New report from Kotaku. Can't read at the moment but:
http://kotaku.com/nintendo-discontinues-the-nes-classic-1794303321
http://kotaku.com/nintendo-discontinues-the-nes-classic-1794303321
Anyone pick up a NES mini today? Or planning on getting one eventually?
- Thread starter Aldo
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Yeah, Nintendo, thanks a lot for nothing. People keep saying "you can get an emulator and play the games." Yeah, sure I can, but I'd rather have a miniature Nintendo I can plug into my TV, use a NES controller, and is setup for HDMI without any trouble. The $60 price tag was reasonable for all of that. Now it will be damn near impossible to get one for under three figures.
Good old Nintendo logic. /s
The NES Classic sold more units than the Wii U did in 2016, in both Japan and the Americas combined. 
Anyway, the reasoning behind it is clear; the Switch is selling beyond expectations (to the point that Nintendo is doubling production this year), the Virtual Console is coming ... well, "sometime" this year, and the NES Classic had no possibility for incremental revenue because of its lack of connectivity / expansion options. Instead of spending resources on a bundled system that they only sell for the cost of a game, they're certainly more interested in shifting those resources to fulfilling Switch orders and trying to convince people that re-buying these games individually, yet again (at a higher profit margin than an NES Classic), online is a better alternative.
Nintendo sorely needs to get some cash back in the bank and right now, the Switch is doing it for them.
Edit: Don't get me wrong, I agree that these things should be all over the place, but there are more factors than just LOL NINTENDO at play.
Anyway, the reasoning behind it is clear; the Switch is selling beyond expectations (to the point that Nintendo is doubling production this year), the Virtual Console is coming ... well, "sometime" this year, and the NES Classic had no possibility for incremental revenue because of its lack of connectivity / expansion options. Instead of spending resources on a bundled system that they only sell for the cost of a game, they're certainly more interested in shifting those resources to fulfilling Switch orders and trying to convince people that re-buying these games individually, yet again (at a higher profit margin than an NES Classic), online is a better alternative.
Nintendo sorely needs to get some cash back in the bank and right now, the Switch is doing it for them.
Edit: Don't get me wrong, I agree that these things should be all over the place, but there are more factors than just LOL NINTENDO at play.
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Go figure. One of the best things they've done in awhile was releasing it. My guess is that the Virtual Console for the Switch is right around the corner, and they feel this thing would canabolize their sales. Although it makes you wonder why they released it in the first place if they knew the VC was coming as these things are planned way in advance.
Because the Wii U was dead, the Switch wasn't coming until March, and they needed to sell something for Christmas.
The mistake seems to have been in assuming that Nintendo ever meant it as anything other than a short-term stopgap. When it came out, I didn't think it would be so popular, but I also didn't figure it would be around very long, either--nostalgia systems like this just don't have the kind of sales legs Nintendo needs. Plus all the things Timby said. 
The mistake seems to have been in assuming that Nintendo ever meant it as anything other than a short-term stopgap. When it came out, I didn't think it would be so popular, but I also didn't figure it would be around very long, either--nostalgia systems like this just don't have the kind of sales legs Nintendo needs. Plus all the things Timby said.
The other thing that people saying "lol Nintendo just hates money" need to keep in mind is that production isn't as simple as a call to the floor from the upstairs office. It takes time and money to produce the components, time and money to assemble them, time and money to ship and store them. Nintendo isn't Sony; it doesn't have its own dedicated production facilities, but rather it subcontracts this stuff to larger assembly-focused companies like Foxconn (which costs money). Nostalgia gimmicks have a very limited shelf life, as you said.
Also, "Nintendo hates money" would make sense if they weren't making a ton of money off of fans who are willing to buy ROMs of retro games across multiple systems, and are also willing to excuse what amounts to cosmetic horse armor DLC (most of the time) because it came with a Happy Meal toy. They know exactly what they're doing, and they also know they can count on a very specific group of people to exploit every time.
