game(TM)

Re:Tetris is BPS, not Nintendo

[tepples]

It was once believed that renames would work. This changed in 2012. Instead, you have to change the game's rules too, and that's what Nintendo did by including Dr. Mario in this collection.

Oh hell yes.

[Anonymous Coward]

Take my money!

Overpriced

[SumDog]

$60 for what's basically a Raspberry Pi (i.e some custom ARM board) and only 30 games?! The knock-off fake NES consoles from the early 90s they sold in India had like 200 games and cost less than that.

They should be like $40 and come with 60 ~ 80 roms. The price doesn't seem worth it.

Re:Overpriced

[darkain]

It isn't the hardware you're paying for, it is the software licensing rights to the 3rd party companies that made several of the games on this system.

Re:Overpriced

[Anonymous Coward]

Pirate: I can't buy these games new anymore, and the used market is overpriced, so I should just download these games instead.
Company: Here are 30 all time classic nintendo games for $2 a piece. Officially licenced, both first and third party titles, with quality parts and updated video connectors for new monitors/TVs.
Pirate: This thing is overpriced, I want more games!

Re:Overpriced

[Anonymous Coward]

"Pirate: This thing is overpriced, I want more games!"

Well duh, it is. The entire NES catalog is, what, 7 GB? I can't remember off the top of my head since I have them all, all the different country versions and fan mods.

NES games are TOO EASY to pirate. Computer illiterate people can get excited about this but intelligent people that want to play NES games should already have an emulator and all the roms already.

But theft! This software is 25+ years old. Who cares.

Re:Overpriced

[pecosdave]

I don't think the official NES catalog (including region and language variants) is anywhere NEAR 7 GB total.

Zelda is about 128 KB, Castlevania 3 is about 512 KB and it's on the large size.

It's going to take a LOT of ROMs to get anywhere near 7GB.

Re:Overpriced

[Anonymous Coward]

Pirate: It was over a quarter of a century since those games were released, copyright was never meant to last that long.
Pirate: With a shorter copyright the creators would focus on creating new content rather than rehashing old content that could be available for everyone anyway if copyright had a reasonable duration.

How is that strawman working out for you?

Re: Overpriced

[Anonymous Coward]

Fantastic since I have all the games, and am not paying 60 bucks for rehashed games.

Re:Overpriced

[rhazz]

+1. People in my facebook feed were complaining about the lack of Tetris. I have no doubt Nintendo asked for it, but last I looked the official game was still being marketed on mobile platforms for $4.99.

Re:Overpriced

[Anonymous Coward]

Nintendo had officially licensed Tetris back in the day, I would think they would still have that specific version rights. The Tengen version was much better though, the rights to that have probably disappeared into the ether or it's a rather byzantine situation no lawyer is in the mood to touch.

Re:Overpriced

[PyroMosh]

I suspect that The Tetris Company would prefer not to license any early versions of the game.

They standardized it just a few years after the NES / Gameboy era to make games that used the Tetris name more uniform and frankly better.

Those standardizations included:

* The randomizer algorithm must be the "bag random" type. This prevents you from being starved for any one shape for more than 10 pieces and ensures you'll never get the same piece more than twice in a row.
* They must include the classic Tetris theme song
* The colors are standardized. L is always a certain color Square is another color, backwards L is a different standard color, etc. This standard is adhered to whether it's on the Wii, the Xbox, in the arcade, or on the Sega Saturn.
* There must be a "hold" space where you can take the current piece and hold it in reserve, or swap it for the one currently in reserve.

There are others, but those are it off the top of my head. The NES Tetris misses on the colors, the randomizer, and the hold space if memory serves. It's frankly a bad implementation (but they all were in that era).

Re:Turbo gamepad

[ganjadude]

for real, I have so many accessories it would be so much nicer to use my turbo gamepad for one example. im sure someone will come up with an adaptor however https://upload.wikimedia.org/w...

Re:Good for them.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm going to launch my big fat cock into a 60 year old woman for 30 minutes.

You don't have to believe everything your mom tells you.

Contra

[entropy01]

If it included Contra I'd be in. I just bought an NES at a garage sale. I can't find a copy of Contra for less than $50.

Re:Contra

[azadrozny]

I agree, without Contra, it is worthless.

Re:Contra

[Yvan256]

Isn't Super C better than Contra?

Re:Contra

[azadrozny]

Super C was fun, but like many sequels, was not a replacement for the original.

Still charging $35 for a Wii Remote

[tepples]

Nintendo probably doesn't want to cannibalize sales of its current console that uses the pointing technolgy (Wii U). And the controller itself isn't necessarily cheap. Nintendo charges in the neighborhood of $35 for a Wii Remote Plus, plus whatever two clusters of IR LEDs on a stick would cost.

Don't blow. Use alcohol on a cotton swab.

[tepples]

Blowing isn't the answer; cleaning the contacts is. Nintendo once sold a Cleaning Kit that could be used for NES, Game Boy, Super NES, Nintendo 64, and Game Boy Advance Game Paks. Nowadays, you can just buy a small bottle of isopropyl rubbing alcohol and a box of cotton swabs. Wet one end and move it back and forth across both sides of the Game Pak's edge connector. Notice how much dust you picked up. Then do the same with the dry side of the swab.

