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News

Nintendo Discontinues Production Of NES Classic Edition

by Suriel Vazquez on Apr 13, 2017 at 02:18 PM

After selling over 1.5 million NES Classic Editions and still being unable to keep up with demand, Nintendo has discontinued production of the NES Classic, a Nintendo representative confirmed to Game Informer today.

Throughout April, [Nintendo of America] territories will receive the last shipments of Nintendo Entertainment System: NES Classic Edition systems for this year," the representative said in a statement. "We encourage anyone interested in obtaining this system to check with retail outlets regarding availability. We understand that it has been difficult for many consumers to find a system, and for that we apologize. We have paid close attention to consumer feedback, and we greatly appreciate the incredible level of consumer interest and support for this product."

Anyone interested in picking one up should probably do so now, and be prepared to pay some high eBay fees if they're unlucky. To see if the system is worth hunting around for, check out Joe Juba's review, and watch us take it for a spin below.

 

Our Take
It's easy to make jokes about how Nintendo just kind of gave up on the thing after being unable to meet demand, but it's still baffling to see Nintendo axe a successful product like this. It's entirely possible they're priming the market for a re-do of the product or a SNES Classic. Or maybe they just found out they have two consoles they can and should be putting retro games out on. With Nintendo, who knows?