Will a re-release of the NES ever happen?

[P-Man]

So I've been thinking, wouldn't it be cool if Nintendo re-releases the NES? There's been a surge of interest in classic games, but that's been limited to versions availabe on modern consoles. Why not re-release the orginal system? I'm sure Nintendo could use modern technology to make a cheap system capable of playing the orginal NES cartridges. All they'd have to do is fix some of the crappy design elements that led to the damn things not working after a couple years but make sure to model the casing and controller after the original NES design so it still has the vintage feel.

Thank about it. They could make it some kind of limited 25th or 30th or whatever anniversary occasion, bundle it with some of their classic games and I know I'd want one.

I know Nintendo would rather use classic games to sell modern consoles, but the fact that you can buy a bootleg NES on ebay or go to wal-mart and buy one of those plug and play systems modeled after the orginal ataris and intellivisions tells me that there are other people out there who want to play classic games the same way we did way back when.

[The Fury]

i doubt it, whatever they release would probably still be more expensive then ebay probably.

unless they work out a way to cash in on the reselling of their stuff, that is.

[cactusmaac]

It wouldn't necessarily be cheaper. Limited demand would mean each production run would cost a lot of money in unit terms. It makes more sense to just use emulation to allow gamers to play the old games.

[Sanagi]

I don't see any reason for Nintendo to do that. There wouldn't be much of a market for it. Used games from earlier than the Playstation are getting to be hard to find. And those who really want to play NES games still have the old ones, or have switched to emulation.

I do think it would be cool if they made one of those plug-and-play joystick games using a NES Advantage design. But with the Wii offering downloads of old games, it seems pretty pointless.

[Lester C.]

They do what they keep on doing and that's bring older games of their portable systems, which is a good thing for all you kids that missed the eighties and nineties. It’s also a good thing for old farts like myself that remember owning the first Final Fantasy and Dragon Warrior as a kid.

[Jmacq1]

Yeah, I don't think the investment required to retool factories would be worth it to Nintendo. Beyond that, I doubt that the video-game makers are likely to retool their own production facilities to remanufacture games that are four generations out of date, so the only games that would be getting re-released would be "official" Nintendo-owned and manufactured games.

Nintendo took the best option with Wii. They can buy the rights to a wide variety of games and make them available for download. It's cheaper all-around, and it's a major selling point for their new system.

So no...I doubt we'll ever seen a NES re-release with the Wii's emulation capabilities already being out there. Even an "Atari-Flashback" style machine would be a waste of money now.

[GremlinClr]

I don't know how sturdy it is but someone made a knockoff (http://gear.ign.com/articles/677/677770p1.html) last year. Plays both NES and Famicom carts and supports wireless controllers.

If you just want to play your old games that might be the way to go.

[Serik]

The only re-release of the NES we'll see is over the Virtual Console. Even so, I don't think the youngsters will find NES games that great. I occasionally play mine for the nostalgia factor, but in retrospect a lot of the NES games just sucked. Hell, there are websites out there that allow you to play NES games in your web browser.

I think gamers are more interested in re-releases of PS1 classics like FFVIII, FFIX, Star Ocean, etc. that are hard to come by. Does anyone know if the PS3 has a virtual-console type system?

[Headhunter]

I can see it as a shell (i.e. Wii in an NES casing), but not an actual 8-bit classic reissue.