Classic NES Makes its Way Back Again

FrgMstr

Just Plain Mean
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The NES Classic Edition that sold like hotcakes last year, is back for round two as Nintendo is promising its return to stores on June 29th. If you are not sure if you are missing out or not, you probably are not, but surely this is a very nostalgic purchase for many. However, it does have a "CRT Filter" mode that will allow your games to look just as crappy as those did back in the day. At $60 MSRP, that comes to about $2 a game, and considering if you want to once again spend quality time with Super Mario Bros., Pac Man, and Donkey Kong, this may be right up your alley. Yeah, yeah, yeah....ExciteBike too.

Check out the video.
 
Honestly, the NES 8 Bit was the only console, back in those days, that I had a ton of games for. I also owned the original Gameboy and played that a ton.
 
The CRT filter looks like it adds some dot crawl -- literally the worst drawback of composite video. XD
 
If they just came with wireless controls I'd be a buyer for lazy nostalgia sake. But no living room I've been in in 20 years can realistically support corded controllers.
 
I keep thinking I should buy one because they're cool, but then I remember that I hate Super Mario Brothers.
 
I'd rather just get them on virtual console for the wii or wiiU, just release an original Nintendo controller as an add on for the wiimote already so we can enjoy the original games in all their hand cramping glory.
 
Meh. If I wanted something official I'd just buy an original console, HDMI mod it, and get a PowerPak or EverDrive.
I have two Hi-DEF NES's with Everdrives. They were not cheap but well worth it. When I can play VS Super Mario Bros (via Patch) on an NES in 1080p /w an NES Advantage life rocks.
 
I second the 'Meh'. I already have quite a few ways to play my NES games on my TV, including my Genesis, SNES, and TG16 games......I don't need this. Although its a cool retro throwback to the good-ole days, its nothing but a inferror locked down money grab by nintendo.

No thanks.
 
Slurm Queen: As for you, you will be submerged in Royal Slurm, which, in a matter of minutes, will transform you into a Slurm Queen like myself.
Small Glurmo #1: But, Your Highness, she's a commoner. Her Slurm will taste foul.
Slurm Queen: Yes! Which is why we'll market it as New Slurm. Then, when everyone hates it, we'll bring back Slurm Classic and make billions!
 
I absolutely don't need one, but I'm glad that the people who didn't get a chance to get one can now. I have at least 6-7 ways to play NES games right now. (some even from Nintendo :D )
 
Paperboy and Elevator Action.

Paperboy must be played on Arcade hardware (or emulation thereof).



That said, I played it more on the C64 than anything else. :D

The arcade version is the best though.
 
Mehhhh. If I want a nostalgia shot there’s always emulators. I have my PS4 co troller with a Bluetooth adapter on my pc so I can play just fine if I want to.

But as others mentioned, they should just release the games on their virtual console for like a buck.
 
There's a couple things that my brain still remembers even though I haven't needed them in quite a few decades..
1) Phone numbers of my friends houses in the 80s.
2) NES Contra cheat codes.

Don't really have any interest going back to any of those games, not to mention the game of getting one of these at MSRP again.
 
I got a ripoff NES classic ( Coolbaby version ) well after the NES classic was discontinued.. It's nice to have. Has legitimate roms of many games. All the english Mario games, Contra and others. But the real gems are the hack roms that are just twisted. Controllers are ok and the system works well. For $30, it was a 'why not' purchase
 
I kind of want one. I did by the SNES version a few months ago and we played it for about 10 minutes so far. So, based on that, maybe I should reconsider. (I never owned a Nintendo product - but do like some of the games.)
 
My boys, 9 & 5 have gotten many many hours out of the snes classic. Still tons of fun to kick their butts in some street fighter. It has been fun to play these old games together.

So I'll buy the nes classic. I still have my NES in a box but doesn't work well anymore. The memory of Christmas 1986..... Most amazing Christmas ever.
 
Yeah, see they could have had my money the first time around if they had produced enough and not catered to the scalping market. They had a hot product they knew everyone wanted it, and they just stopped making it. Probably could have had even MORE of my money had they integrated a cheap/easy game download "app" style setup. There are tons of people out there willing to pay a few bucks for their classic games they remember and love.

I refuse to get swept up in whatever frenzy that will come from this. Nintendo had their shot and they fucked up. Are we taking bets on how long they will produce this 2nd batch before mysteriously closing the doors?
 
