Nintendo has earned a reputation for rehashing its classic titles in an attempt to extract the maximum revenue from its back catalogue.
It’s not an entirely unfair comment: the Game Boy Advance was launched with an enhanced remake of Super Mario Bros. 2, and by the end of the handheld’s life, all the classic Mario titles had appeared in one form or another. The Classic NES series, also for the GBA, presented pixel-perfect emulations of Nintendo’s best 8-bit games to a new audience.
It’s hard to blame Nintendo for milking its old games for all they’re worth. The games are absolute classics — immensely playable even two decades later — and it’s not a bad idea to introduce them to new games players. Retro-gaming is a massive business these days – can you blame Nintendo for cashing in? Is 500 Wii points really too high a price to play for games on the Wii Virtual Console?
That said, check out this upcoming release for the Wii: Super Mario All-Stars 25th Anniversary Edition.
It’s a straightforward emulation of the old SNES game. It comes with a commemorative booklet and soundtrack CD, but the game itself is unaltered from the original 1993 release.
So Nintendo are expecting us to part with money for an unchanged 2010 port of a 17-year-old remake of games originally released between 1985 and 1990?
Oh, who am I kidding? I’m still going to buy it.