REDMOND, Wash., July 14, 2016 – If you see a Nintendo Entertainment System on store shelves this holiday shopping season, you haven’t entered a time machine. (Unless everyone around you is wearing acid-washed jeans and neon leg warmers. If that’s the case, you may have unknowingly walked through a rift in the space-time continuum.) The most likely scenario is you are setting eyes on the Nintendo Entertainment System: NES Classic Edition, launching in stores on Nov. 11 at a suggested retail price of $59.99. That’s right: The NES is back! But this isn’t the same NES that you fondly remember. This new nostalgia-fueled system is a near-identical, mini replica of Nintendo’s original home console and plugs directly into your high-definition TV using an included HDMI cable. The console comes complete with 30 NES games built in, including beloved classics like Super Mario Bros., The Legend of Zelda, Metroid, Donkey Kong, PAC-MAN, and Kirby’s Adventure.

“We wanted to give fans of all ages the opportunity to revisit Nintendo’s original system and rediscover why they fell in love with Nintendo in the first place,” said Nintendo of America President and COO Reggie Fils-Aime. “The Nintendo Entertainment System: NES Classic Edition is ideal for anyone who remembers playing the NES, or who wants to pass on those nostalgic memories to the next generation of gamers.”

The system comes packaged with an HDMI cable, an AC adapter and one NES Classic Controller, which is patterned after the iconic design of the original NES controller. But you really just want to know the full list of 30 games, right? Feast your eyes on the fantastic collection of NES classics included with each and every system:

Balloon Fight™
BUBBLE BOBBLE
Castlevania™
Castlevania II: Simon’s Quest™
Donkey Kong™
Donkey Kong Jr. ™
DOUBLE DRAGON II: THE REVENGE
Dr. Mario™
Excitebike™
FINAL FANTASY®
Galaga™
GHOSTS’N GOBLINS®
GRADIUS™
Ice Climber™
Kid Icarus™
Kirby’s Adventure™
Mario Bros. ™
MEGA MAN® 2
Metroid™
NINJA GAIDEN
PAC-MAN™
Punch-Out!! ™ Featuring Mr. Dream
StarTropics™
SUPER C™
Super Mario Bros.™
Super Mario Bros. ™ 2
Super Mario Bros. ™ 3
TECMO BOWL
The Legend of Zelda™
Zelda II: The Adventure of Link™

There’s a little something for everyone: a nice mix of timeless favorites, cult classics and maybe even some games that you never got around to playing. Each is sure to bring back memories and produce plenty of new ones. You can even enjoy playing several of these games with two players by attaching a second NES Classic Controller, which will be sold separately at a suggested retail price of $9.99. A Classic Controller or Classic Controller Pro can also be used (each sold separately).

When connected to a Wii Remote controller, the NES Classic Controller can also be used to play Virtual Console NES games on a Wii U or Wii system. Playing these retro games using a retro controller makes the experience that much more authentic. And if you ever need to step away from the NES Classic Edition in the middle of a tough level (or take a break to call one of Nintendo’s helpful Game Counselors*), don’t worry about losing any hard-earned progress. Each game has multiple suspend points, so you can start where you left off at a later time, no passwords needed.

What’s old is new again with the Nintendo Entertainment System: NES Classic Edition. Relive past glories. Finish off that boss you never beat. Save the galaxy and rescue the princess!

*Please only call if you have indeed entered a time machine. The Game Counselor program no longer exists in 2016.

Don't really care how it happens (abortion, miscarriage, whatever), just don't want to have watch Maggie go full-term with this thing.

(Someone slicing Maggie's stomach, killing the fetus, which becomes a zombie fetus, which then proceeds to eat Maggie from the inside out, Alien-style, falls under "whatever")

New trailer and info out today:

Polygon.com: Lego Star Wars: The Force Awakens finally shakes up an old formula

They've already released two bad sequels in a row; I guess one more's not gonna hurt.

Here's the original article which Burton's story was based on: The Fans Who Saved Star Wars. It was published a few days before, and goes way more in-depth, not only into the Team Negative1 project, but also into other fan restorations out there, including Mike Verta's Legacy Edition.

Another restoration based on the IB Technicolor print, and a few other sources, has apparently already been completed. Known as the Legacy Edition, the work was done by film composer and visual effects technician Mike Verta. He claims the restoration was finished in 2015, though because of his proximity to the film industry, he has no plans of releasing it. While LucasFilm has never gotten litigious over fan-edits or fan restoration projects, standing orders to destroy theatrical prints and the realities of anti-piracy law make sharing a restoration online a legal grey area at best. It’s too bad, though. If the video demonstrations he’s put on his Vimeo page are to be believed, the quality of his restoration surpasses anything else currently available, official or otherwise.

