Even you Nintendo haters gotta think this is a good deal

[Zeus]

I can't believe no one here is soiling themselves over the NES Mini:

http://www.theverge.com/2016/7/14/12187 ... rice-games

I will admit, I don't see Seek's posts so he may be all over it. But so should the rest of you.

It's $60 ($80 Cdn) and $10 ($13 Cdn), fits in the palm of your hands, has NES controllers that'll plug into your Wiimotes to be used for those Virtual Console games, and has 30 built-in games....including 12 third-party games. And these ain't the bottom-of-the-barrel type games, I'd say a good 15 or so would appear on most people's greatest hits (personally I'd like Castlevania 3 over the first two and LifeForce over Gradius, but whatevs). I got people at work who haven't had a Nintendo system since the original NES wanting this thing (front-page article on CBC didn't hurt). That's $2 a game ($2.67 in Canada) which is less than half price for the virtual console versions. It's a ridiculous deal. The fact that the hardware patents have lapsed may have helped the price but for the games alone it's a good damned deal.

This AND AM2R I find out about in back to back days? No need for Viagra for this old man for a while :-)

List of Games
•Balloon Fight
•Bubble Bobble (third party)
•Castlevania (third party)
•Castlevania II: Simon's Quest (third party)
•Donkey Kong
•Donkey Kong Jr.
•Double Dragon II: The Revenge (third party)
•Dr. Mario
•Excitebike
•Final Fantasy (third party)
•Galaga (third party)
•Ghosts 'N Goblins (third party)
•Gradius (third party)
•Ice Climber
•Kid Icarus
•Kirby's Adventure
•Mario Bros.
•Mega Man 2 (third party)
•Metroid
•Ninja Gaiden (third party)
•Pac-Man (third party)
•Punch-Out!! Featuring Mr. Dream
•StarTropics
•Super C (third party)
•Super Mario Bros.
•Super Mario Bros. 2
•Super Mario Bros. 3
•Tecmo Bowl (third party)
•The Legend of Zelda
•Zelda II: The Adventure of Link

[ManaMan]

Yeah I saw that, it's a pretty good deal considering how much Nintendo (over-)charges for those same games in the online store. I've heard several people joking that this is actually Nintendo's next console & that they've scrapped the NX (har-har).

I might pick one up for the kids (& mom & dad).

[Zeus]

I'm thinking of doing the same thing for my kids

[Eric]

I can never get excited over stuff like this because emulators exist, like, how do you manage to get excited for it? lol

[Don]

I remember buying one of those 'X in 1 packs' way back and always regretted buying them. Heck, even in the NES days there were the pirated '125 games in 1' stuff you can get. Sure like 80% of the game didn't actually work but even the 20% that worked it's usually nothing too exciting. I really don't see why buying this for a causal player (e.g. kids) would mean anything because you can get stuff that looks way better for free on any mobile device and sure graphics aren't everything but a lot of the old school gameplay is quite overrated. I think it'd be a good idea if there's an older game that you want some authentic playing experience over an emulator, though I'd argue the ability to save and load anywhere generally trumps whatever authentic experience you can get unless you're looking for an authentic experience of dying over and over again and having to start over due to a lack of saves. I imagine a lot of the Mega Man games would be quite painful to play without save states.

[kali o.]

I can never get excited over stuff like this because emulators exist

^^That.

[Blotus]

I can never get excited over stuff like this because emulators exist

^^That.

^^^This.

[Julius Seeker]

^^^^^ Proof that emulators and illegal rom downloads are terrible for the videogame industry.

[Don]

I think there's more to emulator than just being free when you're talking about stuff this old because it costs next to nothing to buy these ancient games if they're available. In an older era game you usually have limited save slots (around 3) whereas an emulator can usually do at least 10. You usually don't have the ability to save anywhere, sometimes not at all depending on the game. It's just not very interesting to die over and over again in Quick Man's stage and start over compared to loading the spot before the death lasers show up. If you're talking about a RPG you can also speed up the pace of the game dramatically by skipping frames and save a lot of time. Advanced Daisenryaku on the Sega Genesis takes about half an hour for the computer to do its turn, and having the emulation run on max speed will save you at least 20 minutes per turn. Given the average map 30-60 turns and that you got about 15 maps on the campaign, that 10-20 hours per map and 150-300 hours saved on the campaign.

[Zeus]

I mean sure, my PSP Go can do all this no prob. But there's something to be said for a relatively inexpensive official version

[kali o.]

^^^^^ Proof that emulators and illegal rom downloads are terrible for the videogame industry.

Videogame industry was 24 billion in the US alone in 2015 and is one of the fastest growing industries.

Like Nintendo trying to sell us old crap, you are trying to sell old arguments.

*drops mic*

[Zeus]

30 games, some of the best, standalone cool system, $60. This is a good deal for anyone who actually engages the products they like by even considering paying for them

[Julius Seeker]

^^^^^ Proof that emulators and illegal rom downloads are terrible for the videogame industry.

Videogame industry was 24 billion in the US alone in 2015 and is one of the fastest growing industries.

Like Nintendo trying to sell us old crap, you are trying to sell old arguments.