Ordinarily, I'd agree with you, but I think all the ingredients were there. A mini-console version of a highly successful console packaged with some of its biggest titles? To many people, that's a big win. So, I can see why people took to it unlike most similar nostalgia units. I also think the timing was right. And don't get me wrong, I also knew it would only be available for a limited time, in fact I think the initial announcement said so too. It's just the way they announced it would be discontinued that makes it sound like they're doing it sooner than most anticipated.
The "sooner than anticipated" is probably because the Switch is selling so well. I'm sure Nintendo makes a hell of a lot more profit on the Switch, so it's kind of a no-brainer as to which system they should commit their (limited, as Timby pointed out) manufacturing resources to.
I have to imagine that there are also licensing agreements at play, here. Doing a cursory check, just under half of the 30 games on the NES Classic (in North America, anyway) are from third parties, and I guarantee you that with as cost-conscious as Nintendo is nowadays, it licensed those games for the NES Classic for a specific quantity of sales volume as opposed to a per-unit basis. With Konami on the edge of getting out of video games entirely (and therefore looking to extract every red cent it possibly can from the industry prior to exit), Taito / Square Enix no longer printing money as they have in the past and Capcom having proven itself to be a whore for every last bit of incremental revenue it can get, I'm sure that Nintendo didn't want to re-up license agreements for a pseudo-console on which it almost certainly didn't make a shit-ton of money. (Retail price of $60, I'd guess the margin for retailers was maybe $12 - 15, then you have manufacturing and distribution costs, best guess is Nintendo was making maybe nine bucks a box at best.)
Again, the NES Classic was a temporary distraction from the Wii U faceplant while Nintendo rushed the Switch to market. Simple as that.
I thought I had been able to break away from Ebay.. But they keep pulling me back in!!!
This is all my wife wanted for Christmas and her birthday... She's a Zelda-geek... So while I have my max-spend on this, it will still be well above market value.. But I'm not going for modded or "gently used".. NIB is it...
Damn.. The things we do for love...
This is all my wife wanted for Christmas and her birthday... She's a Zelda-geek... So while I have my max-spend on this, it will still be well above market value.. But I'm not going for modded or "gently used".. NIB is it...
Damn.. The things we do for love...
Great. So now the eBay scalpers are going nuts, going from selling their NES Classics for a couple hundred bucks to a couple thousand. As a humorous hobby, I was putting all the idiots selling theirs for $5000-$25000 on my watch list and watching them not sell. Now there's so many of them there's no point anymore.
Exactly. And I never even saw one in stores. They'll just continue to do what they do hoping for suckers to go and buy from them.
Good point, but I wonder if they wouldn't have licensed them a bit past the expected sales window just in case. The reports say that it was done abruptly, so I have to imagine some other factor is in play here.
I've heard some reports that it was easy to hack and add your own games to it via the USB port which is considered a data port on that machine, in which case would likely cause problems. I think that's likely reason enough for them to stop selling them sooner to avoid lawsuits.
Curiously though, apparently the Famicom Mini is only being discontinued temporarily and going back on the market at some point.
http://kotaku.com/nintendo-also-discontinues-the-mini-famicom-for-japan-1794319624
Rumours:
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2017-04-19-sources-nintendo-to-launch-snes-mini-this-year
Nintendo will follow up its smash hit NES microconsole with a mini version of the SNES, sources close to the company have confirmed to Eurogamer.
The SNES mini (or, to continue Nintendo's official branding, likely the Nintendo Classic Mini: Super Nintendo Entertainment System) is currently scheduled to launch in time for Christmas this year. Development of the device is already under way, our sources have indicated.
Nintendo's plans for SNES mini are also a major reason why last year's NES mini did not see a reprieve from discontinuation, Eurogamer understands, despite the latter's continued popularity and sell-out status.
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2017-04-19-sources-nintendo-to-launch-snes-mini-this-year
a SNES mini (or in my case, more likely an imported Super Famicom mini) I would consider getting - especially if the packaging is on par with the fantastic NES mini SKUs
our household didn't have a need for a NES mini because we still have a real-ass NES that runs like a charm
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