Be ready to sit very close to the miniature re-release.

Aside from a hands-off display at New York Comic-Con, we haven't seen or heard much about the upcoming, mini-sized NES Classic Edition since its first announcement in July. Now, new information is coming from Nintendo itself and from journalists at a recent hands-on preview event. They bring both good and bad news for retro Nintendo fans.
On the good side, the NES Mini apparently does have a few graphical options to play with. A recently updated promotional page now highlights three different visual modes: "pixel perfect" (i.e. square pixels), 4:3 (i.e. cathode ray tube ratio), and "CRT filter" (i.e. simulated scan lines on your HDTV). Nintendo also notes that you can create four "Suspend Points" for each of the 30 games on the system. You can lock any of those points so they don't accidentally get saved over.

Hands-on reports from journalists also confirm what we first surmised from an earlier NES Classic Edition trailer: that the emulated graphics and colors on the NES Classic Edition's 30 built-in games are much more faithful to the original games than Nintendo's previous Virtual Console releases. Wired's Chris Kohler notes that "the whites are sparkling white, and everything pops in bright color" on the new HDMI-powered system.
Now for the bad news: that authentic-looking NES controller that comes with the system apparently has a very short cord. Bob Mackey at USGamer estimates the cord is only three feet long (though Nintendo wouldn't give a precise length), and Kohler confirms in his impressions that it's "fairly short." For context, the cord on the controllers that came with the original NES is about eight feet long.

Eagle-eyed Nintendo watchers have suspected this for a while, but the confirmation now is pretty depressing. Those who want a longer cord can spring for a compatible Wii Classic Controller or Classic Controller Pro, but that means sacrificing that classic NES controller look and feel. There doesn't seem to be a wireless control option either, so you'd better have a long HDMI cord or be ready to sit very close to the TV to enjoy your new NES.

Then again, it's possible that the controller cord length is by design. As Kohler notes in his impressions, the authentic replica controllers don't include any sort of "home" button, meaning you have to get up and tap reset on the console to switch games. So being forced to be about three feet from the console at all times could be seen as convenient, I guess...

If you're looking for other annoyances, the NES Classic Edition games don't look like they include the same on-screen instructions as emulated Virtual Console titles. Instead, you have to scan a QR code to load old scans of NES instruction booklets on your phone. Welcome to the future.

None of these nitpicks are going to prevent the NES Classic Edition from selling roughly three gazillion $60 units when it launches on November 11. The device will end up in the Christmas stocking of every single nostalgic thirty-something in the gaming world. Still... would a wireless controller option have been so hard to provide?