Nobody here at GAMBIT has a NES Classic Edition because of how difficult they were to find. The little console sold out about as fast as it hit store shelves. I’m not all that bummed as I have all the games included for the original NES, but I was still ready to give Nintendo my money. For whatever reason Nintendo just didn’t want it.
Speaking with Time magazine, Nintendo of America head Reggie Fils-Aime noted that the NES Classic sold a whopping 2.3 million units over its very short run. He went on to state that “We just didn’t anticipate how incredible the response would be. Once we saw that response, we added shipments and extended the product for as long as we could to meet more of that consumer demand.”
He went on to apologize to those people who wanted to help Nintendo be successful by throwing money at them. Maybe not in those words exactly, but you get the idea. These little devices don’t cost a lot, or are that complicated to put together, so I have my own thoughts on the matter.
When the NES Classic Edition launched I stated that I felt it was a stop-gap device to keep Nintendo relevant during the holiday season. With the unit selling millions they had to cut it off lest it take away from the attention of the upcoming Switch.
To date the Switch has sold an impressive 2.74 million units which isn’t that much more that that of the NES Classic Edition. Reggie Fils-Aime also stated that “We’ve [Nintendo’s] got a lot going on right now and we don’t have unlimited resources,” but that seems like a really easy way out.
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