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Nintendo Warns It Won't Make More Retro NES and SNES Consoles (engadget.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the end-of-the-road dept.

Nintendo's Reggie Fils-Aime warned that the NES Classic and SNES Classic will sell in the Americas through the holidays, but will be "gone" once they sell out. Engadget reports: If you want to walk down memory lane after that, you'll have to take advantage of the games that come with Switch Online. You might also want to tamp down your hopes for a Nintendo 64 Classic. Fils-Aime added that the existing systems are the "extent of our classic program." That wouldn't be completely surprising given that the N64 was considerably more complex than its predecessor. The executive likewise ruled out additional games for the mini NES and SNES models.

52 of 90 comments (clear)

  1. Look Profit in the Eye and Walk Away by BrendaEM · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Fools! It might be terrible to the ego to admit that Nintendo's old games are better than the new ones.

    --
    https://www.youtube.com/c/BrendaEM
    1. Re: Look Profit in the Eye and Walk Away by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      But, the cloud!

    2. Re:Look Profit in the Eye and Walk Away by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      It's really because people were hoarding them and loading them with pirated games to sell on eBay.

      They need to engineer something new, or work out an agreement with the FPGA console developers (Super NT, AVS) to make licensed multi-carts in turn for making it marginally harder for pirates to load games on the devices.

    3. Re:Look Profit in the Eye and Walk Away by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      That, of course, is absurd. It's not absurd because it's not true. It's absurd because even without the NES/SNES Mini people were loading up Raspberry Pis with pirated games to sell on eBay--and that offers a better profit margin for the commercial pirates either way. The problem with Nintendo and a lot of other old game owners is they fear that people will pirate their games. The truth is people who can and will are already pirating their games. Trying to actually sell their games in one form or another for a remotely reasonable price (given the cost of distribution) is a way for people who want to be legal to actually give such companies money.

      Really, Nintendo is in so much a position of "Take my money!" that it's patently absurd. Any ideas that this is some sort of master plan to get people to buy a Switch? Uh, yea... That worked so well for the Wii U and the [New] 3DS...

    4. Re:Look Profit in the Eye and Walk Away by Narcocide · · Score: 1

      It's clearly working great for the Switch. The Wii-U marketing efforts were mismanaged.

    5. Re:Look Profit in the Eye and Walk Away by Prien715 · · Score: 1

      Shigeru Miyamoto created Mario, The Legend of Zelda, and evenradically different games from established series. Mario64 got a 94 while Mario Odyssey got a 97. Zelda N64 got a 99 while got a 97.

      Fools! It might be terrible to the ego to admit that Nintendo's old games are better than the new ones.

      You're thinking of Sega.

      --
      -- Political fascism requires a Fuhrer.
    6. Re:Look Profit in the Eye and Walk Away by thegarbz · · Score: 1

      It might be terrible to the ego to admit that Nintendo's old games are better than the new ones.

      What are you talking about? They are still making the old games, just not the consoles. You can buy a huge portion of their back collection ported to the Switch. Profit was looked in the eye, the Switch is far more profitable than the NES Classic.

    7. Re:Look Profit in the Eye and Walk Away by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Trying to actually sell their games in one form or another for a remotely reasonable price (given the cost of distribution) is a way for people who want to be legal to actually give such companies money.

      That isn't really feasible.

      Nintendo can sell a platform with their own games and maybe get some licensing deal for some other less popular games.
      To make a platform where people can play all the games from their childhood they would need to wade through an unsurpassable bog of copyright law.

      Companies have disbanded, the right to the games have been sold, or just entered some sort of limbo.
      Maybe the owner of the source code are different from the owners of the binaries that are different from ROM stencil that are different from the owners of the cartridge PCB layout that are different from those who have the rights to the brand.
      Most likely the ownership is no longer clear and several companies thinks that they own the right to the game.

      I think it would have been a good idea to make it so that copyright only is valid as long as you make the work available.
      If you no longer make any profit from it you will have to decide to either provide it anyway or let it pass into public domain.
      That would probably mitigate the clusterfuck that surrounds rights to old computer games and old computers somewhat.

      There have been some effort to preserve old software but at the moment it often requires that archivers break the law and keep the access to their archives limited to other archivers which makes it problematic to do research into gaming and software development history.

    8. Re:Look Profit in the Eye and Walk Away by GuB-42 · · Score: 1

      No they are not. Take off the nostalgia goggles.

      They certainly were masterpieces but a lot of progress has been made. Newer games have better graphics, better sound, better story, more varied gameplay, more content and a better designed difficulty curve. Technology, budget and decades of game design studies allowed it.
      About the difficulty curve, yes, I mean it. Back in the days, difficulty was a way to prolong the gameplay through die-and-retry, it is also a remnant of quarter sucking arcades. People who laud difficult games probably forgot about all the frustration it incurred when they were younger. And anyways, the indie scene especially is full of hard games that are better than the classics thanks to said advancement.

