Aluminum NES Maker Announces Smaller, Cheaper Analogue Nt Mini (polygon.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Polygon: Analogue, the company behind the aluminum NES known as the Analogue Nt, is releasing a smaller, less expensive version of its console this January. Known as the Analogue Nt mini, the new version of the long-sold out hardware will be 20 percent smaller and carry a lower price: $449. The original Analogue Nt was priced at $499, but its tinier successor will outclass the original model with a better offering, the company says. The mini will comes with RGB and HDMI output (1080p/720p/480p) built in. The console will include a wireless 8Bitdo NES30 controller and Retro Receiver -- compatible with PlayStation 4, PlayStation 3, Wii and Wii U Pro Controllers -- as part of the package. In addition, the Nt mini will support over 2,000 NES, Famicom and Famicom Disk System games.

Comments

HDMI?

[Calydor]

Is it just me, or does HDMI seem kinda pointless for playing NES games?

Re:HDMI?

[OrangeTide]

Well maybe it makes sense if you don't have analog inputs on your TV?

Re:HDMI?

[viperidaenz]

Cutting out the composite analog conversion removes "dot crawl" artifacts from the picture

Re:HDMI?

[grimfate]

My assumption is that because the marketing says "Every pixel is razor sharp..." that it upscales the games using a technique that doesn't cause blurring and so HDMI is available to display the game with full sharpness, whereas analog would inherently be somewhat blurry.

Re:HDMI?

[Anonymous Coward]

It also kills all the cool palette effects. Some games faked a hi-color mode by changing the palette at the end of each horizontal scan line.

Re:HDMI?

[Luthair]

My recollection is that they use a version of Kevtris's HDMI mod for the NES. As I'm not an EE I don't know the appropriate lingo, but the NES GPU's pin output is intercepted which provides a true digital signal for the graphics.

Re:HDMI?

[Anonymous Coward]

Which games did?

Re:HDMI?

[Z80a]

Modern televisions are absolutely atrocious with old console signals.
They add a lot of lag to the input, like some adding a whole half second, and as the consoles work with a kludgy 240p signal (repeating the same field over and over), the scalers just can't deal with it and make a lot of distortions.
So, HDMI ends being your only option for modern screens if you want a decent input lag.

Re:HDMI?

[donaldm]

Well maybe it makes sense if you don't have analog inputs on your TV?

You are quite right, however, most modern TV's including UHD, 4K, 1080p, whatever do have AV inputs. The main problem you have with low-resolution graphics is scaling and smoothing so the game looks presentable on a large screen TV.

It must also be noted that pretty well all NES and SNES games were designed with a 4:3 aspect ration so on a 16:9 aspect ratio TV (the industry standard) you are going to have black bars left and right of your screen. It is possible to "stretch" or even "clip to size" the video feed but the results in most cases will not be satisfactory.

Re:HDMI?

[Anonymous Coward]

Two examples are Indiana Jones & the Last Crusade on the title screen and Back to the Future between the game area and the status bar. You'll note in both cases it causes a bit of visual glitchiness.

Re:HDMI?

[Anonymous Coward]

I used to own Back to the Future for NES (yes, I got suckered by the license) and I don't recall anything extraordinary about it. There weren't any extra colours and in fact the entire game was quite drab.

I'll have to check out Indiana Jones & The Last Crusade though.

Re:HDMI?

[OrangeTide]

Silicon Image makes nice scaling and filtering chips, and I'd recommend them if anyone is doing a design for low resolution to high resolution retro consoles or upscaling adapters. They are inexpensive because they don't use a full frame buffer, but their scaling quality is not as good with interlaced because of that design choice. Because NES uses fake interlaced mode it's not likely to matter.

Also comes in Donald Trump edition

[Anonymous Coward]

24k gold, 5k dollar. Sold out already though...

Re:Also comes in Donald Trump edition

[Anonymous Coward]

They only had 10 of those units.

That price

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll stick with the $5 rpi in a $3 plastic case

Re: That price

[Anonymous Coward]

retrousb announced a while ago a fpga nes with 4 ports and hdmi...

$449 is still expensive...

[Anonymous Coward]

...for a ~30 yr old console with a new case. Unless you're a purist or have a game that doesn't 100% work correctly through an emulator, you'd be better off with a RetroN 5, which has the added benefit of also supporting SNES/Super Fami, Sega Genesis/Mega Drive, and GB, GBC and GBA cartridges on top of the NES/Fami carts.

