Review: The NES Classic Edition and all 30 games on it

&gt; The controller ports aren’t as satisfyingly analog-feeling as the old ones, but that’s really not a big deal.<p>It&#x27;s slightly ironic that the author says this, since there is absolutely nothing analog about NES controllers -- they&#x27;re nothing more than a shift register internally. By contrast, modern controllers do in fact have analog input mechanisms (although they are of course communicated with digitally).<p>It seems to me that &quot;analog&quot; and &quot;digital&quot; have lost their true meanings over time, and come to mean nothing more than &quot;old technology&quot; and &quot;new technology&quot; over time.

They forgot to mention one nice detail - the included controller can also be paired with a Wii or Wii U by plugging it into a Wii Remotes nunchuck port.<p>This means you can use the authentic controller to play the full Wii Virtual Console catalog, which covers many games not included with the NES Classic.

As much as I want to support Nintendo, I have to admit I&#x27;ve been playing NES and SNES with roms on the computer since early 2000s. My parents wouldn&#x27;t buy me any game consoles or handheld devices so the computer was the only way to go.<p>RetroPie and other hw apps would be fun to set up, but it&#x27;s just so easy with emulator and roms that anyone can do it within a few mins.<p>If you want the nostalgia, just download the emulator and roms and plug in a $5 usb controller. It&#x27;ll be over soon and it&#x27;s back to the PS4 or XBOX...

I wonder if the author of the article realizes that &quot;protips&quot;, while being an internet meme today, arose as nuggets of gameplay advice from <i>GamePro</i> magazine, some for these very games.<p>It hit me hard in the nostalgia feels to see that again.

Best review of The Legend of Zelda in the last 30 years:<p>&quot;Never heard of this one. Doesn’t look very good IMHO.&quot;<p>HAH! Definitely laughed out loud. Great collection of games.

Only negative thing I&#x27;ve read about this is that the controllers need a longer cable (yes, you can buy extension cables but they&#x27;re $10 per controller, on a $60 system that is pricey).<p>Aside from that it is a great value proposition. A lot of games, good hardware, and updated to work via standard HDMI&#x2F;USB.<p>I&#x27;m hoping that if this is a runaway success that Nintendo will consider doing a SNES, N64, and Gamecube version.

There are only so many times that I will repurchase the same old games for the sake of nostalgia. This isn&#x27;t like re-buying the white album again because the record vinyl wore out. Nor is it re-buying Thriller because the cassette tape broke. This is more akin to that time you bought Beauty and the Beast on Blu-Ray when you already bought it on DVD and on VHS.<p>The only way I would be on board with this is if it shipped with every NES title Nintendo currently owns the rights to, and also had the capability to install the full catalogs of other companies, such as Square Enix &#x2F; Taito, Tengen, Bandai Namco, or any of the other successor companies to the original NES game developers.<p>Sell the complete NES catalog--or as close to it as the lawyers can work out--just one last, final time, and keep that same device on the market years into the future, and I will <i>consider</i> buying it. Otherwise, this is yet another iteration of re-buying the original NES games on a different console platform. Not falling for that, Nintendo.<p>The review touts &quot;only $2 per game!&quot; but in today&#x27;s market, $2 will get you far superior games from studios and developers that need it today to buy their top ramen noodles for the day after tomorrow. The original Legend of Zelda just isn&#x27;t <i>that</i> great of a game, and I already bought it once. I&#x27;d rather buy something new (to me) through Steam, GOG, or Humble.

It&#x27;s running Linux, btw.: <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.omgubuntu.co.uk&#x2F;2016&#x2F;11&#x2F;nintendo-nes-classic-single-board-pc-linux" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.omgubuntu.co.uk&#x2F;2016&#x2F;11&#x2F;nintendo-nes-classic-sing...</a>

I hope this sells well as I would love to see a SNES&#x2F;Famicon Classic Edition. That was the console of my childhood :)

What I find odd is that no retailer seems to have pre-orders. Game Stop says &quot;Unavailable&quot; and the same on Amazon. Nintendo doesn&#x27;t have it listed to pre-order on its site either.<p>I wonder who will carry these? I live in a small town that ironically has 2 Game Stops so I should be able to snag on on 11&#x2F;11 if they are carrying it.

The first time this was announced, I was excited to pick one up. From the article comments, I read about RetroPie. Since I had a raspberry pi lying around, I loaded it with BerryBoot and put RetroPie on it. A 20 year old Playstation to USB controller adapter just worked on RetroPie. We used an old xbox controller for the second controller and have had a ton of fun playing old SNES 2 player games. For the people not willing to put in that much work, this system will work perfectly.

I have a feeling this thing is going to be the tickle me elmo of 2016

I wonder how much it would cost for the entire NES catalog, or even if they would be able to do that (b&#x2F;c of licensing issues). I feel like if I bought this thing I would think about some game from my childhood and it wouldn&#x27;t be included.

