Nintendo Classic Mini announced

[TDIRunner]

Thanks but not going to find one. Would they maybe consider sell the floor display model? 2 near me have displays.

 

Wait. Some stores actually had displays? Wow. How embarrassing must that have been to have an in-store display and never any stock underneath it?

[godslabrat]

 

Exactly.. for most of us here the NES classic is not about getting and playing the games.. come on man.

 

Nope. I know there's a bunch of ways I can do that. I want the classic because it's simple, cheap, and reliable. The classic is a $20 wristwatch, and the RPi is a potato clock. The latter is fun, but not what i'm looking for.

[+GoldLeader]

To everyone who got one, yay!

 

For eveyone else: reminder: this is better, anyway

https://howchoo.com/g/n2qyzdk5zdm/build-your-own-raspberry-pi-retro-gaming-rig

 

Better is such a subjective term,

 

Many of you Atari Agers make the mistake of thinking everyone is as smart as you. I like to think I'm not a complete dummy, or maybe I should wise up haha...

 

I plug in my Nintendo Mini and it works!

 

I know they're supposed to be easy, but If I'd plugged in a Raspberry pi, I'd probably be one more of those people in the comments section complaining it doesn't work. It probably works if you know what you are doing...

 

If I bought one and had Flojomojo and Keatah come over to install it (Free Beer!), Then it would probably work like a champ...Hell it'd be easy as Pi (Errrrrrggg!) ...

 

But I bet things don't always go so smoothly...

[Flojomojo]

I'd do that for beer.

 

Yeah, "better" is different for box collectors. I forget that I'm not necessarily in the mainstream as someone who likes to play games, and doesn't care much about the wrapper.

[+GoldLeader]

I Like the games and the wrapper!

[NE146]

I'd do that for beer.

 

Yeah, "better" is different for box collectors. I forget that I'm not necessarily in the mainstream as someone who likes to play games, and doesn't care much about the wrapper.

 

We all like to play games here.. but I think it's more how many in this group ("classic game enthusiasts") hasn't played any NES game they care about multiple times ad-nauseum over the past 3 decades. I mean if I finished Zelda 2 as an example, on real NES back in the day 3 or 5 times, I certainly finished it way more than that in the following decades in some for or other: emulation, flashcarts, gba re-release, etc. I'm not that excited about getting it anymore.. although I certainly love the game itself. But yes at this point, the box overshadows it!

 

But not because I don't love a game like Zelda 2, or I "don't like to play" games, because that is far far from the truth. I played it to death!

[Andromeda Stardust]

Looks like Best Buy will be restocking these for tomorrow so anyone wanting one better go get in line now.

I got an email yesterday and queued up outside early this morning. I arrived at 6:30 (open at 9) and was number 5 of 13 customers. Haven't hooked it up yet but I unboxed and held the controller and console unit in my hand and they were very nice. I can't wait to playtest it.

 

I also bought an extension cable and a spare controller. The 3rd party joypad (Insignia brand) I bought is junk. Dpad presses all the way down in the middle pressing all four directions, and both the Dpad and buttons make a crunchy noise when pressed, which tells me the membranes underneath are absolute garbage.

[+GoldLeader]

 

We all like to play games here.. but I think it's more how many in this group ("classic game enthusiasts") hasn't played any NES game they care about multiple times ad-nauseum over the past 3 decades. I mean if I finished Zelda 2 as an example, on real NES back in the day 3 or 5 times, I certainly finished it way more than that in the following decades in some for or other: emulation, flashcarts, gba re-release, etc. I'm not that excited about getting it anymore.. although I certainly love the game itself. But yes at this point, the box overshadows it!

 

But not because I don't love a game like Zelda 2, or I "don't like to play" games, because that is far far from the truth. I played it to death!

 

Sometimes a good song makes it to radio, where it gets played to death. Seems kind of like that. To extend the metaphor just a bit, I always wished the radio would play more than just the "hits"; The old joke being you buy the album and find out you only ever liked the hit song anyway...

 

At least (With the mix of games) there's bound to be some songs on here you haven't heard...

[+GoldLeader]

^Actually my above comment, in case it's not self-evident, was aimed more at the Mini's so called casual "target audience" who had a real NES BITD, and not so much ROM Collectors who could have played every game...

[Greg2600]

The couple local BB's near me had none. I had no intention of going, but few ppl I know tried.

[wolfy62]

I am 54 and have been playing and collecting video games since the debut of Pong.

 

Nintendo could easily have sold 5 million of these,reached out to there customers and made everyone very happy.

 

How and why they messed this up so badly,I will NEVER understand.

