Welcome to the era of nostalgia! Kids born in the late 70s to the mid-80s are now reliving their childhood with the help of Nintendo. Now you too can earn mythical internet points for spending money on a console and taking a picture with said console, when you can download NES ROMs and an emulator for free.
I’m not the gatekeeper to fun. If this dude wants to spend his money on a NES Classic to re-live some old games, more power to him (Nintendo power?). However, there feels like there’s a sheen of pretentiousness to the Nintendo Classic. No one gave a fuck about old NES games for the last 10-15 years, except vintage gaming enthusiasts. There have always been NES consoles available to the public. So what’s up with the hype?
Well, I’ve got a theory.
We are in full swing into a nostalgia era. Think about it, we’ve been bombarded by nostalgia in the movie theaters in the last 5-10 years. Pixels, Jurassic World, Star Wars: A New Hope II: The Franchise Awakens, The Karate Kid, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Total Recall, RoboCop, X-Men First Class (sort of), Star Trek, Star Trek II: Into Fartness, etc. It was only a matter of time before video game manufacturers got an idea in their head to reap the benefits of people’s nostalgia. I hear SEGA also released a “classic” version, but it’s been reported that their re-release wasn’t really well thought through (no HDMI output, etc).
I can’t wait for this era to be over. It’s so fucking boring. Thank goodness I’ve got my video games. If you need me I’ll be playing Call of Duty 16: Space Ghost Recon Warriors and Battlefield 10: 1776.