During the Wii U era, Nintendo released the NES and SNES Classic Editions. Miniatured replicas of their older consoles with a built-in collection of games, these were meant as a convenient way to replay the best of the NES and SNES libraries in a more modern form.
They were a pretty good deal at the time, and with Star Fox 2 finally getting an official release via the latter, even a way to try out games that Nintendo had never emulated or revisited since their original launch.
But have you ever wondered why Nintendo released them? Or why a Nintendo 64 Classic Edition never came to be?
Well, as ex Nintendo of America CEO Reggie Fils-Aimé revealed in an NYU Game Centre lecture, poor finances that’s what. Here’s the original lecture from that series:
As well as his actual quote on the matter:
The other thing we did is, in two successive years, we launched those micro legacy devices. If you remember those, right? The small NES and then the following year the small SNES. We did that to sustain our business because we needed something to sell at volume come the holiday season. So it was a series of commercial ideas, knowing full well that… you know, the Wii U was on life support.
Yeah, it makes sense to us. The Wii U was a complete disaster sales wise, and the 3DS wasn’t exactly in its prime when these systems launched in 2016 and 2017. They wanted a way to tide over consumers and keep selling hardware until the Nintendo Switch took off.
And it worked. These systems were a major success financially speaking, and kept a lot of interest on the company in an era where Mario Tennis: Ultra Smash and Paper Mario: Color Splash were the nearest thing to big home console releases. Nintendo needed some hits for the holiday season, and these mini consoles filled that gap.
Plus, Switch Online now plays the same role for them too. Instead of releasing mini Nintendo 64s and GameCubes to bring back games, they’re putting them on the Nintendo Classics service instead. Why make a whole new mini console when you can just stick ’em on Switch Online and let existing subs try them out?
Of course, this wasn’t exactly the first time we got a glimpse into this logic. No, back in 2018 Reggie said about as much in an interview with Kotaku as well, with his response to a question about a possible Nintendo 64 Classic being followed up with the usual ‘Nintendo has no plans for that’ spiel:
I would not ever rule something out, but what I can tell you is certainly that’s not in our planning horizon.
So, the two systems were just intended to be stopgaps all along.
But that does make us wonder. If the Switch hadn’t been that big of a success, how would Nintendo have followed this up?
Because as much as everyone likes talking about a Nintendo 64 Classic or GameCube Classic, it’s hard to deny that those consoles don’t exactly have the same level of appeal as their predecessors or successors did. With the Nintendo 64 and GameCube only selling 32.9 million and 22 million consoles respectively, you have to wonder how many people would have actually bought a collection like this.
Makes us wonder if Nintendo wouldn’t have tried some portable collections instead. Like a Game Boy Classic with the Super Mario Land, Wario Land and handheld Zelda games available to play on TVs or on the go. Or a Game Boy Advance collection with the return of things like the Minish Cap or Golden Sun.
Regardless, that’s what the NES and SNES Classic were released. So, what are your thoughts? Are you surprised that these were meant to act as stopgap releases? What would Nintendo have actually done had the Switch not been a big hit?
Tell us your thoughts in the comments below, or on our Discord server today.
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