 

Very sad for me to watch this happen, I will most likely never own one.

[0078265317]

Well as somebody else mentioned if a super mini is coming they have hopefully learned their lesson and will make more this time.

[thadsilverfox]

WalMart got a few in tonight and I just missed snagging one by 20 minutes.

[Kismet]

 

Better is such a subjective term,

 

Many of you Atari Agers make the mistake of thinking everyone is as smart as you. I like to think I'm not a complete dummy, or maybe I should wise up haha...

 

I plug in my Nintendo Mini and it works!

 

I know they're supposed to be easy, but If I'd plugged in a Raspberry pi, I'd probably be one more of those people in the comments section complaining it doesn't work. It probably works if you know what you are doing...

 

If I bought one and had Flojomojo and Keatah come over to install it (Free Beer!), Then it would probably work like a champ...Hell it'd be easy as Pi (Errrrrrggg!) ...

 

But I bet things don't always go so smoothly...

 

Most the rubbish people load onto the RPi doesn't even work, because the pirates didn't dump the roms themselves, they don't know how to dump a rom. This is the problem with software emulators. Sure most of the stuff may work, but we're no farther ahead than we were with a NOAC clone and a flash cart.

 

If all you want to do is play some nostalgic game from 25-30 years ago, fine, knock yourself out. But I wish people would stop hawking game pirated games on eBay. They are fooling none.

[Schizophretard]

 

Most the rubbish people load onto the RPi doesn't even work, because the pirates didn't dump the roms themselves, they don't know how to dump a rom. This is the problem with software emulators. Sure most of the stuff may work, but we're no farther ahead than we were with a NOAC clone and a flash cart.

 

If all you want to do is play some nostalgic game from 25-30 years ago, fine, knock yourself out. But I wish people would stop hawking game pirated games on eBay. They are fooling none.

 

[Kismet]

 

 

This is misdirection. If a third party is developing a NES emulator, they're not doing what Kevtris is doing and probing all the chips with a oscilloscope, they are reading what developer information they were provided with and not going to the internet for it. For all we know the NES emulator in the Virtual console is Marat Fayzullin 's work, yes the guy who wrote ines, as he's also one of the few people who license their emulators for commercial use.

[Andromeda Stardust]

 

The old joke being you buy the album and find out you only ever liked the hit song anyway...

 

A lot of one hit wonders had albums like that. I've been collecting vinyl as of late, and many of the truly "legendary" artists, or at least those with real talent, the filler "B" material is just as good as the "A" hit singles.

 

For instance, I picked up ACDC's "Rock or Bust" in 2014. Shorter than previous albums, but every single song was awesome. Ditto for ZZ-Top's "La Futura" in 2012. Only a true rock legend could take an old hip-hop classic and spin it into hard classic rock. That takes talent. And the rest of the stuff on the album, including the Best Buy exclusive CD tracks were just as solid.

 

That's part of the allure of spinning old vinyl, finding the "B" stuff you've never heard before but can't get enough of. But pop artists, new and retro, that primarily catered to teens? No such thing as a "B" track on those, just "Cs", "Ds", and "Fs"...

 

 

I'm sure they've been asked that a jillion times. It's one of the most annoying things you can ask a retail worker. But hey, no harm in asking all the same.

Hey, it never hurts to ask. Once as a teen, I went to a store with a gift card just after New Years, inquiring about a stereo system, and they were sold out of the model I wanted, and would not be receiving any more stock due to it being "last year's model," so the associate asked the department manager, who in turn sold me the floor model (as is, no box or paperwork) with a 40% discount. They were probably going to bin it anyway so that was one more sale...

 

Too bad with mega corporations and their sophisticated inventory systems, that never works anymore. Everything needs a UPC in the system or you can't ring it up, no exceptions. Mom and pop stores still give deals sometimes though...

[Keatah]

I know they're supposed to be easy, but If I'd plugged in a Raspberry pi, I'd probably be one more of those people in the comments section complaining it doesn't work. It probably works if you know what you are doing...

 

If I bought one and had Flojomojo and Keatah come over to install it (Free Beer!), Then it would probably work like a champ...Hell it'd be easy as Pi (Errrrrrggg!) ...

 

But I bet things don't always go so smoothly...

 

Give me some vodka and that R-Pi is gonna begging for mercy. During setup and upgrading, emulators on all platforms are subject to kinks and issues. And long-time experience is good for spotting those hiccups and laying them to rest with great dispatch..

 

Having said that, my preferred platform is x86. If only for all the support and management utilities.

[Andromeda Stardust]

and the RPi is a potato clock.

Good analogy. It's a lot of trouble setting up the Pi I might add.

