Nintendo Classic Mini: Famicom announced in Japan

GamerJM said:
Wish this got a limited US release. I think it's kind of lame how Nintendo pretends like Americans would have no knowledge of the Famicom. The visual design is much better than the NES.
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What is with this American fear of importing? It's USB powered and HDMI out.

I've been importing from Japan since it needed you to send a cheque in the mail to some shady company listed in a magazine advert. The only possible way to get PC Engine stuff in the mid 90s.
 
There's no way Nintendo would release a controller that's too small to actually work. The person in the picture is holding it by the tips of their fingers too, which doesn't help.
 
Living in Japan was prob one of the best things I decided to do.

Definitely getting this and my parents are gonna ship me the NES Classic mini! :D
 
Marty Chinn said:
I thought it was only selective items despite it being more open now?
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Games, and some PSvitas for example they do ship now.

Of course it can happen that they won't ship the famicom mini..but than I would rather buy vom nin nin game or Solaris Japan than play Asia.
 
D.Lo said:
I've been importing from Japan since it needed you to send a cheque in the mail to some shady company listed in a magazine advert. The only possible way to get PC Engine stuff in the mid 90s.
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There were import shops here in Toronto to easily pick up stuff like that. My cousin had a PC Engine when it came out. Hell, my aunt bought me Rockman 2 for Christmas when I was a kid along with an adapter to play it on my NES.
 
DeathSparks said:
Oh man look at the controller

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Finally, Uncle Jack gets a win
 
Blasian Persuasion said:
Why did their NES have a different name and design than ours?
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The question is other way around. Why did Nintendo change Famicom name to sell to American?

To find out the answer, we have to go back to that 1983 American videogame crash.

Before that fateful period, Atari had dominated the gaming landscape with its 2600 console, released in September 1977. Before 1983, Atari was a great American success story, beating Ford as the fastest-growing company in US history. But a combination of factors - the saturation of the market place with poorly-made third-party, games, increased competition from rival computer firms, and a series of high-profile flops - had a deadly effect on Atari and the US games industry as a whole. In a startle reversal of fortune, Atari went from the fastest growing American company to the fastest collapsing; the company's stock price decreased by two-thirds, while the US games industry as a whole, valued at $3bn in 1982, dropped catastrophically to around $100m over the next three years.

The fallout from the crash was such that many outside the industry predicted that gaming was a craze that had run its course; "Suddenly, everyone was saying that the home computer was a fad, just another hula hoop," was how writer Dan Gutman put it in a 1987 article, The Fall And Rise Of Computer Games.

As a result, Nintendo had a difficult task ahead of it: how do you sell a brand new console in a country where its toy stores are so reluctant to even stock them? Nintendo had a clever plan: they wouldn’t market the NES as a games machine, but as a mixture of toy and entertainment centre - the kind of that could sit quite comfortably under a television in the average US living room.

Nintendo’s redesign was therefore modelled after other popular electrical items of the time, like hi-fi systems or top-loading video recorders. As Lace Barr, the designer responsible for the NES redesign once explained, "[It was] designed to look more like a sleek stereo system than an electronic toy."

Even the NES's name is designed to hide its status as a games machine; note how the word 'game' doesn't even appear in its name. The cunning use of words extended to other parts of the system; the hardware itself was described in marketing as a Control Deck, not a console, while its cartridges were dubbed Game Paks. Those cartridges were also hidden from view during play thanks to the NES' top-loading "zero force" system and hinged lid
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http://mentalfloss.com/uk/games/33602/why-nintendo-changed-the-nes-design-outside-of-japan
 
D.Lo said:
What is with this American fear of importing? It's USB powered and HDMI out.

I've been importing from Japan since it needed you to send a cheque in the mail to some shady company listed in a magazine advert. The only possible way to get PC Engine stuff in the mid 90s.
Click to expand...

I import all the time, not doing it here because the NES Mini has a better game selection. I still think it's lame that they seemingly pretend like Famicom branding didn't exist here.
 
duckroll said:
The first one is an Amazon exclusive that includes 30 postcards.