I'm-a try to get one for my mom (who was the person who got me started on my video game journey 35 years ago, in arcades and with her Atari 2600), as she needs an easy way to play NES games on an HDTV (cuz I have her original NES). I tried to get her an NES Classic for both Mother's Day and her berfday during the initial release, but I couldn't get my hands on one, and $60 was already a ripoff. I wasn't gonna pay $200+ for one. I wonder how hard it will be get to one with this re-release. I don't understand why this simple Allwinner R16 SoC-based mini Linux PC is so hard to release in decent numbers. Nintendo is creating artificial scarcity or some other bullshit. Indeed you could build a better device yourself using a Raspberry Pi or something similar. Well at least the NES Classic and SNES Classic are easy to mod and add games to (the SNES Classic is only using about half of its 512MB storage out the box).

I recently got the SNES Classic, which is not a bad device (despite its issues). Sure, you can find way more accurate and feature-rich SNES emulators on PC, and as someone who owns and regularly plays an SNES and a Super Famicom (well just the latter cuz the SNES has a dead CPU), one might wonder why I would need an SNES Classic. Well it's a convenient way to take a bunch of SNES games with me to my friends' houses without carrying the system and a bunch of cartridges, and none of my friends have CRTs in their homes. I run all my 5th-gen-and-earlier consoles on CRT TVs. I don't yet own an xRGB Mini Framemeister or an OSSC, and without those devices games from older systems look like ass on HDTVs. And even if I had these devices, it would be a pain in the ass to carry them and the systems and the games to friends' houses. SNES Classic is just a more convenient option, and it actually looks decent-enough on an HDTV. NES Classic would also be a convenient way to carry NES games to friends'' houses (you can also run NES games on the SNES Classic).

The SNES Classic had some improvements over the NES Classic, it would be cool if they would implement those improvements in this re-release of the NES Classic (like the lack of scaling and crawling artifacts, or the rewind feature if you care about that type of thing). Using the reset button for save states or going back to the game selection menu is kinda annoying. Most people get controller extension cords for the NES Classic and SNES Classic, but what I do instead is use a long HDMI cable so I can have the system sit closer to me. Makes it easier to use the reset button on both consoles.


Just some of the issues with both systems:
https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2017-nintendo-classic-mini-nes-review
"One particular area of weakness is audio. Across the full range of NES emulators available today, only a subset of these absolutely nail the emulation of this machine's sound. It's not a trivial point to get right, and with the full backing of Nintendo behind the Mini, it's disappointing to find that audio isn't entirely accurate.Music playback sticks out for its tinny output, lacking the richness you'll hear when using a real NES console, or other accurate solutions like the Analogue Nt.... There's even a subtle delay in audio playback compared to original hardware, creating a slight offset from the video. Simply put, the audio experience just isn't where it should be."

"When using the 4:3 mode with the NES Mini, there are visible artefacts present that become evident while scrolling. It leads to an uneven distribution of pixels that causes some columns to contain more pixels than others. The result? It just doesn't look great in motion." These are just some of the issues with the NES Classic, but eh I still wouldn't mind having one. I'll stick to using the emulators on PC and my actual NES and Famicom, and hook my mom up with this thing. She cares a lot less about issues like these than I do.


https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2017-nintendo-classic-mini-super-nes-system-review
"Also puzzling is the inclusion of what looks much like analogue noise in the video signal, most noticeable in solid colour - a bizarre anomaly bearing in mind the purely digital nature of the internals. What's even more surprising is that the actual analogue output from an original Super NES does not have this issue at all. Overall, the SNES mini's video output is improved thanks to enhanced 4:3 scaling, but the video noise and poorly implemented CRT filter keep the system from achieving perfection."

"Emulation seems excellent overall, but there are some curiosities - just like the NES mini, strobing effects in some titles are minimised, and there are some genuine surprises too, like higher resolution mode 7 effects, when blown-up tiles are viewed at close range. Audio emulation is solid and an improvement over the NES mini, but still not quite right overall. We noticed occasional missing sounds and subtle differences in music playback - on the right speakers, you can hear a small difference."

Yeah effects like the screen-clearing bomb in Contra 3 look different now (I heard it might be to cut down on the chance of epileptic seizures), and when you touch the fuzzies in Yoshi's Island. On the other hand, the higher-res Mode 7 tilemaps are handy. Yeah the audio emulation isn't exactly perfect, I noticed incorrect/off-sounding music and sound effects that aren't there with SNES emulators on PC.

"There's also a slight delay in audio playback - it's not something you'd likely notice in practice but, based on close analysis of the waveform, it seems that the SNES mini delays sound playback by roughly three frames compared to original hardware. A 50ms lag isn't a disaster and it's still an improvement over the NES mini which had the same issue - but we're curious as to why it's there at all." Yeah this is weird too, but not really noticeable when you are playing.