 

I had one of those potato clocks as a kid. After about a month, the potato got moldy and my mom threw it away. But it was still keeping time before she tossed it, and I wanted to see how long my "battery" would last, moldy or not.

 

I always wonder if they call the bomb squad if you took a potato clock on a plane!

[Schizophretard]

This is misdirection. If a third party is developing a NES emulator, they're not doing what Kevtris is doing and probing all the chips with a oscilloscope, they are reading what developer information they were provided with and not going to the internet for it. For all we know the NES emulator in the Virtual console is Marat Fayzullin 's work, yes the guy who wrote ines, as he's also one of the few people who license their emulators for commercial use.

 

I was using the video as a response to your point that the problem with software emulators not working is from those who commit copyright infringement not dumping their own ROM's with evidence that Nintendo's Virtual Console works because of dumped ROM's they downloaded from those who committed copyright infringement. It had nothing to do with what you just said. I was just making the point that the issues with software emulation isn't bad dumps and from people not knowing how to dump their own ROM's because good dumps exist from those who do know how to dump their own ROM's. They are so good that Nintendo even uses them.

 

Nintendo European Research & Development wasn't probing all the chips with an oscilloscope like Kevtris either for creating the emulator for the NES Classic Edition. So, I'm not sure what that point has to do with NES emulation on the Raspberry Pi vs. it on the NES Classic Edition.

 

Edit: Also, what Kevtris is doing works with ROM's dumped on the internet by copyright infringers. Kevtris himself is a copyright infringer.

[Kismet]

 

I was using the video as a response to your point that the problem with software emulators not working is from those who commit copyright infringement not dumping their own ROM's with evidence that Nintendo's Virtual Console works because of dumped ROM's they downloaded from those who committed copyright infringement. It had nothing to do with what you just said. I was just making the point that the issues with software emulation isn't bad dumps and from people not knowing how to dump their own ROM's because good dumps exist from those who do know how to dump their own ROM's. They are so good that Nintendo even uses them.

 

Nintendo European Research & Development wasn't probing all the chips with an oscilloscope like Kevtris either for creating the emulator for the NES Classic Edition. So, I'm not sure what that point has to do with NES emulation on the Raspberry Pi vs. it on the NES Classic Edition.

 

Edit: Also, what Kevtris is doing works with ROM's dumped on the internet by copyright infringers. Kevtris himself is a copyright infringer.

 

There is no proof that Nintendo did, or needed to download a ROM of a game they own. The existence of the ines header is just as easily explained by Nintendo or some third party licencing an emulator that already worked with ines roms, and thus the ROM provided by Nintendo would be a bit for bit match.

 

To flip the story on this, the SNES roms of FF4/5/6 and Chrono Trigger appeared on the PSX versions of the games, and the GBA versions appeared on the Mobile/PC ports of the FF6 game. Those aren't emulators. Those are using the rom as a database.

 

There are things you can do from a legal standpoint to reverse engineer hardware, such as the NES. There are also things you can not do, such as look at stolen developer manuals and websites derived from stolen content.

 

The only safe way to reverse engineer something is having one person take it apart, and describe how it works, and have someone else take that description and build something that works to that description. You do not get away with it by simply copying everything.

 

Even if it were true that Nintendo for some reason used a ROM dump that produced an ines header, that does not prove it was obtained from the internet, or by any unauthorized means since Nintendo clearly authorized someone to produce an emulator that can play the game.

 

People advocating for, or selling the RPi, know that the person has to commit gross copyright infringement to even use the thing. Be that hardware BIOS's or acquiring the games themselves. The Sony vs Connectix case pretty much established that there is no infringement in producing an emulator, but that did not open the door to redistributing the roms.

 

So everyone playing with the jailbroken Analog Mini knows what they are getting into, and that's just fine. That is not a mass produced toy that opportunistic pirates are going to load with 1000 roms and sell on eBay. The RPi is. So is the NES Classic Mini.

Edited April 25, 2017 by Kismet

[HoshiChiri]

 

Too bad with mega corporations and their sophisticated inventory systems, that never works anymore. Everything needs a UPC in the system or you can't ring it up, no exceptions. Mom and pop stores still give deals sometimes though...

 

Ask anyway, it still varies. Store A I work actually has a generic item key in the POS, so we can use that to attach a price to anything in the store. Provided you're OK with not being able to return it- it's technically possible, but unless you manage to get the same employee to do the return, they can't verify what you bought to do the transaction.

