When both the NES Classic Edition and now the SNES Classic Edition were announced, a common comment from many in the gaming scene were that these mini-consoles were pointless, or some kind of similar lack of understanding why people are fascinated by them.
This stems from a misconception of the very target demographic these machines are made for.
The NES Classic Edition, and the SNES Classic Edition, are not made for the hardcore gamer. They aren’t made for those of us who own a dozen game consoles and hundreds of games from the past 40+ years of electronics advancement.
Oh no, no no. These are made for the casual gamer. Hell, not even that. These consoles are made for those people who remember playing these consoles as a child, but long ago left the scene. They are designed so that people who long ago sold or gave away their old machines and might very well have not really seriously played a video game in 15+ years. They may well have families of their own now, among other things that happen in life and shove some hobbies by the wayside – regardless of their situation in life, nostalgia bites strong when presented with a simple, easy, and modern way to play the games of their childhood, or show their kids what they grew up with.
You could always mod the Wii to do the same kind of thing, and those are a dime a dozen, but don’t do HDMI.
Yes, there are better ways to do this – hell, a Nintendo Wii can easily be modded to run games from many generations, and other methods to emulate – that is, run the data from old video games on different hardware – exist for your phone, your computer, and other game consoles, these little boxes require zero effort on the purchasers part other than buying and hooking up the system, a process that in itself is trvial – power and HDMI for video and audio, no games to buy, carts to shove in, nothing!
All this for a rather affordable price compared to the alternative to this, and emulation, of buying expensive, long out of production hardware and the accompanying, sometimes even more expensive game software, all while dealing with the issues of these systems being designed for old tube TV’s, and the associated issue getting such to work right on some models of modern TV.
Sure, you COULD buy a NES and a copy of Super Mario Bros 3, but that would cost more than the NES Classic did when it was available.
Sure, there are ways around this – again, emulation is a damn fine option, but here’s the thing: people who know the details of all of this and actually have the interest or drive to do such are the exception, not the rule. Most gamers only care about being able to, at the end of the day, play games. They don’t want to have to buy extra, old TV sets, keep dozens of old game consoles and games for them around, and they sure as hell don’t want to have try to figure out what an emulator and roms are.
If they did, they would already be doing this by now, just like you or I, wouldn’t they?
That’s not the only thing, though – there’s also the fact of buying an actual product, in this case from Nintendo, that actually looks like the console they used to have. This is part of where the love from even hardcore gamers comes from – there is a charm to these little boxes, the retro packaging, and the all around experience of them. Even I, as an owner of an NES, enjoy playing my NES Classic for both the charm of it, not just the improvements it does provide as an emulation box on its own. It’s just cool to own it, and as you probably know, especially with Nintendo, fans want to have everything they can related to things they love.
Yep. Even hardcore gamers, who already own these games, still want these consoles!
The SNES Classic will have as much demand as the NES Classic did!
To sum it up, the consoles are for anyone and everyone. People want these. They all may have different reasons, but people want these consoles. If you don’t, that’s fine, no problem there, but don’t act like there isn’t a demand because clearly there is.
How supply will be though is another story…