&gt; Notice something about the title? Yeah, it isn’t Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out!! The game is exactly the same, but you fight a palette-swapped Tyson at the end — they made him white and changed his name to Mr. Dream. Sad, really, but how often did you even get that far? Turns out this is a great party game.<p>What a shame :( I wonder how much extra money it would have cost them for the licensing.

$60. $60!<p>I remember spending $65.99 of my allowance for Super Mario 3.<p>Don&#x27;t let anyone tell you that games are expensive these days.

Looks like it is Allwinner R16 SoC - Quad A7 + MAli 400.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.pcper.com&#x2F;news&#x2F;Systems&#x2F;NES-Classic-PCB-Pictured-Online" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.pcper.com&#x2F;news&#x2F;Systems&#x2F;NES-Classic-PCB-Pictured-...</a><p>Wow - but I can see that it will be cheap.

This is something I look forward to purchasing all in (System, 2 controllers, cable extenders) for $30 in the Fall of 2017, because it doesn&#x27;t look like a DRM&#x2F;lock-in type system and I get a hunch these will pop up on CraigsList with regularity in the not too distant future. $60 + $10 + $20 for extension controllers adds up to me (that&#x27;s 24 sets of guitar strings at 3 for $10 deal prices) but I&#x27;m not mentioning this to complain about their pricing model. I think it&#x27;ll do great. Hence my eager anticipation to get one eventually.

Oh man, when I was ten, the neighbor&#x27;s kids had an NES, and we spent entire weekends in front of it. It did eventually die down when we discovered AD&amp;D, but still - we spent a lot of time playing Mario Bros, Zelda, etc. The wave of nostalgia hitting me is irresistible.<p>Just checked: Amazon (in Germany) knows of this thing, but says it is not available. Does not list a price, either. :-(

The release of this actually prompted me to finally build a hardware emulator using Raspberry Pi and RetroPie. For about the same price, you can get a box and controller that will run Everything from N64 and PS1 down to the old school Ataris and NES games. Not a bad project and all the necessary kit is available on Amazon...

Good luck getting your hands on one. Nintendo appears to be botching the supply chain (as usual!). Stores know this will be one of the hottest products of the season but my contacts tell me they are getting very little information on when they will get more after the first day sellout and how many.

People bashing retropie and says that this is a replacement for it but that is not true. It has only 30 games, no way of buying new games and (probably?) no controller support. If new nes had all this it would be an insta-buy for me but currently it is just a bad console.<p>I am all for supporting developers, hell I made a homebrew nes game and earned some money with it. But this thing is useless compared to what retropie does.<p>I would consider buying a second hand one just to use its case &#x2F; controllers though.

What I did was buy a for $80 bucks the original console. $20 for a new pin so games played right away, and got a 150 in 1 cartridge.<p>30 games? Pfff.

The timing couldn&#x27;t be better. My daughter is turning 7 just before Xmas and this is going under the tree!

It doesn&#x27;t have Faxanadu! Am I the only one missing it? Btw, a lot of games were unknown to me. I used to play Zelda II, which is a REALLY good game and the Marios, but I hardly remember the others. Maybe I have to blame the Italian importer at the time...

Balloon Fight was likely included because it was programmed by the late Nintendo CEO, Satoru Iwata.

Would anybody else much rather get a raspberry pi and $30 in supplies to make it themself?

Insta-buy, just wish the cords for the controllers were a bit longer but I guess they kept it real. Only real bummer is no Contra (they have the sequel), Metal Gear, Cobra Triangle or Blaster Master, maybe next batch.

I had the original cartridge of this Zelda, which I played a lot without realizing it was already a pretty famous game (with the SNES sequence already out). A friend of mine lost the cartridge. I forgive him now.

The fact is that no one would ever buy a &quot;Playstation Classic&quot;.

Anyone know if the emulator in this allows the -1 world trick in super Mario Bros? I have the wii u vc version but that doesn&#x27;t...

So Nintendo is presumably just packaging some kind of modified FOSS emulator with their games?<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.nintendo.com&#x2F;corp&#x2F;legal.jsp#emergence" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.nintendo.com&#x2F;corp&#x2F;legal.jsp#emergence</a><p>I&#x27;d love to see someone rip the firmware out of this thing and see what FLIRT can see. It would be pretty ironic if they sold the same emulators that they&#x27;ve been against for years.

It&#x27;s funny that the NES Classic has an HDMI output, and the Wii has a composite video output.

if they released this with the entire NES library on it I would pay more.

Seems quite a bit larger than it needs to be.

I wish someone would also do this for C64.

I have no luck pre-ordering one in Europe

there goes my winter.

I can&#x27;t tell if the part under &quot;The Legend of Zelda&quot; is sarcasm or I&#x27;m really that old:<p>&quot;Never heard of this one. Doesn’t look very good IMHO.&quot;<p>Really? When I think of Nintendo I think of &quot;The Legend of Zelda&quot;.