 

Store B has no such function, you need a UPC to put into the machine. However, a lot of the displays are merchandise that was pulled to make the display- meaning the packaging & UPCs got stored nearby for the purpose of selling the display if necessary. The only exceptions are if those boxes go missing (hit-or-miss if we can find the codes elsewhere), or if it was sent to us specifically as a display (we won't sell it, and it probably doesn't actually work.)

[Schizophretard]

There is no proof that Nintendo did, or needed to download a ROM of a game they own. The existence of the ines header is just as easily explained by Nintendo or some third party licencing an emulator that already worked with ines roms, and thus the ROM provided by Nintendo would be a bit for bit match....

 

Even if it were true that Nintendo for some reason used a ROM dump that produced an ines header, that does not prove it was obtained from the internet, or by any unauthorized means since Nintendo clearly authorized someone to produce an emulator that can play the game.

I think you are missing the point. The point isn't rather or not Nintendo downloaded the Super Mario Bros. ROM from the Internet. The point is that them dumping the ROM themselves or downloading it from the Internet results in the same bit for bit identical ROM and they are using the same header to get it to run in an emulator. This was your claim:

 

Most the rubbish people load onto the RPi doesn't even work, because the pirates didn't dump the roms themselves, they don't know how to dump a rom. This is the problem with software emulators.

That is a claim that most of what people load on the Raspberry Pi doesn't work, the reason it doesn't work is because they didn't dump the ROM's themselves because they don't know how, and this is the problem with software emulation. I take that to mean that if they did dump their own ROM's most of what people would load on the Raspberry Pi would work because they would get better results than could be achieved from downloading the ROM's off the Internet. This clearly isn't the case because there are people that know how to dump ROM's, know how to check if they are good dumps, and distribute them on the Internet with the same quality that Nintendo does because they are bit for bit identical matches.

[Great Hierophant]

Official Super Mario Bros. cartridges have two ROM chips, regardless of region sold.

There are no NTSC variants or revisions of the game. There is only one proper dump that will contain all the code inside those ROM chips. Either you download a proper ROM or you don't.

I have actually dumped my cartridge of Super Mario Bros. with TapeDump and obtained a proper ROM dump. No custom or expensive hardware was necessary.

Because there are two ROMs inside most NES cartridges, the resulting ROM dump will have the second ROM appended to the end of the first. After that it is just necessary to apply a 16-byte header to the beginning of the file to tell emulators how the game is supposed to work. The system has worked for over twenty years and with NES 2.0 headers, it should last for many more. There were attempts to reinvent the wheel, but none have caught on.

[Kismet]

I think you are missing the point. The point isn't rather or not Nintendo downloaded the Super Mario Bros. ROM from the Internet. The point is that them dumping the ROM themselves or downloading it from the Internet results in the same bit for bit identical ROM and they are using the same header to get it to run in an emulator. This was your claim:

 

That is a claim that most of what people load on the Raspberry Pi doesn't work, the reason it doesn't work is because they didn't dump the ROM's themselves because they don't know how, and this is the problem with software emulation. I take that to mean that if they did dump their own ROM's most of what people would load on the Raspberry Pi would work because they would get better results than could be achieved from downloading the ROM's off the Internet. This clearly isn't the case because there are people that know how to dump ROM's, know how to check if they are good dumps, and distribute them on the Internet with the same quality that Nintendo does because they are bit for bit identical matches.

 

Let me restate what I was talking about because I'm not sure you understand the implications.

 

People selling the NES Mini Classic loaded 1000 roms, did not dump the roms themselves, the stole them off the internet, and are trying to dupe people into buying these broken consoles off eBay that they themselves did not have the means of verifying. They are simply a bunch of opportunistic pirates looking to make a quick buck off people who don't know better, like parents buying a toy for their kids and not knowing the difference between similar looking products. Counterfeiters rely on this brand confusion.

 

The Raspberry Pi is even worse, because people just download roms off the internet, package them up in plastic chasis that look like the NES Classic and then try to sell them on eBay as something legitimate, when none of these games have been tested, and the emulation quality is somewhere between rubbish and broken. People who legitimately acquired the games, and actually have the games, have the means of verifying that the games work as intended. Pirates do not.

 

Nintendo has the means of verifying that the games work as intended on their 30-games NES Classic Mini because they have access to the game roms without needing to find them on the internet.

 

As byuu could tell you, in his project to verify every SNES cartridge out there, there are many bad dumps out there, and the bad dumps can be as little as bit-flip errors. These are not things a pirate selling a loaded console is going to catch, nor things that someone playing the pirated game is going to notice until it is too late. But pirates are just inflating the number of games they are loading on pirate systems so they can command high values for the systems that are not authorized to sell.

 

Nobody that knows how software emulators actually work is going to buy these lawsuit traps.