Nintendo of America President Gives Details on NES Classic Edition Discontinuation

Nintendo raised the ire of many gamers when the company announced that it was discontinuing production of the popular NES Classic Edition game console. That console was a miniature Nintendo Entertainment System that came out of the box with 30 cool Nintendo games from back in the day. Among the titles on the console were Metroid, Super Mario Bros., Zelda and a lot more.

At the time the console was discontinued Nintendo really offered no word to fans of the system on why despite huge popularity the NES Classic Edition had been discontinued. Nintendo of America president Reggie fils-Aime has now stated that the reason the console was discontinued was two fold. One reason is that the console had only intended to be a product for the Holiday season, but demand led Nintendo to continue producing the console after the holidays.

Fils-Aime also states that logistics played a reason in the cancellation as well. He said that “we don’t have unlimited resources” and noted that the company has a lot going on. That is a bit of an understatement with popularity of the Switch booming Nintendo is currently unable to keep up with demand. Some reports indicate that Switch systems might be hard to find throughout the year.

Some numbers were announced on sales of the NES Classic Edition with the sell-in figure standing at 2.3 million units. That is up significantly from the 1.5 million figure offered in February according to Gamespot. Note that sell-in figures are consoles shipped to retailers but with the high demand for the systems, sell-through numbers to consumers should be nearly identical.