Nintendo Classic Mini announced

[Keatah]

They do this with either a "nearest neighbor" approach, which preserves and magnifies the MS Paint / Lego look, or with a filter such as along the lines of bicubic or bilinear, which looks even worse, because it creates a headache-inducing Gaussian blur effect (like so), which is ugly as homemade shoes.

 

Yeh, I don't know why some emulators even bother with that crap filtering. It's lazy, it's lame, it's cheap. And you see in the ugliness it makes.

 

The end result is a subtractive look, regardless of what the math or programmer says.

Edited November 3, 2016 by Keatah

[MaximRecoil]

Give me the bottom picture any day.

 

So you prefer your graphics to look less like they're intended to look like, rather than more? For example, in the CRT image, it actually looks like there are shadows on his torso, in the pattern of human musculature, which is obviously what the graphics designer was going for. Have you even seen shadows fall on a human torso in the shape of perfect squares arranged on a grid?

 

What about Pac-Man? On an original arcade machine, the Pac-Man sprite and other things look ~round. Send the same ROM to a high-resolution monitor, and it looks like this:

 

 

Obviously the game designer was going for round.

 

By the way, the CRT looks a lot better in person than in an open-air photograph of the screen (which is the only way to capture it), taken with a cheap camera, no less, whereas the LCD examples look exactly how they look in person, because they are raw pixel dumps and you are viewing them on a high-resolution monitor, the same as playing the game on a high-resolution monitor in real life. You can't capture the brightness and vibrancy of a CRT by taking a picture of it (and taking a picture results in inherent losses in other areas as well), no more than you can capture the real-life brightness and vibrancy of a light bulb by taking a picture of it. Even with all of the losses with the CRT picture, it still looks better than MS Paint graphics.

Edited November 3, 2016 by MaximRecoil

[Andromeda Stardust]

MR, just go out and buy an HDMI to Composite converter if you want the CRT look so bad. Geeze...

[MaximRecoil]

MR, just go out and buy an HDMI to Composite converter if you want the CRT look so bad. Geeze...

 

So you didn't read my posts before replying to me? In my original post (#1150) I said:

 

 

3. An official HDMI-to-A/V adapter would be made available, and it would produce the same picture quality as the composite output on an original USA front-loader NES. I highly doubt that any aftermarket HDMI-to-A/V adapter would give you the same picture quality as an original NES, which is the best I've ever seen on any console. It blows the composite picture quality of an original Sega Genesis out of the water, for example. On a good quality CRT TV in good condition, "glorious" actually is a fitting term here. It is practically on par with component/RGB, which is an amazing achievement for lowly composite video.

 

In another post (#1170) I said:

 

 

 

There are already aftermarket options for an HDMI-to-A/V adapter, but I suspect they suck compared to the picture quality of the original NES's, or even the SNES's, composite video output.

 

Plus there is the possible issue of pillarboxing being encoded into the video signal, which ruins it for use on a 4:3 TV, unless you have an elaborate (and expensive) composite adapter which gives you horizontal width control over the video signal.

 

The best thing for me would actually be an adapter which generates a ~240p component (YPbPr) signal. Not only is component higher quality than composite, but unlike composite, there's nothing to really go wrong in the implementation of it. In other words, the quality of a composite signal can widely vary depending on how the circuits are designed (and the quality of your TV's comb filter comes into play as well), whereas a component signal is a component signal. RGB is the ultimate form of component signal, but the only 15 kHz RGB monitors I have are 19" CRT arcade monitors. I'd prefer a YPbPr signal going to my 32" 15 kHz CRT TV.

 

I think it's funny that anyone would naysay the idea of wanting to play old video games on the type of display that they were originally designed for. It is also funny how much more common this type of naysaying has become in the past ~decade, which is illustrative of how malleable people are in general.

 

But I don't want this thing anyway, even if it had 15 kHz analog output, because it doesn't have any means for using game cartridges.

Edited November 3, 2016 by MaximRecoil

[NE146]

Seriously?

uhh yeah.. It's been a long time but that's how much it was for the NES at retail wasn't it? I still have mine. I also still have my original Famiclone (bought before the NES days) but it's at my mom's house.

