All true Gen Z gamers know the feeling associated with coming home on a Friday afternoon after a long day of school, flipping on whatever console it was they liked best and playing video games until late at night only to pause for dinner and return to their previous endeavor.
However, both Gen Z and Millennial gamers have seemed to come together in order to pursue this feeling of nostalgia through the use of timeless consoles of the 1990s. Although systems like the Nintendo 64, Sega Genesis and the PlayStation 1 came out before 2000, they are what young gamers
of the current generation began their gaming journeys using. Games like “Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater,” “Super Mario 64” and “Metal Gear Solid” implemented simplistic yet amusing mechanics that have now created a widespread itch of nostalgia.
In December 2018, Sony released the PlayStation Classic at a starting retail price of $99 but has dropped to $60. It is preloaded with 20 games, some of which are classics like “Tekken 3,” “Destruction Derby,” and “Final Fantasy VII.”
Unlike the dwindling nostalgia rush provoked by Sony, Nintendo released its NES Classic Edition in November 2016 and has an infamous sales rank of 14.42 according to Thinknum. The console, which still sells for its retail price of $60, sold out popular retailers upon its debut onto the market. According to Business Insider, Nintendo sold over more than 2.3 million consoles in 2017.
Since the demand for the NES Classic was so high, Nintendo of America President Reggie Fils-Aime said that production of the newer SNES Classic would continue through 2018. This console succeeds the older NES Classic, which originally sold for $80, and can now be bought for $109 at Target — it comes with 21 games.
Nintendo seems to have been able to tap into their audience with its classic releases. Nintendo has existed since 1889 and cr
eated some of the most memorable video games of the 1990s. The methodology Nintendo devs have used for decades has been gradually improved upon since some of its most iconic games were released before 2000.
The secret to manufacturing and selling these retro consoles is simplicity. Nintendo was ahead of the game and released their miniature NES Classic before other companies had even introduced the idea. Nintendo is a gargantuan company and the fact that they took the reigns on a project they knew its consumer base would resonate with explains why it sold so many units.
Although Sony released its PlayStation Classic for a similar reason, they released it after Nintendo’s NES Classic — Nintendo had already blown the world’s gamers out of the water. The Atari Flashback 9 and the Sega Genesis Flashback both released after Nintendo’s NES Classic as well.
The Atari Flashback has been around since 20
04 and had promising sales in its debut. However, the latest Atari Flashback 9 is modeled after the Atari 2600 from 1977, which reaches farther back than Millenials or Gen Z’s are able to attach to the rich memories of their childhoods — the Atari Flashback 9 comes with 110 games.
Although simplicity is the focal point in marketing retro consoles, remastered consoles are predominantly miniature versions of older models and are exceedingly more comfortable to use. They’ve been able to satiate the community’s nostalgic appetites with practical products that employ the success of gaming in the 1990s and early 2000s.
Nintendo, along with other companies like Sony and Sega, has seen the potential in bringing back the appealing qualities of retro gaming. Retro consoles are reminiscent of a simpler time with general game mechanics that were stimulating to the previous generation of gamers. The reintroduction of a time where gaming was rich and simple has been presented in a way that attributes worth to some of the respective products on the retro gaming market.
This article first appeared in the "Nostalgia" issue of Distinct, a student-run magazine at Ithaca College.
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