HDMI out? I wonder if they're going to simulate NTSC TV artifacts such as colour bleed and dot crawl. These artifacts are important for correctly rendering NES games according to their original design [0].

[0] http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/KylePittman/20150420/241442/C...

I'm really interested in the architecture of this thing. I'm guessing ARM running a NES emulator (rather than ports of the games), since they've got such great experience doing that on the 3DS.

If it's hackable, this would be a fantastic gadget. As a project box alone, it looks really pretty. HDMI out, USB power, and controller inputs make it really appealing. Depending on headers and connectivity inside, hacking a USB port or SD slot for expansion would be a fun project.

There are already Wii controller accessory to USB adapters available. And at $9.99 for the controllers, those could be fun too (to be used separately on other platforms, like the RPi).

That's not to say I won't be getting one purely to play as intended, but I would be interested in picking one up to hack.

I'm amazed at the ridiculous pricing for these games. On Wii U, all of these classic games would cost $5 each. $60 for a physical device and 30 games is extremely generous by Nintendo standards.

Edit: if only it had River City Ransom...

It seems to be missing some critical features of the original.

- Can't start a game and have the game loading screen distorted until the 7-8th attempt.

- Can't blow in the cartridge until it whistles before playing

- Can't stick 2 games in on top of each other

Getting the game to work was half of the fun.

I own an NES and quite a few games but this seems like an instabuy for me. Solid list of games. Metroid, Castlevania 1+2 and both Zeldas. Tecomo, the Mario games, and Ghost 'n' Goblins to keep you frustrated. Pretty cool actually that they chose to go with the small form factor.

I'm amazed noone here has mentioned RetroPie[1]. A model B Raspberry Pi or even a Zero (if you can get one) should play NES games perfectly fine. You can get USB NES controller adapters pretty cheap or some knock-off USB NES controllers instead. I have a SNES-USB adapter for my setup that takes two SNES controllers.

[1] - https://retropie.org.uk/

This is a bit of a desperation move from Nintendo as they have pretty much nothing for the holidays for the Wii U with the NX still in development on the horizon.

That said, at that impulse buy price point, I'll definitely pick it up and I'm sure it'll be incredibly popular with those that grew up with the system. This isn't the sort of product that really grows Nintendo's market with a new generation.

I wouldn't be surprised if it outsells the Wii U this holiday.

Aww no Contra at launch. (They do have non Nintendo titles though like Megaman 2, so it's not just a first party issue)

For kinda the opposite of this - super expensive, plays all NES games as carts - check out the Analogue NT: http://www.analogue.co/products/analogue-nt-information

It's apparently sold out now, but it was a $500 NES built using clones of hardware, and with modern video and audio output. Jeremy Parish has a writeup over at USGamer: http://www.usgamer.net/articles/analogue-nt-review-for-the-r...

Sega tried something similar with mixed results [1], the two main differences being that:

1- Sega went for a "clone" rather than emulation (even accepts Genesis cartridges)

2- Nintendo's IP in the classic gaming space is unmatched

[1] http://www.gamestop.com/genesis/consoles/sega-genesis-classi...

> Sadly you can't use your original NES carts with the console - something even the most basic "Famiclone" offers - and there doesn't seem to be any means of getting new games onto it.

Would it really have been that much extra effort to make the console backwards compatible?

Reading these game names just tickled a part of my brain that hadn't been activated in quite some time. Can't wait to play these again.

Please have Super Sprint, please have Super Sprint......nooooooooooooooo!

Oh well, I'll probably buy one to play games with my kids, most mainstream games today are too complicated to learn and I don't really find them fun despite how technically amazing they are.

Part of me wants to say cool, thanks for paying tribute and making accessible. Part of me wants me to say ugh, for being unoriginal and milking old products, while using incompatible controllers, especially considering Nintendo used to sue people in the emulator/ROM/clone community, who are the real heroes for keeping the magic alive. I'd rather people just spend $30 for a raspberry pi and a USB NES controller.

What are people going to do when they find out these games are "hard". and OMG those are some great games.

Playing Tecmo Bowl with a roster of late 80s players is like double nostalgia for football fans. The legend of Tecmo Bo Jackson will live forever.

God I hate being nickle and dimed.

It should include everything needed - two controllers and a power supply FFS.

The title and even the image made this sound like a re-release of the NES hardware (2A03/6502 and all) with a slot to put in actual carts. That would have been a neat way to address limited functioning NES supply. Instead this is just a novelty item like so many other "Plug and Play" arcade packs that have been coming out for the past 10 years. A used Wii costs under $30, but of course people value these things differently. There are emulators that accept SNES and NES carts and plug into a TV, reading the cart data into memory. There are also emulators that try to fully emulate the hardware timings correctly such as puNES and BNES.

I'm actually really excited about this. I just wonder if my kids will be as addicted to the old school games as I was.

So great to see Nintendo do this! I loved the NES. I hope this sells well (I will be buying one no doubt about that) so we see a SNES mini some time. The SNES is, and always will be, the greatest console for me.

This will be a great alternative for the kids instead of a complex PS4 or Xbox. Especially considering the controller size is much more in line with their hand sizes.

