Video Games

Communities

Just About

Video Games

Elite Dangerous

SMITE 2

EVE Online

Minecraft

Nightingale

Pokémon

Content Creators

Sport

There’s more to love

Help shape the future of our platform as we build the best place to express and enjoy your passions, whatever they may be.

Join now

Video Games

Feed Bounties Curated

MURRRAAAAY

Video Games

Discussion

ago

Mini consoles - dead or alive?

Do you think that the Mini Consoles Phase has come to an end? In the past 8 years we have seen:

NES Classic Edition

SNES Classic Edition

PlayStation Mini

Sega Genesis Mini

TurboGrafx 16 Mini

Neo Geo Mini

Sega Genesis 2 Mini

Do you think we will see anymore coming or do you think that the Mini Consoles won’t see anymore new arrivals in the near future?

On another note if you were playing dream maker which mini console would you love to see? I would love a mini N64, mini GameCube and mini Dreamcast! Or yeah and how could I forget a mini PS2!

Created at 12:56pm, 16th June, 2024. Page last updated at 3:59am, 18th June, 2024.

Makster 6/16/2024, 4:04:01 PM

I think George Harrison said it best in the Simpsons

EveOnlineTutorials 6/16/2024, 4:21:37 PM

I dunno tbh, the other post you shared about what is essentially a mini xbox, would do well, I think there is a market but the issue with a lot of them is the price, why pay 500 for a mini console when you get the same for a full-sized one?

Makster 6/16/2024, 4:31:46 PM

EveOnlineTutorials

I dunno about the min Xbox but the consoles listed on the discussion were more around $60-70 (so around the price of a full retail game). The mini-consoles came with a few 'all-star' games but I think there was too much controversy around them.

miniNES - not enough produced

miniSNES - again not enough produced. It did get a lot of press as it was the first time ever you could play Star Fox 2 as this was never released. However, as expected, it's an SNES game releasing in the modern day so reviewed pretty poorly

miniPSOne - again Sony trying to capture that Nintendo market and failing due to substandard ports and using emulators for the games?

For the record i have a miniSnes and I do love it for the nostalgia value and novelty but practically it's pretty useless. mini is in the name so its got super short wires for the controllers.
I think the market is more casuals - those that would buy it as a stocking stuffer from GAME, Gamestop or MenKind but don't really care that it has Mario RPG or Star Fox 2 on it. They just want to play Mario, Zelda, etc.
Essentially high end plug and play machines which the casuals would say is a bit too expensive for what it is and the more hardcore would be disappointed in the small library - when you compare it to a Raspberry Pi set up which can play soo much more for cheaper.

EveOnlineTutorials 6/16/2024, 4:44:22 PM

Makster

I dunno where you where looking but they were a hell a lot more expensive in the UK mate

Makster 6/16/2024, 7:12:53 PM

EveOnlineTutorials

how much were they for you?

Paul 6/16/2024, 4:30:43 PM

I think it was a passing fad. Nintendo were the only ones to put thought in to it and the others jumped on the cashflow bandwaggon.

Personally if im going to play a retro game id prefer it on the actual console.

Sturmer 6/16/2024, 5:09:50 PM

My playing backlog so large, that i not even looking at them.

These are very niche devices, traffic wise the user base it nearly non existant.

Juuni 6/16/2024, 5:59:01 PM

The ones that you can add your own titles onto wouldn't be a bad little device to have when you have the retro itch. Some of the built in titles on these have been a bit pants.

For me, it would be cooler to have the Famicom style ones over the NES/SNES, i always thought those looked cooler, especially the Super Famicom.

Would be cool to check out some of the PC ones as well ... they've made Minis of the C64, the Amiga and the Atari 400. I had a real Amiga 500 back in the day, but never had the others -- I was a Tandy kid.