What's weird is that on my own particular HDTV (Samsung LN37B650 from 2009), the CRT filter is actually the best-looking option, though indeed it is not great. I also tried the SNES Classic on my friend's 2016 Samsung KS8000 and yeah it really didn't look too great on that either. That TV is way faster than mine though so there was less input lag. Plus that beautiful 10-bit IPS panel produces really rich colors.

I think the shoulder buttons on the SNES Classic controllers are way better than on the original SNES controllers, and I like the surface texture too. I'd like to be able to use these controllers with my SFC and on PC. Also fuck Nintendo for choosing to use the same controller port on these systems that's found on the bottom of the Wiimotes. Just an odd choice. Shit is annoying cuz we can't use our original controllers. At least the emulation on the NES Classic and SNES Classic are superior to the emulators used on Nintendo's Virtual Console service.

Anyways yeah, if I can get my hands on an NES Classic for 60 bucks then that would be cool, but I ain't gonna stress over it, or kill myself trying to get one. Simple fact of the matter is that these things should be available great numbers and should be easy to find at MSRP, but I'm sure some shiesty shit is going on that is producing artificial scarcity. I'll be adding games to my SNES Classic and will probably do the same to the NES Classic. Too bad the limited emulator means some games won't work regardless (like Mega Man X 2 and 3, which use the CX4 chip which the SNES Classic's emulator doesn't support). Despite vastly superior emulation on PC, in the right situations, the NES Classic and SNES Classic can be convenient, useful devices. Only if you pay MSRP for them though (and $80 for SNES Classic is already a stretch). I'm amazed at how much I've used the SNES Classic even though I have the actual hardware and emulators on PC readily available. What can I say, great games are great regardless of where/how you play them.
 
Not to derail the thread and I know this is a major 'never gonna happen' but it'd be nice if Sony put out a retro box that plays PS1, 2, and 3 games on it. I have emulators for 1,2 and we know that 3 is making impressive crawls forward but I'm pretty sure they'd make some serious bank on their own retro box. I'm sure we all that Sony would sue the living daylights out of anyone else trying so it'd be nice if they did it themselves.
 
Honestly, the NES 8 Bit was the only console, back in those days, that I had a ton of games for. I also owned the original Gameboy and played that a ton.
I still have my gameboy with like 15 game cartridges.....been thinking about pulling that thing out and seeing if it still works. I played the crap outa that thing.....
 
Yeah, see they could have had my money the first time around if they had produced enough and not catered to the scalping market. They had a hot product they knew everyone wanted it, and they just stopped making it. Probably could have had even MORE of my money had they integrated a cheap/easy game download "app" style setup. There are tons of people out there willing to pay a few bucks for their classic games they remember and love.

I refuse to get swept up in whatever frenzy that will come from this. Nintendo had their shot and they fucked up. Are we taking bets on how long they will produce this 2nd batch before mysteriously closing the doors?

I don't think that's how it went down. They put in an order to have a certain number manufactured based on projected demand. The only thing Nintendo is guilty of is hugely underestimating the demand for the product. The SNES Mini has been fairly easy to find. I expect the NES mini will be easy to get this time around, now that Nintendo understands the demand.
 
I will probably get one as I got the SNES Classic Mini and they are also releasing the N64 Classic Mini later this year. There are plenty of hacks now that let you load the roms you want for each console in case it doesn't come with your personal favorites. I tried some of the other options but the controls never seem to work right and these work just like they used to.

Also, they do make wireless controllers for these consoles. They are extra, but they are available.
 
I think the ship has sailed on this. Hope all the scalpers brought them up and get stuck with them.
 
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same hackable hardware?

Not to derail the thread and I know this is a major 'never gonna happen' but it'd be nice if Sony put out a retro box that plays PS1, 2, and 3 games on it. I have emulators for 1,2 and we know that 3 is making impressive crawls forward but I'm pretty sure they'd make some serious bank on their own retro box. I'm sure we all that Sony would sue the living daylights out of anyone else trying so it'd be nice if they did it themselves.

you'd need some serious storage to get a decent amount of games on them.
 
Absolutely ready to have these back in stock. No giant markup to get one finally.
 
Nes,snes,tg16,sms,genesis, and n64 with ever drives.. All i will ever need.

Agree!!!

Only I also have to have C64, Amiga, Arcade as well.

(and one PS One game... Symphony of the Night)

I also like to have all modern Mario and Zelda games at my disposal.
 
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