Last time, Nintendo launched their NES Classic Edition, and similarly to the Nintendo Switch, stores (online or otherwise) couldn’t keep them in stock. This time around, they address some of the issues and raise the price by $20, but include a second controller and 21 games.
Speaking of games, this console comes with something special: Star Fox 2. This game has never seen a official Nintendo release until now. It was only ever playable via emulation via a ROM file for those who knew how to find it, even though the production work on the game was basically done. A victim of bad timing, it was held back to keep from interfering with the release of Star Fox 64 on the Nintendo 64.
This system will have 21 new games from the SNES library which include three Capcom games, two Konami games, and one Square Enix game.
The system will offer the following games when it is launched later this year in September:
- Contra III: The Alien Wars*
- Donkey Kong Country**
- EarthBound
- Final Fantasy III
- F-ZERO
- Kirby Super Star*
- Kirby’s Dream Course**
- The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past
- Mega Man X
- Secret of Mana*
- Star Fox
- Star Fox 2 (previously unreleased!)
- Street Fighter II Turbo: Hyper Fighting*
- Super Castlevania IV
- Super Ghouls ’n Ghosts
- Super Mario Kart*
- Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars
- Super Mario World**
- Super Metroid
- Super Punch-Out!!
- Yoshi’s Island
(All games are single player, unless noted with a * for simultaneous two-player games or a ** for alternating two-player games.)
Modders found that the NES Classic Edition ran on a 1.2Ghz quad-core ARM Cortex-A7 CPU, which was more than up to the challenge of emulating decades-old console games. While no tech specs have been announced for the SNES Classic Edition, we can only assume the innards will be similar this time around.
While the SNES Classic Edition won’t have any official way to load additional games past the 21 built in to the system itself, hackers were eventually able to jailbreak the NES Classic Edition to run everything from Linux to sideloaded NES games to MAME and other classic console emulators. I fully expect modders and hackers to crack this cold one open and see what can be done to extend the library on the system.
Will the SNES Mini be worth it at $80, and how quickly will it sell out before people start scalping them? I guess we’ll have to see in September. I expect to buy one this time myself.
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