 

Anyway.. regarding the Mini, count me as a believer of the best NES experience being a real console, with an Everdrive in it, connected via composite to an old TV. And while I think that's true, that in no way dampens my enthusiasm for the mini. I'm all onboard for one as well. Because:

 

[Atariboy]

I don't think there's any way that pillarboxing won't be part of the video signal. I don't think that there's such a thing as a non 16:9 1080p signal or whatever this will be outputting. The NES Mini itself will have to incorporate the pillarboxing to allow for a proper 4:3 aspect ratio on today's widescreen televisions, unlike SD anamorphic widescreen where the pillarboxing happens at the tv end and isn't part of the video signal being sent to it.

 

I think the only hope for those that want to play this on a SD CRT via a converter that takes the widescreen HD signal and fills a 4:3 SD picture with it, will be if there's a stretch mode available that eliminates the pillarboxing. But I think they've shown off the various option screens and don't remember seeing such an option.

 

 

Incidentally, finished units are getting into people's hands now such as reviewers, Here's how the controller cord compares with an original controller. Sadly, what was shown off earlier has ended up indicative of the final product.

 

Nintendo seems to have forgotten that while a Classic Controller, this is primarily intended for being used with the NES Mini rather than being tethered to a wireless Wiimote. Won't bother me any since I'll be hooking this up to a monitor and playing it at a desk, but not a particularly great match for anyone wanting to use it in their living room.

 

Better get a long HDMI and USB cable if that's what you want to do, so you can set the system itself on a coffee table or something while playing.

Edited November 3, 2016 by Atariboy

[MaximRecoil]

I don't think there's any way that pillarboxing won't be part of the video signal. I don't think that there's such a thing as a non 16:9 1080p signal or whatever this will be outputting. The NES Mini itself will have to incorporate the pillarboxing to allow for a proper 4:3 aspect ratio on today's widescreen televisions, unlike SD anamorphic widescreen where the pillarboxing happens at the tv end and isn't part of the video signal being sent to it.

 

I think the only hope for those that want to play this on a SD CRT via a converter that takes the widescreen HD signal and fills a 4:3 SD picture with it, will be if there's a stretch mode available that eliminates the pillarboxing. But I think they've shown off the various option screens and don't remember seeing such an option.

 

Incidentally, finished units are getting into people's hands now such as reviewers, Here's how the controller cord compares with an original controller. Sadly, what was shown off earlier has ended up indicative of the final product.

 

Nintendo seems to have forgotten that while a Classic Controller, this is primarily intended for being used with the NES Mini rather than being tethered to a wireless Wiimote. Won't bother me any since I'll be hooking this up to a monitor and playing it on a desk, but not a particularly great match for anyone wanting to use it in their living room.

 

Better get a long HDMI and USB cable if that's what you want to do, so you can set this on a coffee table or something while playing.

 

I would like to see one of those new controllers disassembled. I might buy one just to have a look; $10 isn't much of a gamble. If they use the same rubber switches as the original NES controllers, they would be a good source for repair parts for the original controllers. Those rubber switches are typically the only things which go bad in the originals, i.e., after a lot of use, they start to split/tear in the areas where they are constantly being flexed. Also, I suspect their circuit board could be rewired/hacked to function as a standard NES controller, or a 7800 controller (you'd obviously need a different cord in either case).

 

HDMI can support any aspect ratio, as can the backwards compatible DVI. There were plenty of 4:3 and 5:4 DVI and HDMI PC monitors made. Just look at the available desktop resolutions on any PC with an HDMI video card; you'll see plenty of 4:3 and 5:4 options. If only 16:9 resolutions were possible, you wouldn't even be able to enter safe mode on Windows (640 x 480 [4:3]) with an HDMI connection, nor would the default VGA driver be able to work when you install a new video card but haven't installed the proper drivers yet.

