Top Loading NES?

[Brother Shatterstone]

Does anyone know if Nintendo sold the rights to the Top Loading NES? I was thinking of finally upgrading to a top loader from eBay when I hit a whole skew of new non-Nintendo designs and it got me rather curious if there legal or not.

So anyone know?

No links, I don’t want to promote thief, so don’t ask me.

 

[Ashwyn]

I never heard anything about it, but I'd say the likelyhood of that is extremely low. Nintendo's never been big on letting other people play with their stuff, so to speak.

 

[Brother Shatterstone]

I never heard anything about it, but I'd say the likelyhood of that is extremely low. Nintendo's never been big on letting other people play with their stuff, so to speak.

Aye, that's what I thought but retro gaming is so popular right now I wasn't sure if Nintendo was capitalizing on it by leasing out the design or what not.

 

[Alzrius]

I never heard anything about it, but I'd say the likelyhood of that is extremely low. Nintendo's never been big on letting other people play with their stuff, so to speak.

Which isn't to say it hasn't happened before. As an example, the GameCube Q (released only in Japan) was made by Panasonic to be a hybrid GameCube/DVD player. They were fairly popular for importing since they were relatively easy to mod to play American or Japanese games, and play DVDs region-free.

As for the original NES though, while Nintendo did release a top-loading version of it towards the later days of the Super NES (as I recall, anyway), I haven't heard anything about them letting another company design one. This is especially true since Nintendo's plan to capitalize on retro gaming is to have the Revolution not only be back-compatible with GameCube games, but also have the ability to download games that were for the NES, Super NES, and Nintendo 64.

 

[Brother Shatterstone]

As for the original NES though, while Nintendo did release a top-loading version of it towards the later days of the Super NES (as I recall, anyway), I haven't heard anything about them letting another company design one.

It was far superior also, the blinking issues that the original NES had where solved, and Nintendo’s used top loaders go for 100 bucks (American) at auction consistently on eBay.

I do agree, that it could hurt themselves with their plans for the revolution.

 

[Alzrius]

I do agree, that it could hurt themselves with their plans for the revolution.

Well, that isn't what I meant. I don't think that will hurt Nintendo, since they aren't making top-loading NES consoles anymore, to the best of my knowledge anyway.

 

[Brother Shatterstone]

Well, that isn't what I meant. I don't think that will hurt Nintendo, since they aren't making top-loading NES consoles anymore, to the best of my knowledge anyway.

Yes, but if one of their stronger points about the Revolution is retro gaming than this could very much harm them or at least more harm than good I would imagine.

 

[Alzrius]

Yes, but if one of their stronger points about the Revolution is retro gaming than this could very much harm them or at least more harm than good I would imagine.

Ah, you're saying that the production of illegal top-loading NES consoles could hurt Nintendo. Sorry, I misunderstood.

Pirate products always hurt the company/industry they're basing their work on, but I think the Revolution will help with that. If you could just download the game onto a memory card for the current system, or have to buy an unknown knock-off console, and find and buy the game, which would you do?

 

[Brother Shatterstone]

Ah, you're saying that the production of illegal top-loading NES consoles could hurt Nintendo. Sorry, I misunderstood.

For the most part... Its nearly 20 years old now so I'm not sure how much damage could be done.

Pirate products always hurt the company/industry they're basing their work on, but I think the Revolution will help with that. If you could just download the game onto a memory card for the current system, or have to buy an unknown knock-off console, and find and buy the game, which would you do?

For most it will be whichever is cheaper, you need a broadband connection for the Revolution; you don't know how or how much Nintendo will charge. So there are some factors for most people…

Myself I like to have old junk so I’ll still be looking at getting a real Nintendo top loader.

 

[Alzrius]

For most it will be whichever is cheaper, you need a broadband connection for the Revolution; you don't know how or how much Nintendo will charge. So there are some factors for most people…

Well, not quite. Nintendo has already announced that they will be using wireless broadband connections...in my extremely limited internet savvy, I'm pretty sure that means you won't need to have wires (though I readily admit to not knowing for sure...I, for example, get online over the phone lines with a 56k modem...so will I be able to use the Revolutions wireless access?).

Likewise, we are still in the dark about how much (or, at this point, even if) it will cost to download the games, but at least the wireless access itself will be free.

Myself I like to have old junk so I’ll still be looking at getting a real Nintendo top loader.

On that I agree...I still have all of my old consoles in excellent shape.