*drops mic*

You fumbled.
You already said the reason you aren't interested is because of emulators used to play illegal roms. Since those illegal roms are the reason you aren't interested, we come to the logical conclusion that the industry is damaged as a result.

Arguing that the industry is X billion, or that the games are old, doesn't alter the truth of the above statement, and is therefore not relevant. It is merely an exercise in evading the point.

[kali o.]

You fumbled.
You already said the reason you aren't interested is because of emulators used to play illegal roms. Since those illegal roms are the reason you aren't interested, we come to the logical conclusion that the industry is damaged as a result.

Arguing that the industry is X billion, or that the games are old, doesn't alter the truth of the above statement, and is therefore not relevant. It is merely an exercise in evading the point.

No, I think you just failed to see my point. Roms and emulators have been around for 20+ years and despite cries from some companies, they havent killed the industry that has grown at an incredible pace (ps - used game sales and lets play videos didnt "kill" the industry either).

If Nintendo has decided to repackage NES games, yeah, roms "might" have a small effect on that lazy product...collectors like Zeus might remain interested. I fail to see why Nintendo doesnt just release the collection on the Wii U or handhelds tho.

To be honest, most of those games have aged poorly - even if emulators didnt exist, I wouldnt be interested. I was more pointing out they are old, I dont care, but if I suddenly suffered from nostalgia, I could play the roms.

[Zeus]

The reason that Nintendo releases this is because the vast majority of the population doesn't engage in ROMs even though they're so damned easy to run. You'd be shocked how many people, even younger people, just don't know or don't care for ROMs.

But something like this that actually provides a good value, a neat packaging, an easy, stand-alone way to link it to your TV (for the masses), and contains 20 really good games a lot of people love and remember instead of just a couple of good ones with a bunch of shit? It's worth it to a large portion of the population who would be in the market for this.

I had about a dozen family members, friends, and workmates, most of whom already have a PS4 or Xbone and can run an emulator, ask me to inform them the second it's available for pre-order. Aside from the people who don't buy games, will pirate whatever they can if they can, or who are just haters for whatever reason, this is a very good value proposition for the targeted potential audience

[Blotus]

I think the concept and the price point are really great, actually; just not worth it for me. It's another appliance in my home, an infrequently used conversation piece. And whenever I can help it, I'll always opt not to use any controller pre-PS2.

It's possible to acknowledge the NES Mini as being cool while not partaking in it.

Re: emulators, you could make a case for their availability leading to a sustained and greater interest in retro games just as easily as you could any argument based on them biting into revenue. One thing that's always true about pirated media is that a download is never necessarily a lost sale.

[Don]

Legality aside, an emulator is usually far superior when playing archaic games that run on concepts that are no longer valid. Save states and frame skip is probably the only way that makes the old school RPG that focuses on having stupidly large mazes to waste your time playable, and you can't get on that on system. FF7 for the iPhone has a 'no random encounter' and 'max out every stat' config because if you were buying it for nostalgia reasons you probably don't need to be reminded of how many stupid random encounters you got to do in a game you almost certainly have beaten multiple times. Take a game like Contra. It's actually pretty hard even with the Konami code if you didn't know the layout of the game like the back of your hand, and nostalgia isn't enough to make you run through outdated gameplay and then booted back to the first stage when you game over. I don't think I ever beat any of the Gradius games that wasn't on an emulator especially the ones where if you died once you might as well start over because you don't have the firepower to beat it reliably anymore (if you could beat it without the max options you probably should not have died in the first place, as that'd imply you're somehow able to survive for much longer period of times when you do beat the boss without options) and there's no reason why I'd want to change the trend now. At least Contra has the Konami code. Most of the old school stuff you simply got to beat it with relatively little room for error.

Also the cost for the old school games are way overpriced. I know they don't want to price them at 2 cents because then everyone will think it's worthless and not buy it anyway but charging even $2 for totally outdated game that comes with all the inconveniences of old school gaming is actually kind of insulting. If they added something that relieves the burden of old school that might be worth it, but I don't think anybody's doing that on a regular basis.

[Julius Seeker]

Well! It turned out to be a much greater idea than anyone anticipated. Demand vastly outstripped supply, and it is one of the hottest products for this holiday season. It's already getting bids on eBay for $230-300 a pop.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/davidthier/ ... 0b2764ff37

[Zeus]

Just another point that wasn't made here:

Check out the Pixel Perfect mode. It takes the graphics and properly upconverts them to run perfectly on HD screens since these games were made to run on CRTs. Apparently it's better than any emulation out there in terms of how they run. Lots of comparison videos out there, it's not an insignificant upgrade apparently.

I will buy it for the value alone as it's not just the fact what it is but the sheer library is excellent. I actually just picked up the Sega Genesis system with the 80 built-in games (39 actual Genesis games, 41 ass-looking ones) during Black Friday in Buffalo. It has wireless controllers and plugging in Genesis carts. It was $20 and no one cared. I was the only one who bought it from what I could tell. Why? The library on the NES Mini is just that much superior. Not often you can get that volume with that quality.

The lineups and people constantly asking about them at every store certainly seem to support the theory that I'm not the only one who this appeals to. I lined up with 60 year-old grandmas (3 of them, actually) to get mine.