With almost a month to go until its release, marketing for Nintendo’s red-hot Super NES Classic Edition has ramped up with a new trailer and the promised pre-orders. The trailer released last night highlights the features of the new micro-console, including ones that set the Super NES Classic apart from last year’s NES counterpart.
To those lucky few who got their hands on the NES Classic Edition last year, much of the presentation here is virtually the same. This goes down to the same QR Code-based instruction manuals, idle demos of gameplay on the menus, and visual options (4:3, Pixel Perfect, CRT filter). The included controller itself is longer in cord-length, however, up to 5 feet from the original 3 feet.
Like the NES Classic, this new system has up to four save points for every game (and like before, created with the hit of the console’s physical Reset button). This time, there’s a new Rewind feature within the save point, allowing you to rewind or fast-forward to exacting spots least you make a critical mistake.
Also new to the Super NES Classic are special borders that surrounds the game screen. Options include wooden borders, color-matching frames that mirror colors on-screen, and plain old black if you want.
Following this announcement trailer, Nintendo confirmed pre-orders would go live through various retailers in the United States. The unfolding roll-out was less than stellar for many, mirroring the well-known difficulty of snatching the NES Classic last year.
Pre-orders from Amazon and Best Buy snuck in late last night with no warning. Today saw pre-orders go live for GameStop, Target, and Walmart (again). The common thread is that all these pre-orders are now sold out, in large part due to bots. Toys ‘R Us will not be offering any pre-orders, instead requiring customers to line up on September 29th when the system releases.
The Super NES Classic Edition includes 21 games from the 16-bit console and two controllers for $79.99 USD, including the official release of the unreleased Star Fox 2. If you didn’t already pre-order a system today, good luck to you. Nintendo has promised that more quantities of the Super NES Classic will be available through the end of the calendar year, although things are looking grim so far.