Re:$449 is still expensive...

[Anonymous Coward]

Or you can just load up an original Xbox with a bunch of emulators. Other than the low amount of memory, it's a pretty good PC for its era.

Free of compromises?

[Khyber]

Notice the guy having to use a CRT to play Duck Hunt.

Not exactly free of compromises.

Re:Free of compromises?

[Anonymous Coward]

Limitations of the technology of plasma/LCD digital TVs, not any fault of the console itself

Re:Free of compromises?

[Anonymous Coward]

That's not a failing of the console, it's because the optics of the Zapper don't work with non-CRT flat panels.

Re:Free of compromises?

[Anonymous Coward]

No, it's the fault of the peripheral that came with the console.

Re:Free of compromises?

[tlhIngan]

Notice the guy having to use a CRT to play Duck Hunt.

Not exactly free of compromises.

That's because of the gun controller - the guncons of most consoles is really a photo transistor. The lens in the barrel narrows the field of view of that transistor. What it's looking for is a bright spot on the screen - when you click the trigger, the game notes the delay from the vertical retrace (blank) and when the photo transistor triggers. That delay gives you the X,Y coordinates of the shot and the game uses it to determine if you hit the object.

In some games, it's obvious - you pull the trigger, and the screen turns white briefly as the scan begins by drawing white and seeing when the transistor fires. Others are more sensitive and just rely on the fact that the transistor can see the part of the screen where the electron beam is, or they just turn the targets white to see the location. (In high speed footage, you can see the bright spot drawn by the electron beam in a CRT).

Of course, modern TVs don't have a rapidly moving bright dot so those guncons just don't work anymore. It's why the Wii has the "sensor bar" which is emitting two red dots that are used to spatially track the Wii remote, or the use of AR style tricks with the Wii U tablet controller.

Don't get me wrong, you can use the guncons but not in a single frame - you basically have to rapidly scan the screen with a bar after firing - you send a white bar on a black screen down and across to see when the photo transistor fires and use that to get your coordinates. The lower resolution you go, the faster you can scal - you can do two frames for a leftr/right or up/down dtermination, 4 frames for a corner, etc.

Re:Free of compromises?

[goose-incarnated]

Nice informative comment. The mechanism the gun uses is easy enough to fool, though - I used to point the gun at a lightbulb and got every single duck, every single time :-)

Re:Free of compromises?

[Khyber]

"the guncons of most consoles is really a photo transistor"

No, just the Action Maxx, Nintendo Zapper, Super Nintendo Super Scope, and the Sega Genesis Menacer ones used that (of the sozens of consoles I've owned and taken apart over the years.) Everything else from the PSX on up (Time Crysis, anyone?) worked fine with LCD screens.

Re:Free of compromises?

[CronoCloud]

Everything else from the PSX on up (Time Crysis, anyone?) worked fine with LCD screens

Oh? I'm not so sure about that:

he Guncon 3 utilizes two infrared LEDs as markers, placed on the left and right sides of the screen. An image sensor in the muzzle tracks the markers as reference points for determining where the gun is pointing on the screen. As opposed to the Guncon and Guncon 2, which are only compatible with CRT-based displays, the Guncon 3 supports a wide variety of display types, including LCD and Plasma.[8]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Re:Free of compromises?

[Anonymous Coward]

Didn't the super scope have an external sensor peripheral? Was it still light based?

Re:Free of compromises?

[Anonymous Coward]

No, the Super Scope was just the gun and the wireless receiver. It still needs a CRT in order to work.

Re:Free of compromises?

[Khyber]

No, that was the Power Glove.

Re:Free of compromises?

[Khyber]

The original Time Crysis arcade cabinet was on an LCD screen and used the original GunCon just fine. I worked as an arcade repair tech and that was the most-repaired game I worked on (specifically the GunCon recoil mechanism and the cover/reload plate.)

Re:Free of compromises?

[Anonymous Coward]

No you did not you liar. Duckhunt first makes the screen black, then the next frame have white blocks on the ducks. If the gun sees constant light/white it knows you are not pointing it at the TV!

