The N64 Mini is confirmed to be not confirmed

The Nintendo 64 Mini has been the victim of speculation for quite some time. I myself have written a post about how many articles have been written about which games people want on an N64 Mini about a year ago, but the conversation has been going on for quite a lot longer. Just this week Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime has confirmed that there will be no N64 Mini in the foreseeable future.

We were clear when we did the first two Classic series that, for us, these were limited time opportunities that were a way for us as a business to bridge from the conclusion of Wii U as a hardware system to the launch of Nintendo Switch. That was the very strategic reason we launched the NES Classic system.

So while consumers may have been anticipating something, we view these as limited time opportunities. We’ve also now been very clear that as the consumer looks forward to engaging with our classic content that is going to happen more and more with the subscription service.

I would not ever rule something out, but what I can tell you is certainly that’s not in our planning horizon.

The reason stated is that the NES Classic Mini (released October 2016) was meant to have Nintendo hardware to buy for the Christmas season, since the Nintendo Switch (May 2017) hit the market several months later. The SNES Classic Mini came out later due to the success of its predecessor, and also likely problems with the logistics of bringing more NES Minis to market.

I suppose it does make business sense, they want to get Switches into as many homes as possible, and having to compete with a N64 Classic Mini under the Christmas tree might be unwise. I suppose we might wait till they start phasing the Switch out before we expect to see it come to fruition. Not only that, but they want to make sure that people buy classic games on the WiiWare-like service on the Switch, the Nintendo Switch Online store.

If there’s one thing I can guarantee though, it’s that people will continue making the same articles about which games they want on the Nintendo 64 Classic Mini. >.>