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Nintendo To Launch SNES Mini This Year, Reports Eurogamer (eurogamer.net)
Nintendo plans to release another console this year aimed at nostalgia-seekers. The iconic game company is working on a Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES) classic version that would launch in time for the holidays, according to Eurogamer, which cites sources with knowledge of the plans. The device is already under development and -- like its predecessor the NES Classic Edition -- will give gamers access to some of the console's biggest hits. From the article: Nintendo's plans for SNES mini are also a major reason why last year's NES mini did not see a reprieve from discontinuation, Eurogamer understands, despite the latter's continued popularity and sell-out status.
For every story of someone randomly being able to go in and pick one up like it was just another item on the shelf there are a thousand stories of people who were never able to find one in stock. Online stock disappeared within minutes at best. The resellers who had it jacked up to $300 or more were finally back down to about $120 when Nintendo announced it was discontinuing production. For something that is really supposed to be casual fun they made it unnecessarily insane. The system itself did really look great. I would have loved to have been able to play many of those games on my TV at home. But from release date to today there has never been a target, walmart or best buy with one on the shelf when I went in. Brickseek only once came up with a walmart in stock and by the time I got there they were gone. But...it's just an old bit of nostalgia. It didn't ruin my life that I didn't get one. But Nintendo can GTFO for their repeated artificial scarcity BS. That's the #1 reason why I didn't even consider a WiiU or Switch.
Nintendo had to download there own roms to make it work.
This argument has no place on Slashdot. Nintendo did not download the files off the internet. What they did is use the existing file format (.nes). The files are identical because the ROM dumps were taken from the cartridges. Once the format is specified, the files will always end up identical. There is no analog noise here to make them different. This is how things like GoodNes sets exist. The dumps always come out the same. Digital files are identical because they're digital files. If you think Nintendo, Konami, Square, and Capcom didn't have copies of all their officially licensed cartridges' ROMS, I think you're nuts. Take, for example, the Clu Clu Land disk game on the Gamecube Animal Crossing release that included NES games. That one is nearly identical to the one in Mame, but it keeps the checksums and has a blank high score table (the checksums is the difference between famicom disk system (fds) and quickdisk (qd) files by the way). I haven't looked at what format the disk system games are in on the Japanese Mini version.
The File format, by the way is exactly a 16 bytes header, with defined places (PRG-ROM followed by the CHR-ROM) for the ROMs. The only information contained in the header is a code for which mapper to use (describes which circuit-board/integrated circuits; most licensed games use one of about a dozen types), mirroring and save support, and the sizes of the PRG and CHR. I've personally dumped my collection of 300+ NES games and they come out identical to the GoodNes ones, unless the mirroring or save support detection fails. That's how I know the hardware worked and I don't have to clean the contacts better. They have their own copies. They don't need to download them. They used the existing file format.