PI

[Anonymous Coward]

I literally dont grok this. I can build that for ~60 dollars out of a raspi

Re: PI

[Anonymous Coward]

Been using multiple emulators since my TI-86 days. bought a Bluetooth controller from Amazon for 8 dollars, exact look and feel of the original. For my other flavors, I have a USB multitap hub for N64, SNES from 1998. Works great on my PPC G4 tower (yes, you all heard me). I like the spirit of this, but for 500 to 800 bucks just get a slightly used pretty decent laptop and run emulator programs, I worked on a few back in the day, so im currently seeding for anyone interested.

Re: PI

[Anonymous Coward]

$500-$800? The shittiest laptop in the world can run NES/SNES games flawlessly, and a $150 Asus can do N64/PSX.

The processors in the NES and SNES are (variations of) the ones they used in Apple II's.

Re: PI

[Anonymous Coward]

The shittiest laptop in the world can run NES/SNES games flawlessly

Not if you want accurate emulation via higan.

Re:PI

[Anonymous Coward]

...and it will be an annoying piece of shit that occasionally crashes and requires constant fiddling.

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

Snob value.

Price Point

[darkain]

For those that didnt RTFA, there is a reason for the high price point of this console.

They are not using emulation like the Retron consoles. This isn't the usual Famiclone either. They sourced actual 30 year old Famicom CPU and Video chips to build this custom unit, then hacked the video chip to connect to a custom HDMI output chip so there is no digital-analog-digital conversion process at all. This is straight digital video right from the original NES video chip right to an HDMI chip without any converters. *THIS* is impressive, to say the least.

If nothing else, this entire unit is actually quite the impressive custom hack of 30 year old hardware.

Re:Price Point

[spiracle]

If you look at the second link, the mini actually uses an FPGA: " The core functionality of the original NES is engineered directly into an Altera Cyclone V, a sophisticated FPGA.". http://www.analogue.co/pages/n...

Re:Price Point

[Anonymous Coward]

Wrong. The first and second run Nts used salvaged parts. These units are using an emulator running on an FPGA. There is no original Nintendo hardware in them.

Re:Price Point

[Michalson]

You're wrong, but it's not your fault since the article Slashdot used is extremely short on information so you simply made an assumption based on existing information.

The original $500 Analogue Nt is indeed based on NES chips recovered from used Famicom (Japanese NES) consoles. However the $450 "mini" version announced does not include any NES components and is instead based around the Altera Cyclone V, a FPGA (field-programmable gate array) chip. This is essentially emulation in hardware. But a FPGA can't perfectly replicate the timings and quirks of the original Ricoh 2A03 that powered the NES and the maker seems to acknowledge this in the fact that the mini version adds user deployed firmware (revised FPGA code) updates.

This makes their approach not much different from software emulators, patching away emulation inconsistencies as they are found by end users. The only difference is the software emulators have had a mostly open source approach and 20 years of incremental improvements to get the NES library right, while this will be a closed source effort by a small company with an entirely different approach to emulating the NES, requiring that they basically start from scratch. And at $450 per unit they may have a limited number of testers.

Re:Price Point

[newcastlejon]

For those that didnt RTFA, there is a reason for the high price point of this console.

They are not using emulation like the Retron consoles. This isn't the usual Famiclone either. They sourced actual 30 year old Famicom CPU and Video chips to build this custom unit...

You read the wrong FA; this story is about the successor to the model made from 30 year old stock. The Nt Mini uses an FPGA to emulate the original hardware.

If nothing else, this entire unit is actually quite the impressive custom hack of 30 year old hardware.

Except that it isn't. It's a much more impressive thing than cobbling together off-the-(dusty)-shelf chips in a shiny box.

Re:Price Point

[Anonymous Coward]

Not emulation; simulation. The FPGA does actually implement the behavior of the original chips, their timings, etc. This is what FPGAs do, and it is most certainly not emulation, which always has to take shortcuts such that it isn't simulating the hardware, it is emulating the expected output of typical software, and ignoring any of the hardware behavior that isn't critical to that output.

Re:Price Point

[Anonymous Coward]

, a FPGA (field-programmable gate array) chip. This is essentially emulation in hardware. But a FPGA can't perfectly replicate the timings and quirks of the original Ricoh 2A03 that powered the NES

An FPGA can certainly provide a clock by clock accurate implementation of the original system. Logic on an FPGA is just as real as on an ASIC.

Re:Price Point

[Anonymous Coward]

BS. Their emulation in FPGA isn't as accurate as higan, which is 100% emulation through software.