You can even tell which part of the connector is dirty by how the NES misbehaves:

• Blinking: CIC (Checking Integrated Circuit), far left
• Blank screen: PRG (program), right half
• Scrambled graphics: CHR (character textures), left half

To clean GameCube, Wii, and Wii U Game Discs, wet a washcloth and wipe in and out between the center and edge, never around.

Re: Don't blow. Use alcohol on a cotton swab.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yea back in the day we used the cotton swab technique. Except we would spit on the cotton swab then wipe, then take the dry side and dry.

Until the end of its life when we had to start jamming games on top just so the game on the bottom would play, like OP mentioned. I don't think this had nothing to do with how clean or dirty the contacts were. Not sure though.

Re:Don't blow. Use alcohol on a cotton swab.

[Anonymous Coward]

Neither of those was usually the answer. Because of the idiotic spring load mechanism in the NES, the contacts wouldn't make..er..contact. The trick to getting a NES game working is to put the cartridge in, then pull it forward so that the front edge of the cartridge is right up at the lip of the NES, so that when you push it down, it almost scrapes. It works every single time.

Blowing on cartridges did nothing but make them dirty. Cleaning cartridges was only needed if they were actually dirty. Most of the time, that wasn't the case because it wasn't the problem. This is why games almost always work fine in the NES 2 without any fiddling.

Re: Don't blow. Use alcohol on a cotton swab.

[Anonymous Coward]

Spit? I hope you realize that the point of using alcohol (specifically isopropyl alcohol) was that it doesn't damage the metal of the contacts, while dissolving the oxidation on the metal. Spit not only puts corrosive dihydrogen monoxide on the metal contacts, but other nasty stuff too. And it's gross.

Re: Don't blow. Use alcohol on a cotton swab.

[tepples]

Rubbing alcohol also contains 30% DHMO in addition to 70% isopropanol, but whatever the drying pass doesn't remove, evaporation certainly will.

You don't need to buy a Kazzo

[tepples]

Obtaining the ROMs legally is a bit more difficult. You can't just buy the loose Game Pak and then download the GoodNES set off some torrent site (UMG v. MP3.com). Instead, to qualify under the "essential step" exception of 17 USC 117 and foreign counterparts, you have to buy a Kazzo board, hook it up to a computer, and find the appropriate dumping script for the mapper that each game uses.

Set up us both the BOM and the royalties

[tepples]

That sounds about right: $20 for the BOM, $20 for royalties payable to third-party publishers, and $20 for retailer markup.

In 2016 Nintendo is 1 decade behind cheesy rips

[TheCarp]

I am shocked its taken them so long. Cheesy, probably illegal, 3rd party knock offs sold in malls and flea markets have been doing this for at least a decade now....and cheaper. Nintendo is honestly coming to market with a knock off of the knock offs for 6+ times the price of what I saw people buying them for 10 years ago?

I can't help but laugh.

A rip off.

[Anonymous Coward]

Fuck my cock this is bullshit. I disagree.

Stand Alone (No Wifi)

[DarthVain]

Well one might argue about exclusion of various games as favorites, however three things seem evident:

1) No mention of Wifi for loading new games, which probably means:
        A) It doesn't have it
        B) You won't be able to
2) The front cartridge bay at least from the pictures is fake, and considering not mentioned, doubly so.
3) It has 3 sets of ports: HDMI, USB, and Controllers. Only the USB might be used to load games, but it is being used for power.

So all of those things point to this being a one off stand alone product (which is still pretty awesome), and considering it is only 60$ there isn't really a whole lot to complain about really (the cost of one modern video game).

Also no Contra Waaaa! Though Super C, so not so bad.

Personally some omissions I see are:
Blades of Steel - Biggest omission. One of the best two player games.
Dragon Warrior - 2nd Biggest omission, though FF so not too bad.
Super Spike V Ball - Also one of the most fun two player games. Perhaps nixed due to lack of 4 player support.
Bionic Commando - I just have fond memories of this one.
Strider - Ditto

Some runner ups:
Ultima - Can't remember what it was like. Big frachise.
TMNT - Kids would probably like this. Probably licencing issues.
Wizardry - Can't remember what it was like, probably didn't age well.

Re:Stand Alone (No Wifi)

[CronoCloud]

Might and Magic is a better WRPG on the NES than Wizardry and Ultima.

What kind of A/C adapter? Will it work on 230V?

[Anonymous Coward]

What kind of A/C adapter does it use?
If I import it from the US will it work with my 230V outlets using only an adapter plug or would I need a voltage converter?

Re:What kind of A/C adapter? Will it work on 230V?

[OrangeTide]

You'd probably throw the US wall wart away and get a proper one for your country. I'm curious if it is the typical 5VDC barrel or 5VDC micro-USB, either of those ought to be easy for you to find. Let us hope it is not the 9VAC adapter that the original NES used.

Slot?