      Old games are a part of history, and people still want to play them for a variety of reasons, mostly nostalgia, and Nintendo wants to capitalize on that. Still it is not a huge market.

  2. retro consoles (seem to be) terrible! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    With Project 64, snes9x and the other emulators, do we really care?

    I picked up (a while back) the Atari 2600 retro console and it was terrible.
    I took it back. Space Invaders was different - thought it was me until I
    compared it with the emulator version - yes, it was very different and broke!

    I suspect there's a lot of subtly that's not included in a retro console that
    existed in its original console version. And amazingly, those are maintained
    in the emulators quite well (yeah, I know it's the original rom - but the software
    emulation of the underlying hardware is pretty amazing).

    CAP === 'walked'

    1. Re:retro consoles (seem to be) terrible! by Isarian · · Score: 1

      Emulators are great but now that Nintendo has shut down EmuParadise's ROM hosting (along with other hosts) it's become much harder to reliably get clean ROMs to play, so I'd say yes we do care.

    2. Re:retro consoles (seem to be) terrible! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Software emulators aren't accurate. Period.

      The NES is about 99% accurate, the SNES 94% accurate, and the N64 is A LOW 80% or so. N64 emulation in software is an absolute crapshoot for accuracy.

      FPGA hardware emulators actually replicate everything, including bugs and hardware level latency and don't use framebuffers. Your PC emulator has to use a framebuffer, adding 16 to 32ms of latency to the output on the HDMI. On top of that, the HDMI screen may use motion smoothing or rescaling in it's own frame buffer to add an additional 100ms of latency.

      That is why these shitty $40 retro consoles are horrible, they're a simple software emulator on a low-end ARM core. The accuracy will be worse than PC emulators, because PC emulators actually can be updated. Really Nintendo should have came out with the Virtual Console to begin with for the Switch, because at least they can update the emulators on it. Yet they probably realized that the current JB'd switch devices will just enable piracy on a much larger scale, and only until they exhaust the NES and SNES classic toys will they decide it's worth the risk.

    3. Re:retro consoles (seem to be) terrible! by Scarletdown · · Score: 1

      And if I remember right, all of these retro consoles that have Adventure completely fucked up the Secret Programmer's Room.

      --
      This space unintentionally left blank.
    4. Re:retro consoles (seem to be) terrible! by Kavonte · · Score: 1

      > You'll only get 0ms latency with a picture tube and nobody does that anymore...

      I do.

      > I think your latency quotes are excessive

      I can't say what the real value is either, but it's definitely a problem whatever it is.

      > I'm pretty sure that I don't experience anything as bad as that.

      To the extent people play emulators well, it's because they've learned to cope with the lag. If you're a skilled player and you go straight from playing Super Mario World on a CRT television with a real SNES to playing it on an emulator on a computer, you find yourself running head-on into enemies and dying when you intended to jump over them, because when you see that it is time to jump, it's too late. You have to learn to do everything 100 ms sooner than you normally would.

      If you've not played on a real SNES in a long time, then you'll just think that you didn't jump soon enough and next time you'll jump sooner and after a while you'll have developed all of your skill with that 100 ms lag, and if you switch to a real SNES on a CRT television you'll find that you do everything too soon.

      It is a real problem, and it's exactly why I didn't buy these retro consoles. If they were real re-creations of the hardware I would have been interested, but I'm not paying a lot of money just to get an emulator. There are better choices in the form of other companies building clone NES and SNES systems that aren't emulators and so they don't have a lag problem. ...and you can get a CRT television for free at most yard sales.

    5. Re:retro consoles (seem to be) terrible! by Dogtanian · · Score: 1

      If it was quite a while ago, I'm assuming that the "retro console" you had was the first generation Atari Flashback. Its Wikipedia article notes that this was based on an "NES-on-a-chip" design that didn't even bother to emulate the original architecture through software, but merely ran what were effectively NES ports of the original games.

      The article also notes that those ports "differed in varying degrees from the original games, and therefore the Flashback was unpopular with some purists."

      Apparently the Flashback 2 was a single-chip hardware recreation of the VCS (obviously the best solution short of an exact reproduction of the original hardware) and most/all of the later versions use software emulations of the original system.

      --
      "Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
  3. It's just a way to ramp up demand. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Announce that the mini-consoles will only be sold through Christmas, inflate demand. Wait 5 months then re-release them in "limited quantities" rinse and repeat next xmas.

  4. But that's OK... by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 2, Insightful

    We've had emulators since forever after all.

    --
    Ezekiel 23:20
    1. Re:But that's OK... by thegarbz · · Score: 1

      Pretty much all the classic games are available on the Switch anyway.