Re:Price Point

[Anonymous Coward]

Not emulation; simulation. The FPGA does actually implement the behavior of the original chips, their timings, etc.

They have the capability to do so. But just because you have made a clone in an FPGA doesn't mean it will have the same timings as the original hardware.

One problem is that a lot of FPGA hackers write their functionality in Verilog or VHDL. Those provide a fairly high level syntax that makes it easy enough to design the hardware.
The original chips, however, were designed using schematics.
This leads to a situation where a solution that is easy and seemed natural to the original chip designers might not occur to those making the new implementation.

It's like the difference in writing a program in assembly vs. doing a new implementation in C.
You will structure the C program differently, partly because it is easier to do large structural changes but also because the code looks cleaner if you do it in a different way.

FPGA design isn't a magic wand that just makes emulation perfect. You still need to figure out how the chips work internally.

Re:Price Point

[Anonymous Coward]

If there is no digital-analog-digital conversion process, that should enable it to play duck hunt. The reason it doesn't work work on modern digital TVs is because of the cumbersome re-digitisation of the video. Duck hunt requires two different frames to be inserted and presented perfectly for the gun fire. A digital TV will either merge them into two grey frames, or ignore them completely as delta spikes.

Re: Price Point

[Anonymous Coward]

the mini is fpga.

retrousb has a fpga nes for 180 bucks.

a waste of fpga though.

Re:Price Point

[TeknoHog]

Apparently, you don't need a Cyclone V to implement NES on FPGA. If you're happy with VGA output, a measly Spartan 3 will do: https://danstrother.com/fpga-n...

Re:Price Point

[AmiMoJo]

It's not *that* impressive. Interesting, but similar devices have been made for lots of other machines. Typically they all use a graphics chip that outputs digital signals to a video DAC, which can be intercepted easily. An FPGA receives them, and converts to HDMI. The HDMI bit is just a standard FPGA software module, they won't create it from scratch, and the video is buffered in internal RAM (which adds some lag).

It's more impressive when the machine being upgraded is something like an Amiga, with lots of highly variable video modes that are harder to deal with. Back in the day people made scan-doublers that used the digital video signal on the internal expansion bus using custom logic chips, but they were ASICs or something much more primitive than an FPGA and had to include a DAC to produce a VGA signal too. Now that really was impressive work.

Now, looking at the Famicom PCB, it should be possible to make a clip-in or pass-through board that attaches to the video chip and produces the HDMI output, all while fitting in the original case. That would be a nice upgrade that people would buy and wouldn't cost too much.

Re:Price Point

[TeknoHog]

One problem is that a lot of FPGA hackers write their functionality in Verilog or VHDL. Those provide a fairly high level syntax that makes it easy enough to design the hardware. The original chips, however, were designed using schematics.

I'd like to elaborate on this one: if you're using an FPGA to begin with, you don't really have the choice of using anything lower-level. First, the FPGA equivalents of machine language and compilers are usually closed systems, so Verilog and VHDL are often all you can do.

Second, the FPGA hardware itself is not infinitely malleable. You have a limited set of circuit elements and interconnects, and this coarseness is also a limiting factor on clock speeds. When implementing something new, decent hackers will use the FPGA quirks to their advantage, instead of trying to ape the features of hand-drawn circuits. This is of course a problem if you're trying to emulate a given piece of hardware exactly. OTOH, in the case of NES and its few MHz, you can probably make up for it in raw speed and software-like solutions.

FPGA design isn't a magic wand that just makes emulation perfect. You still need to figure out how the chips work internally.

Yes, the FPGA chips in particular.

Re:Price Point

[Anonymous Coward]

You're such a dick. FOAD.

Re:Price Point

[Anonymous Coward]

Previous AC here.

FPGA design isn't a magic wand that just makes emulation perfect. You still need to figure out how the chips work internally.

Yes, the FPGA chips in particular.

This made me smile.

Re:Price Point

[Anonymous Coward]

, a FPGA (field-programmable gate array) chip. This is essentially emulation in hardware. But a FPGA can't perfectly replicate the timings and quirks of the original Ricoh 2A03 that powered the NES

An FPGA can certainly provide a clock by clock accurate implementation of the original system. Logic on an FPGA is just as real as on an ASIC.

Yes, an FPGA can, but probably won't.

