Good luck getting the SNES Classic. Best Buy and Amazon opened pre-orders for the retro game console this morning, and within minutes, both retailers sold through all of their stock. Now you have two options: line up for the console's official debut or buy a pre-order unit from a scalper.
None of this comes as a surprise. Nintendo's first retro console, the NES Classic, was also continually sold out and sold by scalpers throughout its all-too-short lifespan. As it turns out, many people are in the market for miniature game consoles loaded with some of their favorite games from times past. (Or, for the younger generation, a bunch of games they've heard a lot about but haven't had an easy way to play until now.)
The SNES Classic delivers on that front. Crammed within its itty-bitty casing are classic titles like The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, Super Metroid, and other games from Nintendo's golden era. The console also comes with two wired controllers, an HDMI cable, and a USB charging cable and AC adapter, so you can enjoy these games on a modern TV instead of scrambling to find a CRT from the annals of television history.
Nintendo announced today that the SNES Classic has another intriguing feature. The company said in a press release:
Nintendo also revealed that the upcoming Super Nintendo Entertainment System: Super NES Classic Edition system includes a Rewind feature that lets players rewind their gameplay to retry tricky sections, pick up missed items or simply run through an area again to see if anything was missed. The rewind time depends on the kind of game: Players can go back a few minutes in role-playing games such as Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars, while action titles such as Super Mario World offer around 40 seconds, ideal for re-trying short segments of gameplay. The system also comes with optional frames that can be wrapped around the on-screen display for each game.
That feature could be a godsend for impatient gamers. SNES-era games wore their arcade influences on their sleeves, which means they almost revel in killing players. In arcades, this difficulty is supposed to get people to spend more of their precious quarters. For early consoles, difficulty was a way to stretch out a game's play time, due to the limited space on their cartridges. Neither justification is likely to gel with modern gamers.
The SNES Classic will officially debut on September 29. You can sign up to be notified about the console's release—or perhaps another batch of pre-orders—from Best Buy and Amazon. Or, if you just have to get the console, you can fork over a couple hundred bucks to eBay sellers.