Amazon Japan has English menu options in the top right. Hover over the "JP" globe icon and select English.
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Huh it can't find my email address... does that mean I have to make a Japanese account?
 
killertofu said:
Huh it can't find my email address... does that mean I have to make a Japanese account?
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Yes, I can shop with my German amazon account in America and Europe but not Japan.

Please someone correct me if they changed it since back then but to my knowledge you need a Japanese amazon account.
 
killertofu said:
Huh it can't find my email address... does that mean I have to make a Japanese account?
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Yea, you need a new account for Amazon Japan.

Sesuadra said:
Yes, I can shop with my German amazon account in America and Europe but not Japan.

Please someone correct me if they changed it since back then but to my knowledge you need a Japanese amazon account.
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You were right! Amazon Japan requires a different account for some reason.
 
GamerJM said:
I import all the time, not doing it here because the NES Mini has a better game selection. I still think it's lame that they seemingly pretend like Famicom branding didn't exist here.
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Because it never has officially?

As far as I'm aware there has never been a Famicom branded retail release in the west.
 
Would be nice if it had a CRT mode that didn't look like it was going through an RF cable, and if the controller wasn't so small.
 
D.Lo said:
Because it never has officially?

As far as I'm aware there has never been a Famicom branded retail release in the west.
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Even the famicom GBA designs have not been released in the west IIRC. As far as Nintendo is concerned, Americans and Europeans don't know what a famicom is.
you know what I mean
 
Radnom said:
It says "International Shipping: We're sorry; this item can not be shipped outside Japan" on the page for me when I put it in English, am I reading the wrong thing?
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What country are you from? I was able to pre-order two (one for me and one for a friend who is sleeping at 5AM, what a lazy bastard) I'm in germany..maybe they don't allow every country :/!
 
Sesuadra said:
Yes, I can shop with my German amazon account in America and Europe but not Japan.

Please someone correct me if they changed it since back then but to my knowledge you need a Japanese amazon account.
Click to expand...

linkman26 said:
Yea, you need a new account for Amazon Japan.


You were right! Amazon Japan requires a different account for some reason.
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Thanks for the tips. Preordered and getting it with two day shipping. What a time to be alive
 
Sesuadra said:
Even the famicom GBA designs have not been released in the west IIRC. As far as Nintendo is concerned, Americans and Europeans don't know what a famicom is.
you know what I mean
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Nah, I specifically remember the Famicom GB Micros getting a Western release, but that was about it.
 
Sesuadra said:
Even the famicom GBA designs have not been released in the west IIRC. As far as Nintendo is concerned, Americans and Europeans don't know what a famicom is.
you know what I mean
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We're getting the Badge Center badges and the "Famicom-colored ROB" amiibo.
 
Pop-O-Matic said:
Nah, I specifically remember the Famicom GB Micros getting a Western release, but that was about it.
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Actually that is true, so one small example of the Japanese 'look' in the west.

No Aus/Eu release and they were just called 'Anniverary' edition rather than 'Famicom' right? So technically still no Family Computer branding?
 
D.Lo said:
Actually that is true, so one small example of the Japanese 'look' in the west.

No Aus/Eu release and they were just called 'Anniverary' edition rather than 'Famicom' right? So technically still no Family Computer branding?
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So that's why I did not know about it, no European release.
 
Radnom said:
It says "International Shipping: We're sorry; this item can not be shipped outside Japan" on the page for me when I put it in English, am I reading the wrong thing?
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That's why I use tenso.com. They give you a Japan mailing address and then you pay them to ship the package to you here in the states (or whatever you live).

Gameboy415 said:
Ordered mine! :D

FYI, there's also an official USB AC Adapter available for 1080yen:

Famicom Mini AC Adapter

Plus there's a bundle for the Famicom Mini, AC Adapter, & Amazon Post Card Set for 7538yen (which is what I ordered):

Famicom Mini + AC Adapter + Amazon Card Set

Here's a link to the main Famicom Mini page with all of Amazon JP's options:

Famicom Mini Main Page
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Will this thing even work when plugged into outlets in other countries? I thought the voltages were different from place to place, hence the adapters you need when traveling to places like Europe.
 
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