Re:Price Point

[tepples]

This makes their approach not much different from software emulators

Other than 1. less lag, and 2. compatibility with the "mapper" hardware inside all NES-compatible Game Paks now known or hereinafter devised.

Re:Price Point

[tepples]

Now, looking at the Famicom PCB, it should be possible to make a clip-in or pass-through board that attaches to the video chip and produces the HDMI output, all while fitting in the original case. That would be a nice upgrade that people would buy and wouldn't cost too much.

That's called the Hi-Def NES board by Kevtris.

Can it play Duck Hunt?

[Anonymous Coward]

While the classic 8-bit audio tracks are killer, if it can't play Duck Hunt, then it's no use to me! That damn dog just keeps on laughing!

Re:Can it play Duck Hunt?

[Luthair]

The old school lightguns don't work on LCD screens.

Too bad

[Luthair]

Nintendo already announced a cheap first part console with 30-games built in ;) While it won't satisfy the true die-hards, its unlikely the Analogue Nt consoles would either.

Re:Too bad

[Z80a]

The 30 games are all you got.

Re:Too bad

[Anonymous Coward]

Who had more than a couple games as a kid anyway?

Re:Too bad

[tepples]

Several NES games that I owned as a kid happen not to be on that list of 30.

Re:Too bad

[Anonymous Coward]

It has Gradius, Ninja Gaiden and Mega Man II, which is almost good enough for me. I wish it also had Lifeforce, Ninja Gaiden II and Mega Man.

Better yet, they should release an NES mini that has 512MB flash storage and allow people to buy games for a $1 or $2 and download them right to the console.

Re:Too bad

[tepples]

Better yet, they should release an NES mini that has 512MB flash storage and allow people to buy games for a $1 or $2 and download them right to the console.

That was called a Wii.

Re:Too bad

[Anonymous Coward]

No, nothing like that ever existed. The Wii is not a NES or NES remake. The Wii cost hundreds of dollars and not $60. The Wii used inaccurate software emulation and didn't have access to the entire NES library. The Wii did not have a NES controller.

Re:FCEUX + a torrent of a thousand roms is still f

[Anonymous Coward]

This system isn't even a true hardware clone, it uses emulation in hardware via an FPGA, so you can disregard all of their boasts of compatibility over "emulation".

Also you can buy a real NES at a flea market for like $2.

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

Because they know morons exist in the world that will pay it.

Al

[Anonymous Coward]

It's Aluminium not Aluminum

Re:Al

[Anonymous Coward]

More people say "aluminum" than "aluminium".

Re:Al

[Anonymous Coward]

BS, only 1 country does that.

Re:Al

[Anonymous Coward]

USA and Canada both use aluminum. That is over 360 million people. The UK only has about 60 million people.

In fact the original spelling is aluminum, which was later changed by the Brits. You're using the less proper form.

Mini NES for $59.99

[ryanmc1]

Considering that Nintendo is releasing their own mini NES for $59.99 http://www.theverge.com/2016/7..., the Analogue Nt mini looks way over priced. Yes, I know they are not the same, but there is no justification for the huge price difference.

Still need a dumper

[tepples]

Or you can just load up an original Xbox with a bunch of emulators.

To use an emulator, you need ROMs, and the only legal way to obtain ROMs of most NES games is by dumping your own cartridges pursuant to 17 USC 117 and foreign counterparts. A Retrode can dump Super NES, Genesis, and a few other systems with adapters. NES isn't among them. What do you recommend to dump NES?

Re:Still need a dumper

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.infiniteneslives.com/kazzo.php

SLASHDOT ISNT FBI IT IS JUST GAMEZZZZ

[Anonymous Coward]

double sikes.

Publishers unwilling to grant a license

[tepples]

The Wii used inaccurate software emulation

How do you know Nintendo's forthcoming $60 console doesn't also "use inaccurate software emulation"? Until it ships, nobody will have opened it up to look (except for parties to Nintendo's non-disclosure agreement).

and allow people to buy games for a $1 or $2

and didn't have access to the entire NES library.

Not all third-party publishers of NES games are willing to "allow people to buy games for a $1 or $2". When Nintendo announced Virtual Console for the first time, it mentioned Tetris as one of the games it probably wouldn't be able to license at fair market value.* Or for those third-party games whose copyright owner is unwilling, are you recommending that Nintendo lobby national governments to just take a license under eminent domain?

