Could We See a Game Boy or N64 Classic Edition? Nintendo Is Assessing Demand
Nintendo recently held its 77th annual general meeting of shareholders, which means that a lot of important men in fancy suits who invest in Nintendo's success were given the opportunity to ask a handful of Nintendo executives about how Nintendo plans to succeed this financial year and for years to come. These Q&A sessions usually yield up some really interesting answers that, sometimes, give us a glimpse into Nintendo's future and what it's working on. There's one question and answer in particular that gives us great hope for more devices like the NES and SNES Classic Edition. Could we see classic editions of the Game Boy Advance or even something like the N64 eventually? Listen carefully to this question and answer. Read between the lines:
Question: "Several Game Boy Advance titles have been released on Virtual Console for Nintendo 3DS already, but have you thought about making them available through retail?"
Answer from Satoshi Yamato: "We have been thinking about a lot of different ways to make use of Virtual Console titles, and not just Game Boy Advance titles. Similar to these software titles we have made available on a variety of platforms over the Internet, we consider the Nintendo Classic Mini: Super Famicom (to be sold as Super Nintendo Entertainment System: Super NES Classic Edition in the U.S.), scheduled to be launched in Japan this October (and September overseas) to be a type of Virtual Console.
"It would be possible to sell these titles as packaged software or via download cards, but if we were to start selling products like this in the future, I think we would first have to consider whether we can establish that kind of business model, and do our due diligence in finding out if there is sufficient demand for it."
It's easy to gloss over this as a typical PR-style non-answer from Nintendo, but there are some key phrases here that caught our eye. We just read that Nintendo is thinking about how to package older games from all kinds consoles and handhelds, from the GBA and beyond. Nintendo sees products like the NES and SNES Classic Edition as viable means of doing this. Nintendo is currently assessing consumer demand for these types of products.
In other words, if the SNES Classic Edition turns out to be as big of a hit as the NES Classic Edition was, Nintendo could very well see physical products like this becoming a primary means of providing retro titles to the modern market. Yamato stated that Nintendo would have to "establish that kind of a business model," hinting that in the future, Nintendo could very well devote the time and resources needed to establish a division with the sole purpose of producing products like this. That would mean no more shortages, and even more Classic Edition consoles.
That's all in the future, though, and we'll have to wait and see if this pans out. In the immediate future we unfortunately only have the frenzied launch of the Super NES Classic Edition to look forward to, and we know how the last launch turned out...