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Nintendo Sells Nearly 200,000 Units Of Its Mini Retro Console (cnbc.com)
Strong sales for Nintendo's NES Classic Edition, a miniature version of its video game console from the 80s, could point to a new revenue stream for the Japanese games maker. From a report on CNBC: The NES Classic Edition sold 196,000 units in November in the U.S. since its launch on November 11, according to industry tracker NPD Group. Demand for the console far outstripped supply, with many retailers selling out of the product. The NES Classic Edition is a miniature version of the original console, which was released in North America in 1985 and has sold 61 million units worldwide. The Classic Edition is a "plug-and-play" device, meaning it just needs to be plugged into a television and comes bundled with 30 retro games.
In Japan, a similar product called the Nintendo Classic Famicom sold 261,381 units in its first week of sales, according to data from Media Create.
The number of games was probably tied to marketing and statistics, not hardware limitations.
How do you print 300 screenshots on the back of the box?
Was there even 300 really popular games? Maybe they only put the 30 games that sold over X units over their lifetime.
Plus licensing, future plans(they would try to keep the IP that they want to keep alive in the long term fresh in the public's memory), avoiding having to test 300 games on this machine (even though it is an emulator) etc etc
This is spot on. Nintendo has a *long* track record of doing these premeditated shortages. I was going to get one of the 3DS units that they were hyping for $99 as a Christmas gift. When they sold out in 3 min I switched to an Android tablet. No 3D but I can't really support Nintendo when their favorite holiday play is shafting their customers & potential customers. I'm done with Nintendo as my kids are old enough that this would have been the last hurrah.
You're missing the whole point! This is one big Retro-Nintendo Package! Not only are they giving you the games from 30 years ago in a package that looks similar to the device put out 30 years ago; but they're using the sales tactics from 30 years ago too! Make just enough to whet the appetite to create a super Christmas Hype Balloon where every kid screams "I want one of THESE for Christmas! Nothing else will ever get you my love and acceptance!" but not enough to actually supply that demand..and then grab some popcorn and watch the chaos of the Consumer Gladiator Games on the CCTV at Walmarts and hobby shops around the globe! Single units being scalped for $1000's! Fist fights! Dogs and cats living together! Mass Hysteria!
Unfortunately for Nintendo, from what I'm witnessing the consumer climate is a whole lot cooler than it was 30 years ago with regards to these tactics. While it's true that I've seen and heard some instances of these units going for a couple hundred, I've also seen a lot of people just go "meh...not worth it." People that would normally be jumping all over this sort of thing. 200K units? Nothing to sneeze at...but nothing to write home about either. This thing is just likely to fizzle completely out by the time the Holiday Hype is done with a hugely missed opportunity for N to really rack up.
As the most common size of a nes game was 384kb they could have easily added every single licensed nes game released (713) onto a single 512mb flash chip.
Just need one to keep most happy for quite awhile "Super Mario Brothers".