Plug-and-play SNES Classic coming Sept. 29 for $80 with two controllers

Unreleased Star Fox 2 among the 21 16-bit classics included.

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Though Nintendo has taken the NES Classic Edition off store shelves, it will soon be wiling to sell you this follow-up.

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The European edition includes a more familiar form factor and controller colors for that side of the Atlantic

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Head on, you can see how the system is narrower than the controllers that play it.

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Is this an SNES Classic Edition in a normal-sized hand, or a normal SNES in a giant-sized hand?

Following on the recently discontinued NES Classic Edition, Nintendo has officially announced a long-rumored Super Nintendo Entertainment System Classic Edition follow-up will be available on September 29 in a $80 package that includes two wired controllers.

The highlight of the package is the first official release of Star Fox 2, which Nintendo's announcement notes "was created during the Super NES era but never released … anywhere!" While an emulatable, leaked prototype version of Star Fox 2 has been floating around online for years, Creator Dylan Cuthbert confirmed in 2015 that development on a completely finished version of the game was completed just before the project was cancelled, reportedly to avoid competition with the coming Nintendo 64. The SNES Classic will be the first chance gamers have to try this full version of the title.

Unlike the NES Classic, which sold $10 controllers on top of the $60 base package, the SNES Classic comes packaged with two controllers. Even so, only five of the included titles include true simultaneous multiplayer gameplay, with a handful of others allowing for two players to alternate play. The Classic Controller and Classic Controller Pro designed for the Wii and Wii U will also work on the SNES Classic Edition, much like its predecessor.

Of the 21 included titles, a full 14 were published by Nintendo itself. Three games from Capcom, two from Konami, and two from Square Enix round out the package.

No details about a Japanese "Super Famicom Classic Edition" have yet been announced, but the European version of the console will feature the same games with a slightly different casing and controller design to match the region's version of the original console, as seen in the gallery above.

The plug-and-play, HDMI-enabled system will include the following games:

• Contra III: The Alien Wars*
• Donkey Kong Country**
• EarthBound
• Final Fantasy III
• F-ZERO
• Kirby Super Star*
• Kirby’s Dream Course**
• The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past
• Mega Man X
• Secret of Mana*
• Star Fox
• Star Fox 2 (previously unreleased!)
• Street Fighter II Turbo: Hyper Fighting*
• Super Castlevania IV
• Super Ghouls ’n Ghosts
• Super Mario Kart*
• Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars
• Super Mario World**
• Super Metroid
• Super Punch-Out!!
• Yoshi’s Island

(All games are single player unless noted with a * for simulataneous two-player games or a ** for alternating two-player games)

The NES Classic Edition became an instant sellout hit when it launched last November, going on to sell 1.5 million units in the 2016 calendar year and 2.3 million units total before being unceremoniously discontinued in April. Ina recent interview with Ars Technica, Nintendo Senior Director of Corporate Communications Charlie Scibetta allowed that the company "could have done a better job communicating that was gonna be a limited run. It was supposed to be for that holiday. We extended it actually because demand was so much, then we stopped producing it."

In the wake of retail shortages, after-market prices for the NES Classic Edition on eBay shot up 200 percent over MSRP. Today, eBay prices for the plug-and-play system tend to range from $150 to $300, depending on condition and the presence of a box.

No word from Nintendo yet on how long it plans to produce the SNES Classic Edition, or in what quantities.

Teardowns found that the NES Classic Edition ran on a 1.2 Ghz quad-core ARM Cortex-A7 CPU that was more than up to the challenge of emulating decades old console games. While no tech specs have been announced for the SNES Classic Edition, we can only assume the innards will be similar this time around.
When the SNES Classic Edition won't have any official way to load additional games past the 21 built in to the system itself, hackers were eventually able to jailbreak the NES Classic Edition to run everything from Linux to sideloaded NES games to MAME and other classic console emulation.




ArsTechnica