They're only going to make 12 of them.

Fortunately, Nintendo has learned their lesson from the NES Classic, and as such will be greatly increasing the production of SNES Classics.

Unfortunately, Nintendo has made the inexplicable business decision to ship all of those units to a single Kmart store located in Laramie, Wyoming.

You people act like you just can't pick up an NES on ebay and mod it for better video. You can do that or buy a clone or emulate it. I saw no reason for a mini NES with so many other alternatives.  If you have money burning a hole in your wallet, you can buy an Analogue NT mini with full HDMI and play games in 1080p.

Many casual users don't want--if they even know how--to mess with mods, emulators, ROMs, and any of that other ****. That's a big part of the appeal of the NES Classic. It's a really simple, plug-and-play, (theoretically) inexpensive way to play a bunch of games people remember from growing up. And all that without any of the moral/legal issues that come with emulators and ROMs.

And let's also not forget just how goddamn adorable it is. Nostalgia's a helluva drug.

https://www.analogue.co/pages/nt-mini

For $449? You could almost buy two NES Classics on eBay for that!

. . .is a thing that is happening. Trailer officially releases this weekend, but it already kind of leaked today. Looks like it will cover all three trilogy eras.

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed is now free for Gold members through the end of the month. It's backwards-compatible on Xbox One.

Today's the last day for Gold members to get TFU for free.

Also:

Microsoft Unveils $10 Monthly Gaming Subscription Service For Xbox One

Coming this spring to the Xbox One, the Xbox Game Pass will give console owners access to over 100 Xbox One and backwards compatible games for $9.99 a month.

The Xbox Game Pass is not a streaming service, like PlayStation Now, but a game download subscription along the lines of EA Access. Subscribers who pay the $9.99 monthly fee will be able to choose from games like Halo 5: Guardians, Payday 2, NBA 2K16 and SoulCalibur II (examples given in Microsoft’s official announcement,) downloading them directly to their system and playing them as if they were purchased digitally. Subscribers will be able to purchase the games in the catalog at a discount (20 percent off games, 10 percent off add-ons,) adding them permanently to their Xbox library.

The Xbox Game Pass will start rolling out today to select members of the Xbox Insider program today, with plans to launch exclusively for Xbox Live Gold subscribers before going live for all Xbox One owners this spring.

GTA IV goes backwards-compatible today. Other BC titles added since last time:

• Alice: Madness Returns
• Battlefield 3
• Battlefield: Bad Company 2
• Beat'n Groovy
• BioShock
• BioShock 2
• BioShock Infinite
• Bully: Scholarship Edition
• Catherine
• Clannad
• Dragon Age: Origins
• Ghostbusters: The Video Game
• Haunted House
• Injustice: Gods Among Us
• Juju
• LEGO Indiana Jones: The Original Adventures
• Mad Tracks
• Mega Man 9
• Mega Man 10
• Midway Arcade Origins
• Mutant Storm Empire
• Planets Under Attack
• Raskulls
• Rocket Knight
• Scrap Metal
• Shadowrun
• Shadows of the Damned
• Shotest Shogi
• Skydive: Proximity Flight
• Space Ark
• The Splatters
• Strania
• Tekken 6

Thanks, Justin! Cousins was so horrible in the first half I went to bed in the third quarter thinking I was done for.  Wow. Can't believe I pulled that off.

It's been a fun season. Good luck to Brent this weekend.

Xbox offers a free game to celebrate 300 backward-compatible titles

Xbox is celebrating the addition of the three BioShock games to the Xbox One's backward compatibility catalog by offering one for free to everyone: Lost Odyssey.

Larry Hryb, better known as Xbox Live's Major Nelson, tweeted out the offer this afternoon. Lost Odyssey will be available for free until Dec. 31. Additionally, the JRPG Blue Dragon also is available for purchase online. Previously the two titles had been backward-compatible only by putting the original Xbox 360 disc in the tray.

Yesterday, Phil Spencer, the head of Microsoft's Xbox division, noted that nearly half of all Xbox One owners use the console to play backward-compatible games. The feature launched in November 2015, and since then all of the games offered for Xbox 360 in the Games With Gold program have been backward-compatible titles.