You know, if the controller or lack of some game really bothers you just get a raspberry pi.

RIP Hi-Def NES http://retrorgb.com/hidefnes.html

Dude spend two years developing this product and literary launched last week http://www.game-tech.us/blog/2nd-day-of-packaging-hi-def-kit...

price was somewhere around $150

I'm most excited to see a Wii NES pad as an official and widely available product. Hope they do the same for the SNES pad.

I'm curious to see how accurate the emulation is. If you grew up on these systems, even small variations in things like timing and sound will stick out like a sore thumb.

Normally you'd expect Nintendo of all people to get it right, but from what I've seen of the Wii virtual console titles, they frequently don't.

Launches Nov 11. This should be some nice competition for those knock offs you see at the mall around Christmas time.

Good luck playing StarTropics without the submersible letter! :P

Am I the only one to miss Tetris from the list of games?

Would have appreciated if they had provided more information about this. What about games that aren't pre-installed? Is there any kind of save-states/additional functionality, aside from HDMI and controller compatibility with Wii?

I hope they didn't just bundle the games and called it a day.

They have such a big catalog of games they could do things like "Complete game X and Y, and unlock game Z". Things like that are super cheap to do, but add a lot of value to the product.

As someone that just shelled out $200 for a PVM CRT monitor to support retro-gaming, this device doesn't appeal to me at all. I'd wager I'd get a better gaming experience via a low-lag emulator with the appropriate shader plugins.

IMO, they should create a cheaper version of something similar to the Analogue NT[1], with built-in network connectivity that you can use to purchase and download legal roms.

[1] http://www.analogue.co/products/analogue-nt-information

Definitely going to buy. I'll miss RC Pro-Am and Solstice, it would be nice to have a way to add more games to this thing, but the 30-game selection is very good anyway (the NES had a lot to choose from...)

It's a pretty good deal for $60 but I hope there will be some way to add more games through emulation or download or whatever.

Also I want to see a Nintendo Classic Gameboy once. Please!

This would probably work great as a Raspberry Pi case. Too bad the connectors on the front aren't USB, although I'd probably use Bluetooth for controllers anyway.

SNES was the golden age of video games. I wish people would make more games in that style. Super Metroid will never be topped at this rate, and that's pretty sad. You don't have to make games look realistic to make them addictive and fun. Give me a world I can explore, with secrets I can discover, where my character can grow and gain new abilities and combine them for unique new experiences. Stuff like that.

Not sure why they didn't go SNES controllers, and enough hardware to support SNES and NES games... add download purchases (to a login account) and that would be gold.

The SNES controller wasn't too much over NES, and the layout comparable... for example, I prefer the updated graphics versions of the Super Mario Bros series released on SNES to the original... not to mention a lot of other great games.

I can't wait to pick one of these up and play it with my daughter. She's almost 4 and plays games on my cell phone all the time. She gets the basic concepts behind simple games like these already due to the ease of using a touchscreen interface, so I'll be curious to see how quickly she can pick up on a tactile input like this. Maybe we will start with something small like Pac-Man.

One word: Bionic Commando

I understand the aesthetic value but to be really useful/fun a wireless controller would be better.

As a collector I will buy this anyway, but I also must admit that the games included are actually very good ones.

For example some great games like Final Fantasy 1 were never released in Europe.

Also the controller can be useful for those that want to play games from the Wii Virtual Console.

No duck hunt!? What gives?

Wow, this is going on my christmas list :) I REALLY hope they expand on this by offering game packs in the future. Such a good idea. $30 game packs full of games, would sell like crazy.

Pretty cool. It'd be nice if you could add games somehow.

What I need is a 700-in-1 cartridge for my 1990s NES clone.

Well NeoGeo released a new handheld portable a few years back running a bunch of classic NeoGeo games, and it failed miserably on the market.

If they had lowered the price and networked it, could have allowed us to buy new games online... weird that they didn't go that route

BEST NEWS EVER!!! Since I only have old cartridges on a wall for display, I'm actually pretty happy I won't need to use those.

Wait, but if there are games included does this mean I won't have to blow into the box to get them to work!?! I call shenanigans!

I would buy it if it allowed downloading new games into it. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Arcade Game! Who's with me??

I wanna buy only to help nintendo make this stuff a success, so maybe they can replicate with snes...

It would be fun if they release a developer kit for this and allow homebrew games and firmware.

If enough of these sell, some game developers will have good reason to make NES games again.

Looks great, but I won't be able to get very far without a Game Genie...

I was pretty exited but huge disappointment. Huge You can pretty much buy a raspberry pi and rest of the equipments to play NES games for same price. No cartridge slot or ways of playing other games? They obviously didn't try to make a good equipment.

> there doesn't seem to be any means of getting new games onto it

Typical Nintendo "75% right" and "25% how did they screw this up"

Haaa Bubble Bobble. Infinite Levels.

ps: no cartridge, no blow. sad ;)

That's a cute idea, but my NES classic edition is my phone / tablet - https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.explusalph...

That said, I'd buy this thing from Nintendo if you could add games to it. I'd give them an extra $1 or $2 per game. Gotta have Tetris & RCR!