Nintendo discontinued the adorable NES Classic Edition so it could make the SNES Classic Edition it plans to sell you later this year, according to Eurogamer. The site spoke with anonymous sources "close to the company" who said Nintendo is working on a miniature version of its beloved Super Nintendo Entertainment System to launch in time for the holidays.
Why not do both at once? Well, there's only room for so much manufacturing and distribution in Nintendo's budget, and a lot of that is already going toward Nintendo Switch.
There's no word on what games the teensy SNES might include. Super Mario World pretty much has to be there, but the rest of the lineup is an open book. SNES still has one of the best game libraries of all time, with classics from Nintendo, Square, Capcom, Konami, Rare, and pretty much everybody who wasn't owned by Sega at the time.
NES Classic Edition came with 30 games, through the unofficial process for dropping in extra ROMs is surprisingly straightforward. Will the SNES version have a similar library? Will it officially support adding games, maybe via online downloads or tiny lil' cartridges? Or would that add too much cost and - perhaps worse - detract from Nintendo Switch's upcoming Virtual Console capabilities?
Assuming Eurogamer's sources are right, we'll probably still have to wait a few months to find out more official details. NES Classic Edition was announced in July 2016 before it hit shelves in November. Hopefully Nintendo can keep its successor in stock, if and when it does arrive.
For more retro fun, read about the best (and worst) games on the NES Classic Edition, and 30 games we wish were on the NES Classic Edition.
Top picture based on an image by Evan Amos, CC BY-SA 3.0
