Over the past two years, Nintendo has released the NES Classic and the SNES Classic, two miniature plug-and-play consoles that feature some of the best and most memorable games from each platform’s respective history. The devices have been a huge success overall and have prompted other companies, like Sony, to even create their own iterations centered around the same idea.

So this year, many expected that Nintendo would once again continue this trend and would logically end up releasing the Nintendo 64 Classic, another new mini-device that this time featured the games from the N64 era. However, this never came to pass. Despite not being announced in 2018 though, Nintendo of America’s Reggie Fils-Aime says that the idea of an N64 Classic isn’t something he is against.

In a recent interview with Kotaku, Fils-Aime explained a bit more about how the Classic series of consoles was created in the first place. Fils-Aime said that these devices were created to help bridge Nintendo from the Wii U era to that of the Switch.

His full statement said the following:

“We were clear when we did the first two Classic series that, for us, these were limited time opportunities that were a way for us as a business to bridge from the conclusion of Wii U as a hardware system to the launch of Nintendo Switch. That was the very strategic reason we launched the NES Classic system.

So while consumers may have been anticipating something, we view these as limited time opportunities. We’ve also now been very clear that as the consumer looks forward to engaging with our classic content that is going to happen more and more with the subscription service.”

Because of this, Nintendo doesn’t necessarily need to continue making these Classic consoles since they are now fully entrenched in the Switch’s life cycle. They seem to be more focused on selling units of their current console rather than new items on the market. Despite this, however, Fils-Aime says he still isn’t against the idea of the N64 Classic. “I would not ever rule something out,” he told Kotaku, “but what I can tell you is certainly that’s not in our planning horizon.”

It certainly seems like only a matter of time until the N64 Classic hits store shelves, but I can understand why Nintendo would wait to release the product. Rather than continuing to launch a new mini-console every single year, it likely makes more sense for Nintendo to hold off until they are in need of more capital.

Even if Reggie says there aren’t any plans on the horizon for an N64 Classic, that could change on a dime. We’ll see how Nintendo continues with this trend moving forward over the next year.

Posted: Nov 16, 2018 7:05 pm
Related Forum: Gaming Discussion

Source: https://www.dualshockers.com/n64-classic-reggie-fils-aime/