    2. Re: But that's OK... by Cmdln+Daco · · Score: 1

      Indeed. I have gameboys that are ancient and were owned by destructive little kids for probably their virst decade. They've held up and protected the electronics inside. It's nice, in this era of modern mobile hardware, to have replaced the display windows with hardened glass.

  5. If only there was some way by bobstreo · · Score: 2

    to download the ROMS and emulate the NES/Super systems in software. /s

    It's not like Nintenblo is making any new games for them. Or translating any Japanese Language games into English.

    1. Re:If only there was some way by TeknoHog · · Score: 1

      The S?NES Classic and the Playstation Classic are indeed just Linux machines running emulators. I guess this is the next stage of the "app" culture: instead of selling software, sell a new "app-liance" for every separate feature. The oceans will thank you.

      --
      Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
    2. Re: If only there was some way by Cmdln+Daco · · Score: 1

      Are these things being sold in the south Asian countries where almost all of the ocean-going plastic waste is being dumped in the rivers?

    3. Re: If only there was some way by TeknoHog · · Score: 1

      Are these things being sold in the south Asian countries where almost all of the ocean-going plastic waste is being dumped in the rivers?

      I don't know, but producing such throwaway electronics doesn't help anyway. Also remember that a lot of our e-waste ends up being "recycled" in third world countries.

      Now, what I'd like to see is a way to use generic Linux on these consoles. Since you cannot install new games via official channels anyway, Nintendo/Sony have nothing to lose, only goodwill to gain. After all, they are using a ton of opensource software, including the emulator in the PS Classic. You can probably get equivalent, open hardware for less, but not necessarily if you count the case and the controllers.

      --
      Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
    4. Re:If only there was some way by noodler · · Score: 1

      "to download the ROMS and emulate the NES/Super systems in software."

      I know... Let's do THAT thing!

  6. Cool, so back to emulators. by skam240 · · Score: 2

    Cool, so back to emulators.

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    I ignore Anonymous Coward posts. If you want to discuss something, that's awesome. Log in.
    1. Re:Cool, so back to emulators. by mark-t · · Score: 1

      afaik, their so-called retro console *IS* an emulator.

      --
      File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
    2. Re:Cool, so back to emulators. by pak9rabid · · Score: 1

      Back to no-profit-for-Nintendo emulators then.

    3. Re:Cool, so back to emulators. by tepples · · Score: 1

      Or Nintendo-sues-you-into-the-poor-house emulators? (See "LoveRetro".)

    4. Re:Cool, so back to emulators. by pak9rabid · · Score: 1

      Well yeah, don't sell shit that doesn't belong to you. It's common sense.

    5. Re:Cool, so back to emulators. by skam240 · · Score: 1

      I'm sorry, I thought this would have been completely assumed but clearly it was not.

      Cool, so back to (illegal) emulators.

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    6. Re:Cool, so back to emulators. by mark-t · · Score: 1

      What emulators do you know of that are illegal?

      --
      File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
    7. Re:Cool, so back to emulators. by thegarbz · · Score: 1

      Cool, so back to emulators.

      Or just buy a Switch which is ultimately what Nintendo are trying to get people to do here.

    8. Re:Cool, so back to emulators. by thegarbz · · Score: 1

      To what end? You're upset that one way you're giving profit to Nintendo is different to another way you're giving profit to Nintendo and all games are still available so it's driving you towards piracy?

      I call bullshit and will assert that you had been using no-profit-for-Nintendo emulators from day one and had no interest in the SNES Classic.

    9. Re:Cool, so back to emulators. by mark-t · · Score: 1

      You misunderstand the point of my question... my point was that since virtually all of the emulators that exist today are not actually illegal in the first place (even if companies like Nintendo hate them), and I was wondering what illegal emulator a person would actually want to use.

      --
      File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
    10. Re:Cool, so back to emulators. by skam240 · · Score: 1

      Jesus, you're a semantics asshole aren't you? You actually have no vested interest in this other than the proper wording, right?

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    11. Re:Cool, so back to emulators. by mark-t · · Score: 1

      My point is that we aren't really going back to emulators when the NES and SNES retro console aren't available anymore because those consoles were actually emulators too, and so that's all that we've ever been using the entire time anyways.

      --
      File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
    12. Re:Cool, so back to emulators. by skam240 · · Score: 1

      So by your own account your insistence on the absolute literalness of what I had said couldn't possibly be true. It's almost as if Illegal ROMs might have been the key point and you chose to be a semantics asshole because the issue was named improperly.

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    13. Re:Cool, so back to emulators. by mark-t · · Score: 1

      I wasn't trying to be an asshole... and the questionably legal ROM's weren't mentioned, only the emulators. I'm not a mind reader, how was I to know that wasn't what you meant?