 

You're thinking of specific categories of video signals, such as the signal from a Blu-Ray disc or an HDTV broadcast, which will always be 16:9, and will include letterboxing or pillarboxing in the signal to pad it out to 16:9 if necessary. That has nothing to do with the capabilities of HDMI. You could hook a 1280 x 1024 PC up to a 16:9 TV via HDMI and it would display fine, and depending on your TV settings, it would either distort the image to 16:9 or leave it alone, and the areas on the side that don't fill the screen are left blank, naturally resulting in pillarboxing. Also, there are Blu-ray/DVD combination players which have HDMI, and NTSC DVDs are strictly 720 x 480 (1.5:1, or 1.36:1 when the standard 10:11 PAR is applied, or 1.33:1 with the PAR and overscan taken into account, or 16:9 when flagged with a 1.2:1 "anamorphic widescreen" PAR).

Edited November 3, 2016 by MaximRecoil

[MaximRecoil]

 

Same goes for the people I've heard say they can't use dual analog sticks... but yet they like Robotron 2084 arcade... isn't that a coincidence?

 

I take it you've never actually played Robotron 2084 in the arcade, nor any other arcade game which uses a digital joystick. Using a digital joystick mounted in the control panel of a ~300 lb. arcade machine is nothing like using tiny analog thumb sticks. For one thing, digital joysticks are nothing like analog joysticks, and for another thing, you have far more control over a large panel-mounted joystick than a thumb stick. You can grip the panel-mounted joystick with your whole hand, and rest your wrist on the control panel (or other methods which are equally stable and conducive to dexterous control). With a thumb stick, not only do you have to do far more than just slam the lever in one of 8 directions until it stops (with analog there are infinite directions and graduations), but you also have far less control with only your thumb perched atop a wobbly stick.

 

I've tried Robotron and Smash TV in MAME with analog sticks (Playstation controller), and it sucks. I'd much rather have a controller with a pair of D-pads for those games, which is the next best thing to panel-mounted arcade joysticks. Quite a few years ago I bought a pair of Virtual Boy controllers, which do have dual D-pads, intending to adapt them for use with MAME, but I don't know if I'll ever get around to doing that or not. In addition to Robotron and Smash TV, they would also be good for Karate Champ, which is the first game I ever got good at in the arcade.

[Atariboy]

HDMI can support any aspect ratio, as can the backwards compatible DVI. There were plenty of 4:3 and 5:4 DVI and HDMI PC monitors made.

 

I know, but this will all but certainly output at 1280x720 or 1920x1080. The pillarboxing will be baked-in since that's standard for 4:3 content portrayed at its original aspect ratio via these two HD resolutions.

 

It won't be outputting a 960x720 HD signal or a 1440x1080 HD signal, with widescreen HDTV's proceeding to pillarbox the picture it receives. It will arrive to the tv already pillarboxed and therein rests the problem if someone wanted to downconvert this for a 4:3 SD CRT.

Edited November 3, 2016 by Atariboy

[godslabrat]

 

So you prefer your graphics to look less like they're intended to look like, rather than more? For example, in the CRT image, it actually looks like there are shadows on his torso, in the pattern of human musculature, which is obviously what the graphics designer was going for. Have you even seen shadows fall on a human torso in the shape of perfect squares arranged on a grid?

 

What about Pac-Man? On an original arcade machine, the Pac-Man sprite and other things look ~round. Send the same ROM to a high-resolution monitor, and it looks like this:

 

 

Obviously the game designer was going for round.

 

By the way, the CRT looks a lot better in person than in an open-air photograph of the screen (which is the only way to capture it), taken with a cheap camera, no less, whereas the LCD examples look exactly how they look in person, because they are raw pixel dumps and you are viewing them on a high-resolution monitor, the same as playing the game on a high-resolution monitor in real life. You can't capture the brightness and vibrancy of a CRT by taking a picture of it (and taking a picture results in inherent losses in other areas as well), no more than you can capture the real-life brightness and vibrancy of a light bulb by taking a picture of it. Even with all of the losses with the CRT picture, it still looks better than MS Paint graphics.

Sorry, I've found myself quagmired in enough arguments over CRTs. I feel no particular desire to go down that road again. It's all been said.

[MaximRecoil]

 

I know, but this will all but certainly output at 720p or 1080p with a standard widescreen signal. The pillarboxing will be baked-in.

