Super NES Classic Edition



Super Nintendo Entertainment System: Super NES Classic Edition, known as Nintendo Classic Mini: Super Nintendo Entertainment System in Europe and Australia and the Nintendo Classic Mini: Super Famicom (ニンテンドークラシックミニ スーパーファミコン) in Japan, and also colloquially as the SNES Mini, is a dedicated video game console by Nintendo, which emulates the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. The console, a successor to the NES Classic Edition, comes with twenty-one Super NES titles pre-installed, including the first official release of Star Fox 2. It was released in North America and Europe on September 29, 2017.

Hardware
The console is distributed in three variations, featuring the unique design of the original systems released in Japan, North America, and Europe respectively. While the North American release features an appearance based on the straight-angled grey-and-purple design of the SNES, the Japan and PAL region releases are modelled after the rounded edge Super Famicom/PAL Super Nintendo design as originally released in these regions.

Internally, the console uses hardware similar to that of the NES Classic Edition. It uses an Allwinner R16 system on a chip with four ARM Cortex-A7 central processing units and an ARM Mali 400 MP2 graphics processing unit. It includes 512 MB of flash storage and 256 MB of DDR3 memory.

The system features HDMI display output and two controller ports; two wired SNES controllers are bundled with the system. The controller ports are hidden behind a faux front flap which is designed to appear like the original Super NES controller ports. Similarly to the predecessor's controllers, the Super NES Classic Edition controllers have connectors that can be inserted into the Wii Remote, and be used to play Super NES games on the Wii and Wii U Virtual Console. The Wii's Classic Controller is also compatible with the Super NES Classic Edition. While the NES Classic Edition controller is technically functional with the Super NES Classic Edition, gameplay is impossible in most games due to the missing action buttons (X, Y, L, and R).

The console uses the Linux operating system and runs a set of emulators developed by Nintendo's European Research & Development (NERD). These emulators provide the basic compatibility with the Super NES system, and for specific games, chipsets that were included on the cartridges, such as the Super FX chip used for Star Fox.

The Super NES Classic Edition ships with controllers with 5 ft cables, addressing complaints about the short 3 ft ones used for the NES Classic.

Hacking
A means to hack the SNES Classic System to allow users to install additional software onto the unit was discovered by the same user that found the hack for the NES Classic Edition. The hack has more limitations compared to the NES Classic Edition, in that not all SNES games can work due to the need to emulate the custom cartridge chipset.

Release
The Super NES Classic Edition was revealed on June 26, 2017, as the successor to the widely-popular NES Classic. Nintendo announced that the system would come with 21 Super Nintendo games, including the unreleased Star Fox 2. It was released in North America on September 29, 2017 with a price of $79.99.

Availability
With the release of the NES Classic Edition, Nintendo was strongly criticized for the system's lack of availability for the console, which reached levels of popularity that they had not been fully prepared for. With the Super NES Classic Edition, Nintendo originally said that although they were prepared to produce significantly more Super NES Classics than NES Classics, they would be halting production at the end of 2017. Due to overwhelming demand, Nintendo changed their plans, with Nintendo of America CEO Reggie Fils-Aimé confirming the continued production of the system throughout 2018 alongside announcing the return of the NES Classic in 2018, which many people were unable to get after scalpers bought masses of them and resold them for much more than their MSRP. Fils-Aimé also discouraged consumers from buying from these scalpers and said there would be plenty stock of both NES and SNES. In May 2018, Nintendo of America announced via Twitter that both consoles would be in stock throughout the second half of 2018, with the NES Classic returning to stores on June 29.

Pre-release
On July 21, 2017, the console was mistakenly made available for pre-order at Walmart in the United States due to a "technical glitch", and all pre-orders were cancelled on July 26, leading to widespread criticism among the gaming press. PC Magazine called the situation "badly handled by Walmart" and said that the future availability of the console was "not looking good". USGamer called attempting to obtain a Super NES Classic Edition a "waking nightmare" and stated the availability would likely be as low as the NES Classic, saying the situation was "because we can't have nice things". GameSpot stated that there was "frustratingly little word" from Nintendo as to when pre-orders would be made available. Nintendo gave no comment about the situation.

On August 22, 2017, pre-orders officially opened at several major retailers, causing many of their sites to crash before customers could buy the system, as well as at physical GameStop locations in limited amounts, which also sold out quickly on a first-come, first-served basis. The Target website became "glitched out", removing the items from users' carts, and pre-orders from Walmart were sold out in less than a minute. This led to Nintendo of America being criticized as "inept or underhanded", and that they contributed to a "chaotic" situation.

Polygon also confirmed that the Tai Ding internet bot was being used to quickly pre-order systems before humans could get the chance to order them, which was proving successful due to a lack of CAPTCHAs on store websites. Scalpers soon flooded eBay with pre-order listings, some at markups of over 300%.

Reggie Fils-Aimé stated in September 2017 that people should not buy SNES Classic pre-orders from scalpers, and suggested SNES Classics would be readily available. He also stated that the company was not trying to create artificial scarcity, saying that the issues with pre-orders were "outside our control". Nintendo has also stated that there would be more SNES Classics available on launch day than the entire amount of NES Classics that were shipped in 2016, and that shipments would continue into 2018 unlike originally planned due to high demand.

Post-release
Despite slightly criticizing its library of titles and issues carried over from the NES Classic, IGN's Jonathon Dornbush praised the Super NES Classic's features and enjoyability.

Sales
The SNES Mini sold 368,913 copies within its first four days on sale in Japan. By the end of October 2017, it had sold more than 2 million units worldwide. By its fiscal year 2017 report, ending March 31, 2018, the SNES Classic had sold more than 5 million units.

Games
The microconsole contains 21 built-in games. Among these include Star Fox 2, a sequel to Star Fox that had been cancelled near the very end of its development in 1996; while Nintendo had given no official word to the cancellation, developer Dylan Cuthbert said that Nintendo feared how Star Fox 2 would look compared to similar games on the more-advanced PlayStation and Sega Saturn consoles. Players can unlock Star Fox 2 on the SNES Classic upon clearing the first level of Star Fox.

Despite the fact that the hardware shells are different, both western editions of the microconsole feature identical software, and all included games are based on their American localizations running at 60 Hz, similarly to the NES Classic Edition. Consequently, games that originally had different titles in the PAL regions now use their respective American monikers, such as Contra III: The Alien Wars (originally Super Probotector: Alien Rebels), Star Fox (originally Starwing) and Kirby Super Star (originally Kirby's Fun Pak).

From the 21 included titles, 16 are common between all regions, while the five remaining ones are exclusive to either Japan or North America/PAL region respectively.