[jason777]

From what I can gather, there is no game cartridge slot. Why? I want to be able to play my old games via hdmi. So, this is probably an emulator. Can you give it roms? Why not just plug the computer into hdmi if this is the case?

I hope it's as good at the C64DTV

[OrangeTide]

Jeri Ellsworth's C64-in-a-joystick that came out about 10 years ago was one of the first times I found one of these retro consoles to be accurate enough to run the games. What was especially fun is there werer some hidden pads on the C64DTV to attached external keyboard and floppy drive, making the toy joystick into a fairly functional classic computer.

So here's hoping that Nintendo's attention to detail has led them to putting the right people (probably a contractor) on this project and good testers who will make sure the games run perfect. The list of games they selected is an impressively good selection of excellent titles, I'm especially happy for Bubble Bobble and Baloon Fight to have made the list.

Best Thing I've read here in a while.

[Ensign_Expendable]

My credit card is ready.

Making the calculation

[Dirk Becher]

How does this compete to buying a Wii and downloading those games via Virtual Console?

Re:Making the calculation

[Yosho]

A pre-owned Wii from GameStop will cost you $50, and NES games from the virtual console are roughly $5 each, so you'd be looking at spending about $200 for the same set of games. If you care at all about video quality, also keep in mind that the Wii only has analog video output, and your typical fancy HD TV looks awful when upscaling analog video.

So it compares pretty favorably, I'd say.

What about Japan?

[Anonymous Coward]

Any word on a Famicom-mini?

Proposal to Nintendo

[Anonymous Coward]

Proposal: Netflix for Nintendo.

$60 for a console like this but with internet connectivity.
Limit players to 30 games at a time, and charge a nominal fee ($5) every time they swap one game for another.
Alternatively, charge $5 per month in exchange for unlimited games but only 30 of them on the console at a time.

Going to be modded/cracked really fast

[Drakker]

It will only take a few weeks before someone figures out how to mod it and load custom software on it. It's going to do a lot more than play those 30 selected games.

Re:Going to be modded/cracked really fast

[Nyder]

It will only take a few weeks before someone figures out how to mod it and load custom software on it. It's going to do a lot more than play those 30 selected games.

And I'm guessing some time after X-mas they will start appearing on ebay & craigslist for cheap.

Where can i preorder one with Battletoads ???

[Anonymous Coward]

Is this Battletoads ?

-For the lulz :)

LCD can do it

[HalAtWork]

An LCD with sufficiently low latency can do it - https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Re:LCD can do it

[tepples]

For one thing, not all backlights flicker at a rate that triggers the Zapper's resonator. For another, those who buy a console with a built-in 30-in-1 multicart (such as this product) are somewhat less likely to be using an ultra-low-delay scaler. And even then, it'll break Operation Wolf, which depends on the Zapper's ability to discern up and down by measuring the exact time from the top of the frame to when it starts to detect light.

Re:LCD can do it

[HalAtWork]

You don't need a scaler with a HDMI product like this, and I'm sure they could design a new model zapper that calibrates itself to your TV by flashing the entire screen as you pull the trigger to start the game. Anyway whatever.

Re:LCD can do it

[tepples]

You don't need a scaler with a HDMI product like this

You'd be surprised. If the thing is putting out a 720p signal, it still needs to be resized to the 1366x768 pixel panel of a "720p"-class TV or the 1920x1080 pixel panel of a 1080p TV. If it's putting out a 1080p signal, it needs to be resized down to 1366x768 or up to 1920x1080 because TVs by default assume that the signal includes overscan data to ignore.

Re:LCD can do it

[HalAtWork]

I suppose

More info on Duck Hunt BTW: http://hackaday.com/2015/11/16...

Re:LCD can do it

[tepples]

From "Resurrecting Duckhunt" by Will Sweatman:

Some people seem to think, and continue to put forth the myth, that the NES looks at the scan lines on the CRT. A CRT draws scan lines from the top of the screen to the bottom in a certain time interval. By looking at the time between the start of a scan and the time the Zapper sees the scan, the NES can know where the Zapper is pointed. And because a digital monitor will show all scan lines simultaneously, there is no way for it to calculate where the Zapper is pointed. This might be true of some other types of photodiode based guns, but it is not how the NES works. Not even close.

Mr. Sweatman appears not to have tried Operation Wolf or the Zap Ruder tech demo. Both of these NES games actually do count scanlines from the start of the frame to the start of light, though the Zapper isn't precise enough to derive horizontal position. Perhaps what he's trying to say is that Duck Hunt is simpler and thus slightly more forgiving.

Re:LCD can do it

[HalAtWork]

That's crazy, I'll have to get a copy and try it myself

prediction

[Anonymous Coward]

this thing will get hacked so fast, allowing you to load any NES rom you may want.

Re:prediction

[ezelkow1]

just get an rpi3 and retropie then. Same price, but you have the added benefit of any rom, almost any system you could want to emulate, kodi for media streaming, limelight for streaming from any supported nvidia card on a networked pc, network rom play, scummvm support, etc etc etc etc. Way more functionality at the same price, plus future benefits as more and more gets added

cartridges work?

[fikx]

Didn't notice in the article: does it take the original cartridges?