[Update: Mike Verta got in contact with me after this article was published. He clarifies, “I’ve been told explicitly by The Powers That Be that the hammer will fall if I put it online.” Don’t let that sound like a setback, though. Verta is preparing a presentation for executives at Disney and Fox. “I’ve heard many conflicting reports from inside the walls over the years, and ultimately decided the only thing to do is invite the executives to a screening and make the pitch,” he says. “So those plans are in the works.” The plan is to make the presentation later this year.

Asked what he hopes to come of his Legacy Edition restoration, Verta says, “I would be happy with having the restoration released, or using it as a proof-of-concept to supervise a new restoration from whatever’s left of the original materials.” Being allowed to supervise a restoration from the original Star Wars negatives would be “a dream job.” Verta says individuals at both Disney and Fox are aware of his restoration. “They tend to be the ones championing it internally,” he says. Everything Verta has heard indicates that the biggest hurdles to overcome for Disney and Fox making a deal for his restoration are legal issues. “There is labyrinth of legality to navigate, and not everybody is sure it’s worth the headache.”

“I want everyone to be able to see it,” Verta says. His effort has been a long, arduous, expensive labour of love. “My process combines the data from multiple input sources already – that’s why it has fidelity and detail that can’t be found in any one source or print,” he says. “Developing this process and these software tools which is where all the money (some $400k+) has gone over the last 15 years.” To let people enjoy the fruits of all that work is Verta’s ultimate goal.

It all comes down to convincing the executives at Disney and Fox. “There have been some online petitions for the original version over the years, but they represent what budgeteers consider unimpressive numbers,” Verta explains. “I think the more vocal people are about supporting these projects, the better.” Verta remains steadfast and hopeful. “Have faith; more to come,” he promises.]

Mr. Black doesn’t consider the IB Technicolor prints inherently better than the Silver Screen Edition they’ve already put out. “I love the Technicolor versions. I think they’re awesome. I think they look a little bit sharper, there’s less grain in them, the colours are all bright and pop, but that, to me, is not definitive,” he says. “That’s not Star Wars to me. If you were in England in 1977 for a couple of weeks and you went to the theatre on the first day, or week, and you just happened to see that IB Technicolor print, okay fine, it might’ve looked like that.”

For Team Negative1, the Silver Screen Edition and upcoming Technicolor restoration are only the beginning. The group has also been hard at work restoring both The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, and are expecting to have both out by the end of the year. They’re looking into the possibility of scanning 70mm blow-ups of the films for future releases.

Mike Verta's Vimeo page. Some great comparisons here between his project and some of the other versions that are out there.

Polygon: Here's why Star Wars Battlefront content is sticking with the original trilogy

Star Wars Battlefront will only include content based on the original trilogy, in the interest of preserving the franchise's canon, according to EA.

"You can't make a game in Star Wars that violates the canon of Star Wars," said EA chief financial officer Blake Jorgensen during a quarterly earnings call yesterday, according to a transcript from Seeking Alpha. Since Battlefront is explicitly set during the era of the original trilogy, adding events from films set earlier or later than Episodes 4 through 7 would be unfaithful to the franchise, he explained.

EA is open to including these characters and stories in future Star Wars games, Jorgensen went on to say.

Ea confirmed that Battlefront itself wouldn't include The Force Awakens back in December. However, this marks the first confirmation that EA will also leave the prequel trilogy out of ​Battlefront​'s upcoming expansion packs.

I could kind of understand this if there was some sort of single-player campaign element to the game, but there's not, right? It's pretty much multiplayer-only. So how would having non-OT-era stuff in the game violate the canon? As long as you don't mix-and-match eras within the same match, I don't see what the problem is. Isn't that how the original Battlefronts worked? They were split into Clone Wars-era matches or Galactic Civil War-era matches.

It seems to me more like maybe they just didn't want to do the ****-ton of work that would be required to put prequel- or Disney-era stuff into the game, especially since people don't have a hard-on for the prequels like they do with the OT.

They're kind of painting themselves into a corner with all this canon-talk for a sequel. They're almost gonna have to go complete saga with it. If they don't, it's like I mentioned earlier, they'll have a game set in an era that nobody cares about anymore (Prequels/Clone Wars), or a complete rehash of this game, which probably won't go over too well, or a Disney-era game with probably not a lot of water in the well to draw from, in terms of content, especially if they're as tight with Episode VIII spoilers as they were with Force Awakens. Really curious to what's gonna happen.

It's currently scoring in the low-to-mid 70s at Metacritic. I know the game disappointed a lot of people, but I didn't know the scores were that low. I'm kind of surprised.

I'm curious to see what they're gonna do with a sequel, assuming there'll be one. Probably Fall 2017. Will it be all TFA and Episode 8 stuff? What about Prequel stuff? Will they rehash all the OT stuff from this game into the next one?

Are there other websites that sell geeky t-shirts to geeks, or is TeeFury the only one?