The NPD Group released its data for January yesterday, and while we looked at the top ten selling games, we have a tendency to forget about the consoles. While we did mention that console sales were down year-over-year, there's one tidbit of information in the hardware department that likely has some people scratching their heads. While the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One took home first and second place for January, respectively, third place belonged to none other than the NES Classic.
That's right, the NES Classic was the third best selling piece of gaming hardware last month. It even outsold the Wii U, which recently saw its production come to an end. While the Wii U is still sitting on store shelves, some people may be confused at how the NES Classic did so much better when it never seems to be in stock. The numbers don't lie, and the throwback system was apparently in stock for enough consumers to be able to sell so well.
The Wii U has been struggling for some time now. Being beaten out by 8-bit gaming shows that there's clearly a demand for more throwback systems, so there's hope we'll see Nintendo come out with a similar product for the SNES at some point. The reaction from the retro gaming community about the recent setback the SNES preservation project suffered only strengthens the case for Nintendo to consider making some of the classics like Super Mario RPG, EarthBound, and Chrono Trigger available on store shelves once more.
Seriously. Never seen an NES classic in a brick.
I would prefer it if Nitendo focussed more on unifying their storefront and aggressively got licences sorted and pushed retro games on their eStore. You shouldn't have to buy a NES classic twice just so you can play it on your 3DS and on you Wii U. With the back catalogue at Nintendo's disposal they're dropping a ball here. Nintendo would probably benefit from a move to a similar x86-64 platform that Sony and Microsoft now use and stick to that since it'd be cheaper to access the more mainstream equipment.
the end consumer (us at home) are still the losers in this scenario...waiting for these because we refuse to pay the high price the middle-man keeps trying to force on us...
So this news is to be expected as a result.
Not interested in one of these myself. The Ambassador Program games on the 3DS are enough for me.
This whole thing is a farce and honestly I probably won't be getting one now.