      --
      File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
  7. No, no, no by Actually,+I+do+RTFA · · Score: 1

    They're not going to make more classics (for a few more years), to drive people to the Switch and Switch Cloud Games.

    --
    Your ad here. Ask me how!
  8. I don't think it's much of an issue by rsilvergun · · Score: 1

    the folks who bought them for Nostalgia will tire of them and they'll be clogging ebay before long.

    --
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  9. That's a shame, but not surprising. by thevirtualcat · · Score: 1

    I've found the value of the NES Classic and SNES Classic is for people who aren't particularly technically inclined (and won't be setting up RetroPie) and don't want to spend hundreds of dollars getting a Switch or Wii U but still have nostalgia for NES and SNES games. It's a dead simple system. If you can operate a Bluray player, you can operate a NES Classic.

    The "not surprising" bit comes from the acknowledgement that there probably aren't that many such people out there.

    (And all the other retro consoles that have come out since then seem to be pathetic, half-assed, copycat cash grabs.)

  10. idiots by irving47 · · Score: 1

    Why on earth would they willingly leave so much money on the table? Those idiots running the kiosks in the malls with the bootleg emulators with every damn game ever made installed on them are doing *just fine* at $40-$60 apiece. And THEY have to pay around $1200/month in rent.

    --
    I had a sucky sig.
    1. Re:idiots by iampiti · · Score: 1

      Do they openly sell hardware with pirated games in malls where you live? Wow. You live in the US?
      Here in Spain they only roughly similar thing I've seen is those small arcade machines that are popping up in many restaurants and pubs. They're running some version of MAME with hundreds of obviously unlicensed ROMS. I guess the owners of such games just don't care

    2. Re:idiots by Mike+Frett · · Score: 1

      They aren't. They said the same thing a while after the NES Classic came out, then a few months later flooded the market with new ones. It's bologna.

  11. Re:The real reason no N64 version: by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Nope.

    Nintendo has always had these emulators. How do you think the developers made the games in the first place? Especially since the N64 used an off-the-shelf SGI machine.

    No the problem is that N64 emulators always used dynamic recompilation, and as such they're super-buggy messes. Nintendo clearly has kept the source code for games since the N64 otherwise they'd never have made DS/3DS ports of those games. For Nintendo, it would be easier for them to recompile all the N64 games for a base-line emulator that simply emulates the N64's sound system, and just uses a much more powerful GPU to run them at the original resolution, but scaled up to 2K/4K/8K without the latency that emulating the hardware would have done.

    It's still impossible to emulate a SNES without speed hacks. You need a 4Ghz PC system just to emulate the base system, never mind the expansion chips. Even then you're still dealing with scaling, buffering and other not-close-enough-to-metal API's of the host OS that you'd never have to deal with with the SoC or FPGA re-implementation.

  12. Retropie with raspberry pi better imo by Cito · · Score: 1

    Cheaper and better and easily user configurable and moddable
    Just an opinion though

  13. I'm a Fool because I just bought two. by dknj · · Score: 1

    And then I see this NES Classic discontinued because ‘we don’t have unlimited resources,’ Nintendo says (Apr 28 2017)

    Immediately followed by this Nintendo’s NES Classic will return to U.S. retail stores on June 29 (May 14 2017)

    They went a full two months and then capitulated. I guess Q2 next year we will see the systems start to sell again... Meanwhile I paid full price for one and a 5% markup for the other. Worth it? Probably.

    -dk

    1. Re: I'm a Fool because I just bought two. by Cmdln+Daco · · Score: 1

      Was it an "investment" or did you buy them to have fun playing the games?

  14. No more... by Chewbacon · · Score: 1

    ...we're done. But you still can't download and emulate.

    This is called: fuck the fans.

    --
    Chewbacon
    The Bible is like Wikipedia: written by a bunch of people and verifiable by questionable sources.
  15. Re:Retropie with raspberry pi better imo +RecalBox by tarokejihi · · Score: 1

    Indeed ! And even more polished is RecalBox : https://www.recalbox.com/

  16. Re: The real reason no N64 version: by Cmdln+Daco · · Score: 1

    I have every GBC and GBA rom on my phone. They are small enough to just have every one in a folder on the removable SD card.

  17. This seems stupid for Nintendo by jonwil · · Score: 1

    Not only are they not continuing with the remakes (I for one would be very interested in a Nintendo 64 classic so I can play Super Mario 64 the way it was meant to be played rather than trying to throw Bowser off the ledge using arrow keys pretending to be an analog stick) but they aren't bringing any proper Virtual Console to the switch either. Given how popular the Virtual Console options have been on the Wii and Wii U and DS line, it seems stupid not to have all the same stuff available for the Switch as well.