 

Why do you think that's all but certain? Past video game systems, including those from Nintendo, often didn't comply with the old NTSC broadcasting standard. The original NES output is a far cry from a standard NTSC signal, for example. There's no need for a video game system to comply with a broadcasting standard; they only need to make sure the signal is compatible with the display device. The 16:9 menu will no doubt be a standard 720p or 1080p signal, but there's no need to do anything at all to the gameplay signal other than upscale it to 720 or 1080 vertical, and not worry about the horizontal resolution because pillarboxing takes care of itself.

 

The only way to know for sure is to try it through an A/V adapter on a 4:3 TV and see what happens, or talk to a Nintendo engineer. If the pillarboxing is burned into the signal, you'll end up with gutterboxing (AKA: windowboxing) on a 4:3 TV.

[Atariboy]

If for nothing else then, so you don't momentarily lose picture whenever the system changes from a full 720p or 1080p signal to a 4:3 HD signal when you're actually in a game.

 

Many scaling chips won't instantly make that change when the resolution changes mid-stream and Nintendo isn't going to want people's picture to be blacking out momentarily whenever they do something like bring up a menu.

 

What does Nintendo gain by handling 4:3 NES games here differently than they would on the Wii U Virtual Console, how 4:3 television shows on Blu-Ray, how Academy ratio Hollywood classics are handled on Blu-Ray, the recent release of two Atari compilations on the XB1/PS4 with a variety of 4:3 and 3:4 classics, etc? They all have one thing in common and that's that the pillarboxing is baked into the video output being sent to the display.

 

Perhaps that's not the case here, but I sure bet it is.

Edited November 3, 2016 by Atariboy

[carlsson]

Bad design or not, it still looks like demand >> supply when it comes to launch of this device. I suppose a much more expensive product with other options would have remedied that, if Nintendo's target was to sell as few units as possible only to the true die-hard fans, rather than selling as many units as possible to everyone and their dog who like to enjoy video gaming memories from the past.

 

Some people even go as far as calling this device a portal to retro gaming for an entire new set of people, who might then move onto obtaining an original NES or other systems. Thus expect prices on retro games rise even further in the near future, when Nintendo has succeeded opening the eyes on sleeping, future collectors.

Edited November 3, 2016 by carlsson

[NinjaWarrior]

Why are alot of YouTubers with like a Mil Subs getting the NES Classic Mini early

[Keatah]

I even foresee a time when the halo effect will make my Apple II collection rise even more in price!

Because old!

Because retro!

[Keatah]

Why are alot of YouTubers with like a Mil Subs getting the NES Classic Mini early

 

Why not? They're strong, powerful, popular, and good looking! Woot! Woot!

[NinjaWarrior]

I will do and un-boxing with it when I get it next friday

[Andromeda Stardust]

uhh yeah.. It's been a long time but that's how much it was for the NES at retail wasn't it? I still have mine. I also still have my original Famiclone (bought before the NES days) but it's at my mom's house.

 

Anyway.. regarding the Mini, count me as a believer of the best NES experience being a real console, with an Everdrive in it, connected via composite to an old TV. And while I think that's true, that in no way dampens my enthusiasm for the mini. I'm all onboard for one as well. Because:

 

Okay I thought you meant you bought a used NES (just the loose console and possibly a power brick and RF switch or AV cable) for $200, not NIB back in the day. My NES Action Set CIB still has a Kmart sticker on it for $109.99, which is likely what the original owner paid for it.

[Andromeda Stardust]

I don't think there's any way that pillarboxing won't be part of the video signal. I don't think that there's such a thing as a non 16:9 1080p signal or whatever this will be outputting. The NES Mini itself will have to incorporate the pillarboxing to allow for a proper 4:3 aspect ratio on today's widescreen televisions, unlike SD anamorphic widescreen where the pillarboxing happens at the tv end and isn't part of the video signal being sent to it.

 

I think the only hope for those that want to play this on a SD CRT via a converter that takes the widescreen HD signal and fills a 4:3 SD picture with it, will be if there's a stretch mode available that eliminates the pillarboxing. But I think they've shown off the various option screens and don't remember seeing such an option.