The Wii did not have a NES controller.

The controller bundled with Nintendo's forthcoming $60 console is compatible with Wii.

* Not counting Tetris Party on WiiWare, which was years later, twice as expensive as NES VC games, and broken in the same way as most other Tetris games since 2001.

Re:Publishers unwilling to grant a license

[Anonymous Coward]

How do you know Nintendo's forthcoming $60 console doesn't also "use inaccurate software emulation"?

Because it would be much more expensive to use hardware that is capable of emulating a NES through software than it would be to use a NES on a chip or FPGA.

Not all third-party publishers of NES games are willing to "allow people to buy games for a $1 or $2". When Nintendo announced Virtual Console for the first time, it mentioned Tetris as one of the games it probably wouldn't be able to license [gearlive.com] at fair market value.* Or for those third-party games whose copyright owner is unwilling, are you recommending that Nintendo lobby national governments to just take a license under eminent domain?

They have a choice. Make $1/$2 per copy or make $0 per copy. It's not hard to see which of those makes more sense.

The controller bundled with Nintendo's forthcoming $60 console is compatible with Wii.

Notice how the controller bundled with the NES classic isn't the controller bundled with the Wii?

Re:Publishers unwilling to grant a license

[tepples]

Because it would be much more expensive to use hardware that is capable of emulating a NES through software than it would be to use a NES on a chip or FPGA.

Nintendo can probably buy a common ARM SoC including the HDMI driver for cheaper than it'd take to engineer and manufacture an accurate NOAC with all the relevant mappers included. Existing NOACs tend to have problems, such as inverted duty cycles, audio distortion, and no digital output.

They have a choice. Make $1/$2 per copy or make $0 per copy. It's not hard to see which of those makes more sense.

Consider the NES games Bart vs. the World and Lethal Weapon. If the upstream licensor of the movie or TV series on which a game was based wants $3 per copy, then for every $1/$2 copy the game publisher sells, it has to pay $3 to the movie or TV studio, resulting in a loss of $2/$1 per copy. In this case, earning $0 by not licensing at all would at least stop loss.

Notice how the controller bundled with the NES classic isn't the controller bundled with the Wii?

The controller bundled with the Wii was the Wii Remote and Nunchuk. All NES Virtual Console games work with the Wii Remote held sideways.

Re:Publishers unwilling to grant a license

[Anonymous Coward]

Nintendo can probably buy a common ARM SoC including the HDMI driver for cheaper than it'd take to engineer and manufacture an accurate NOAC with all the relevant mappers included. Existing NOACs tend to have problems, such as inverted duty cycles, audio distortion, and no digital output.

Sorry, but no. There is no way a modern ARM SoC will cost less than an 8-bit NES SoC to make.

Consider the NES games Bart vs. the World and Lethal Weapon. If the upstream licensor of the movie or TV series on which a game was based wants $3 per copy, then for every $1/$2 copy the game publisher sells, it has to pay $3 to the movie or TV studio, resulting in a loss of $2/$1 per copy. In this case, earning $0 by not licensing at all would at least stop loss.

The licensor has a choice: make $1/$2 per game or make nothing at all. How is that difficult to understand?

The controller bundled with the Wii was the Wii Remote and Nunchuk. All NES Virtual Console games work with the Wii Remote held sideways.

And no matter which way you hold it, it's still not a NES controller.

Non-recurring engineering costs

[tepples]

There is no way a modern ARM SoC will cost less than an 8-bit NES SoC to make.

Unlike an accurate NOAC, an ARM SoC is available commercially off the shelf. Are you including non-recurring engineering costs in your estimate or excluding them?

But all we can do is speculate. No authoritative reply is possible because everyone who knows about its internals is under NDA, and Slashdot will close this comment section before NES Classic Edition is available to the public. (Slashdot has a policy of closing all comment sections 14 days after they open.)

The licensor has a choice: make $1/$2 per game or make nothing at all. How is that difficult to understand?

A licensor might rationally choose zero in order not to devalue its copyright and/or trademark. If a licensor chooses $1 or $2 now, it can't choose $3 or $5 down the line when subsequent would-be licensees complain about not being given a comparable deal.

And no matter which way you hold it, it's still not a NES controller.

Neither is the controller included with NES Classic Edition. It's a Wii Classic Controller shaped like an NES controller.