The wildly popular NES Classic has been in and out of stock–and at some crazy high prices sometimes–since its Holiday 2016 release. Now it’s getting ready to stop production all together, which makes no sense at all.
This news first came from NeoGAF user Roarer, who works at a large Nordic retailer. His post says:
“We just got word from Nintendo (or rather, their Nordic distributor Bergsala) that the NES Classic Mini has reached its end of life and will be phased out. According to them production has ended and we will be receiving a few more shipments before everything dries up.
By our estimates, we (as a single retailer) might not be able to fulfill all orders that have been placed so far. Our last shipment should arrive in April or May, and after that there won’t be any more shipments.
I have heard from other retailers that they’ve received the same information. Some of them are emailing customers to tell them that their order might be cancelled.”
A Norwegian retailer confirmed the news on their Facebook page. Roughly translated, Spillsjappa said, “NES Classic has expired from [production] at Nordic Nintendo importer Bergsala.” They go on to apologize and say they’ll be contacting customers about their orders.
Some retailers are even are emailing customers informing them that their order might be canceled.
Of course, this news hasn’t been confirmed, since we haven’t heard from Nintendo directly. Nintendo recently told investors they’d be increasing production of the NES Classic, so why would they do a 180 and stop now?
If true, it could be only Nordic countries affected. Roarer pointed out, “Bergsala, the general distributor for the Nordic countries… said nothing about the worldwide situation.”
Then again, why would Nintendo pull the NES Classic from the Nordic region only?
If this news is true, and the NES Classic won’t be available past Summer 2017, the big question is, “Why in the hell, Nintendo?”
One of the only reasons I can think of would be the Switch’s Virtual Console.
Right now, you can get access to 30 NES games for $60 MSRP with the NES Classic. That’s $2 a game.
If Nintendo brings NES games to the Switch VC, there’s little chance they’ll price them at a mere $2 to match the Classic. So maybe they’re eliminating the Classic to avoid the argument with consumers?
If Nintendo isn’t bringing NES games to VC–or just doesn’t care if consumers are mad about the price increase–maybe they’re cracking down on NES Classic hackers by taking it out of their hands.
Various hacks/ mods for the Classic have surfaced, allowing players to double their NES Classic library and access SNES and Sega Genesis games. Definitely not what Nintendo intended for this console, but how could they be surprised? Hacks and mods are a reality on most consoles at this point.
However, a lot of people are getting a lot of games for free with these hacks. It’s unfair, and I can see Nintendo putting their foot down about it. Perhaps this is the only way…
Or maybe this is all misinformation, and I’m speculating Nintendo’s intentions for no reason.
Do you think the NES Classic is actually going away? If so, why in the world? Let us know in the comments!
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I think they are pulling 'em because they realized that they have been using the the ROM version of the game. Considering the header of the file on the console is iNES, which was developed by Marat Fayzullin and not Nintendo, they were allegedly selling us a product that was a crack of their original cartridges.