Earlier this week, Nintendo officially announced the microconsole we all saw coming from a bajillion miles away. The Super NES Classic will sell on September 29, 2017, for $79.99. It'll include 21 games, and the lineup is stellar.
Part of that package? Two controllers. The cords on those controllers will be longer than the stupidly short ones on the NES Classic. We'll also see the release of Star Fox 2, a game that's never seen the light of day.
The console, according to Nintendo, will "ship from Sept. 29 until the end of calendar year 2017."
Take a break from refreshing your Amazon listing for the SNES Classic and read that again.
Nintendo currently only has plans (or announced plans) to ship the Super Nintendo Classic from September 29, 2017, until December 31, 2017.
What a joke.
Nintendo has said that there will be way more SNES Classics produced than there were NES Classics, but I hardly think they'll be able to keep up with demand. Those systems will be snapped up by scalpers way faster than Nintendo will be able to manage, believe me.
I'm willing to bet that you won't be able to walk into a Target at any point in 2017 and walk out with an SNES Classic in your hands. Unless you wait in line starting at some obscene hour, I just don't see it happening.
Nintendo's main manufacturing job right now is the Nintendo Switch, and they still haven't been able to meet the demand for the console. You can't get it from any Targets, Walmarts, Best Buys or online retailers without either refreshing like a crazy person or paying third-party prices.
The Nintendo Switch is a $300 console that's currently selling for $400 and more on sites like eBay, and we're multiple months removed from its launch. The $60 NES Classic? That was discontinued while it was still selling like crazy, and if you want one from eBay today, you'll need to pay around $200 or more.
I assume Nintendo is keeping this thing limited to generate artificial scarcity and to make sure stock is cleared for whenever they announce the Nintendo Switch's answer for the Virtual Console. Those two lines of logic make sense to me from a purely business standpoint.
But, as a consumer? This is so stupid.
It's so stupid that I won't be able to easily hand Nintendo money for their product. I'll have to jump through hoops just to get this thing.
I'm staunchly against piracy when a legitimate means of playing old games is available. If the Super NES Classic is as hard to come by as the NES Classic, I might be one of those guys yelling about how we should just buy Raspberry Pis and load them up with ROMs.
That's where you've driven me, Nintendo. Hope you're happy.
