Not satisfied with breaking the hearts of Western fans by discontinuing the NES Classic, Nintendo is doing the same with the Japanese-exclusive Famicom Mini.
A tiny retread of Nintendo’s beloved Famicom console, the Famicom Mini had 30 games and two controllers with absurdly short cables. The console was extremely popular; according to Nintendo Life, the Famicom Mini sold over 262,000 consoles within a week. Even the NES Classic didn’t do that well, selling 196,000 copies within three weeks.
The official site of the Famicom Mini says (if you’ll pardon the garbled Google translation):
This product has ended production once. When resuming production, we will guide you again on our website.
Presumably this means that the console may eventually be made again. While no such promise has been made about the NES Classic (or the Famicom Mini, for that matter), it does offer a glimmer of hope for nostalgic Nintendo fans.
After all, the NES Classic was originally conceived of as a holiday stopgap to keep the company’s coffers full until the Switch release. It’s not a stretch to imagine Nintendo resurrecting both of its retro consoles when Switch sales eventually taper off.
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