 

 

Incidentally, finished units are getting into people's hands now such as reviewers, Here's how the controller cord compares with an original controller. Sadly, what was shown off earlier has ended up indicative of the final product.

 

Nintendo seems to have forgotten that while a Classic Controller, this is primarily intended for being used with the NES Mini rather than being tethered to a wireless Wiimote. Won't bother me any since I'll be hooking this up to a monitor and playing it at a desk, but not a particularly great match for anyone wanting to use it in their living room.

 

Better get a long HDMI and USB cable if that's what you want to do, so you can set the system itself on a coffee table or something while playing.

Honestly it's no worse than the Dog Bones that came with the AV Famicom or the stock Turbografx controller. I have a Super Famicom SNES controller with a cable that's a bit less than half the length of my SNES (purple buttons) controller.

[Andromeda Stardust]

 

I would like to see one of those new controllers disassembled. I might buy one just to have a look; $10 isn't much of a gamble. If they use the same rubber switches as the original NES controllers, they would be a good source for repair parts for the original controllers. Those rubber switches are typically the only things which go bad in the originals, i.e., after a lot of use, they start to split/tear in the areas where they are constantly being flexed. Also, I suspect their circuit board could be rewired/hacked to function as a standard NES controller, or a 7800 controller (you'd obviously need a different cord in either case).

 

HDMI can support any aspect ratio, as can the backwards compatible DVI. There were plenty of 4:3 and 5:4 DVI and HDMI PC monitors made. Just look at the available desktop resolutions on any PC with an HDMI video card; you'll see plenty of 4:3 and 5:4 options. If only 16:9 resolutions were possible, you wouldn't even be able to enter safe mode on Windows (640 x 480 [4:3]) with an HDMI connection, nor would the default VGA driver be able to work when you install a new video card but haven't installed the proper drivers yet.

 

You're thinking of specific categories of video signals, such as the signal from a Blu-Ray disc or an HDTV broadcast, which will always be 16:9, and will include letterboxing or pillarboxing in the signal to pad it out to 16:9 if necessary. That has nothing to do with the capabilities of HDMI. You could hook a 1280 x 1024 PC up to a 16:9 TV via HDMI and it would display fine, and depending on your TV settings, it would either distort the image to 16:9 or leave it alone, and the areas on the side that don't fill the screen are left blank, naturally resulting in pillarboxing. Also, there are Blu-ray/DVD combination players which have HDMI, and NTSC DVDs are strictly 720 x 480 (1.5:1, or 1.36:1 when the standard 10:11 PAR is applied, or 1.33:1 with the PAR and overscan taken into account, or 16:9 when flagged with a 1.2:1 "anamorphic widescreen" PAR).

 

 

 

I know, but this will all but certainly output at 1280x720 or 1920x1080. The pillarboxing will be baked-in since that's standard for 4:3 content portrayed at its original aspect ratio via these two HD resolutions.

 

It won't be outputting a 960x720 HD signal or a 1440x1080 HD signal, with widescreen HDTV's proceeding to pillarbox the picture it receives. It will arrive to the tv already pillarboxed and therein rests the problem if someone wanted to downconvert this for a 4:3 SD CRT.

 

If the NES Mini has a stretch to full option like the 5:3 pixel aspect setting on the AVS, squished picture would be a non-issue with HDMI-Composite converters.

 

EDIT: Triple post. Whoops!

[carlsson]

I think it would be more renewing to do a boxing video, i.e. attach a rope to the box, hang it to the ceiling and give it a good beating until the box gives up. Then see if the content has survived or not.

[NinjaWarrior]

 

Why not? They're strong, powerful, popular, and good looking! Woot! Woot!

 

Do they get to keep it

[RevEng]

The IGN unboxing video...

 

[Andromeda Stardust]

The IGN unboxing video...

 

Judging by the thumbnail alone, this post belongs in the Banana thread....

[exo]

Must be street date at the super-cool youtube ranch. So all of the unboxing videos are coming out, but what are the odds of us regular old consumers being able to unbox our own NES Classic Minis at MSRP price next week? Seems like scalpers are going to take advantage of this.