I’m going to be a wet blanket and say nostalgia is a helluva drug, and Nintendo is THE drug peddler, first with NES classic and now this. I’m betting for most people it will sit in the drawer gathering dust a week or a month after it was bought.
It is like those boomers endlessly talked about how great the 60s was, and now Nintendo is banking on people’s fond memories of 80s-90s to shore up its bottom line.
Forward and onward I say. There is no need to relive the past, just learn from it and move on.
Ha! This is almost the exact speech given to me by my roommate in Seattle when I was getting ready to move to Kansas City back in 2006/07. His argument was, forget all the old stuff. Sell it all, leave behind all the old things, and start over. And I bought it. He finally convinced me. I sold all my old bulky force feedback joysticks, my computer chair, and a whole bunch of stuff.
My brother did call me and told me to save my original Xbox games and hardware. I was really resistant, but I saved it. And I regretted it when I came to Kansas City. I never took out that stuff and went back.
But now I’m come around again. I hooked up the old Xbox to show to my nieces and nephews, and played Jet Set Radio Future with them, and Crimson Skies. And they really enjoyed it. It’s a unique experience you can’t really get currently on PC or Xbox One. I’m glad I saved the old hardware.
The big question is right there: is there something unique in there that you can’t get in modern games? Or is it pure nostalgia? In the case of the SNES, I don’t know the answer. But for the original Xbox, there turned out to be really something there.
Yeah, it’s not just nostalgia for me. Sure there is some nostalgia, but I had a Genesis personally. These games are still good, or at least many of them still are. Still solid games worth playing, and this is a perfect way to introduce them to my son. Sitting down and playing Star Fox or Mario Kart would be worth the price of admission alone. Getting to introduce him to Super Mario World and Zelda is just gravy.
I regret all the consoles I got rid of, though I did so mostly due to lack of funds so that I could buy a newer, better system. The Atari 2600 had to go so that I could get a Colecovision. Colecovision was sold to buy a Commodore 64. Got rid of my Dreamcast to get a PS2. Still have my old SNES, though it’s back at my mom’s place - wonder if it still works? Anyway, this one kind of tempts me, does it play old carts or does it run only ROMs?
Don’t forget that SNES Classic has Star Fox 2 which has never been legally sold anywhere before. It was completed but never released. This is a classic system with a new game from the era on it.
Anyway, I learned my lesson years ago. Don’t sell your stuff unless you’re SURE you won’t ever want to play it again! I went through two Neo Geo consoles before I finally kept the one I have now and I owned a number of games I wish I could get back. I traded them on something new and shiny each time and it was dumb. It’s not just nostalgia. Lots of these games are still awesome when played for the first or the hundredth time today.
Scew that. I enjoy what I enjoyed all the time. That’s why I see remakes, reboots, and remasters on TV, movies and songs. Adding games to that list makes it no different than other entertainment medium. This is just a remaster… so what?
Not just nostalgia for me - would have been with the NES but with the SNES there are a bunch of games I would play today. I never got to play Super Mario RPG, Earthbound or Secret of Mana and of course Star Fox 2. I don’t use emulators so these are the only way to play these (though I guess Mana has been ported to the DS, I think?).
Super Metroid is also in my Top 5 of all time and I haven’t played it since I finished it once about 20 years ago. I mean, I still have my SNES and Super Metroid (along with a few others from that list) but it’s packed away and I do not have room in my entertainment center (nor do I want to play those games on a modern HD TV) so this is a great way to replay those old games along with the ones I haven’t played before.
But what Nintendo should do is release the system with a micro-SD reader and sell future collections of 10 games or so for $20. Or have it connect to their store so you can download individual games.
That’s not what this is for. It’s to plug in and play without any problems.
One of the people I met camping the NES Classic was a 50+ year old woman who just wanted to play Zelda again. Didn’t want to bother with an internet connection or downloads.
There’s clearly a market for this. I’m not why anyone suggests that there isn’t or, more to the point, that there shouldn’t be. These little guys flew off the shelf like mentioned above, by people who don’t really consider themselves gamers at all.
I got the “an item you marked is available for preorder” email from Wal-Mart at 8:30. By the time I got out of the movie I was in at 9:30 they’d already taken down the product page.
