Great to see more of these mini consoles, still waiting for an online-enabled option so you can buy more games through PSN/eShop. Not that I’d use it, but it seems like a no brainer.
Your response comes off as a little flippant and sort of shit post-y. Does your uncle work for Nintendo? 
I still anticipate this happening at some point (as well as potentially a “Gameboy Classic” iteration) as the eShop doesn’t seem to be a thing, at least right now.
I imagine it would be powered by modified 2DS-hardware.
The cost of the N64 controllers would cause a big spike. Getting N64 to look as good as 2D sprites is going to be a challenge. How do you capture the look of the N64 without it being too foggy? Mario 64 was really bright so that would be the showcase but many of those games haven’t aged well.
I am sure a GB/GBA type device is way more likely to come out before the N64.
Sorry, that wasn’t my intention. I just think the N64 controller would be too expensive to accurately reproduce, and Nintendo won’t bother with it.
1 Like
I’m not aware of totally accurate N64 emulation, especially not on ARM hardware. Which is why I don’t think it’ll happen.
I do think an ultimate Game Boy (GB,GBC,GBA) will happen.
do you think they will do GB & GBC together then do GBA or do you think there will be a gba with gb/gbc games?
The later.
If only because GBA graphics are an easier sell.
I was hoping for a back lit dot matrix that we could Frankenstein into our Gameboys.
I wonder how long before someone decides to start making actual cart based systems.
I agree with the sentiment that an N64 Classic Mini would be harder to execute at a good price, with the same level of quality as the older systems.
The selling point of the previous systems - to play old games in HD - would do the N64 titles a disservice given their relatively low poly-counts and low-res textures.
Those look great when viewed through the lens of scanlines and lower resolutions, but their primitive (by today’s standards) underpinnings all get exposed in HD.
Then there’s the issue of accuracy, where N64 emulation tends to render the visuals using modern rendering techniques, so things just look wrong (e.g. the three-point texture filtering was lost on Wii VC), though to be fair Nintendo was content doing the same thing with N64 emulation on GC, Wii and Wii U. N64 emulation on Wii U was particularly awful, with large stick deadzones and noticeable input lag so hopefully that doesn’t set a low bar if they do do an N64 classic.
The games lineup would also cause licensing headaches when you consider a few of the high profile games, but it’d be interesting to see what they did. The N64 sold almost as much as SNES did in North America, but underperformed elsewhere. This gave Nintendo of America a lot of independence and the third party lineup on the system was almost like a precursor to the Xbox in many ways.
Back to the PSone Classic: I do find it disappointing that Sony has allowed retailers to open pre-orders before the games lineup has become a known quantity. I’d like to get one after knowing the complete list of 20 across different regions.
1 Like
This is why I’ve not been interested in any Classic consoles so far. NES, SNES, Genesis, Neo-Geo, and PS1 emulation are all solved problems for anything I’d ever want to play, so there’s no incentive (aside from nice aesthetics) for getting expensive, limited, and low-power Classic consoles.
I want to see companies push emulation and preservation forward with consoles that haven’t already been emulated well for years by open-source projects. Give us a PS2/Xbox Classic (with LAN and a link to your pre-existing online ecosystem), or a N64/Saturn classic with full compatibility, or donate to projects like MAME that actually care about preserving arcade games that the industry obviously doesn’t with the sales of the quick and dirty arcade ports you see all the time. Something besides just a retooling of existing options in a nice package.
I think the licensing is less of an issue that many think. Especially with American companies like Microsoft, I think Nintendo could get access to the Rare properties that everyone cares about for pretty reasonable rates, though I don’t think they want to pay much if anything for things like that. Other than that, I’m not sure what rights they couldn’t secure for something like this if they could publish the third-party games on the NES and SNES. I think Nintendo is just wary (perhaps rightfully so) about investing in things like the Classic consoles or other things that they view as tertiary to their main consoles and games. Nintendo has been playing it very safe since the Wii U bombed, and the way they have handled Classic consoles are a clear sign of that.
Opening pre orders before the games are revealed isn’t really any different then them showing a trailer with zero in game footage and a shitty cover of a classic rock song with a huge " PREORDER TODAY" at the end
1 Like
I guess I’m fine with the preorder thing as long as it’s not some super limited item. Don’t know why that makes it better to me, but it does. Something about using the “scarcity” of the item to drive people to buy it without even knowing what it is.
I’m definitely on the fence until I see the games lineup, but I suspect I will not buy one. I have all the classics already in either disc form or via the PS3/PSP. I have some stuff that’s worth hundreds (Tron Bonne) that I thought I might play because I was lucky to find them cheap along the way when PSX was still everywhere. Whatever’s in this box will be a lot of duplication or it will be things I probably wouldn’t buy, or is available cheap enough right now like Wild Arms.
All that said, I know this will sell really well. It will also likely be hacked and people will be happy to put more ROMs onto it and use it like they do the SNES Classic and the NES Classic today. It will become an easy method of playing PSX games on an HDTV for a lot of folks, even with just the out of the box games.
The release date is notable… right around Smash Ultimate. Definitely think there is strategic interest and importance for Sony on placing it around that time.
I probably own all these games digital and physical yet I still want one of these because I’m a sucker.
Came here to say I preordered mine.
I’m a sucker. I’ll probably play it as much as I did my NES and SNES classic which was about 3 minutes.
Here’s something. I went and played though like half the games on the SNES classic even though I have better ways to play all of them. Why? I don’t even know.
1 Like
Pretty neat but it’s a pass for me, same as the other mini consoles. There’s nothing there for me I don’t already have and can easily play. But it will be very enticing for others so good job on Sony’s part.
As for N64, visuals in HD would not be a problem. This is where Nintendo would need to stop messing around and invest a little time and effort into a good CRT shader… or copy the work of existing ones. From the libretro forums (RGB shadowmask looks perfect to me):
This image is from a years-old thread and the shaders now look even better.
2 Likes
I can attest to the quality of CRT filters in Retroarch. CRT_Royale was superb when I was emulating on a flat panel a couple of years ago and the new analog shader packs has raised the bar even higher.
Ooh I like the shadowmask on the n64. Maybe I should connect my N64 to my JVC 17" PVM. I don’t like the look of it on my ossc or 20L5. Makes me wonder if the ossc could do a shadowmask scanline filter. I have no idea how it currently produces scan lines.