Nintendo has downplayed plans to release a 2018 Nintendo 64 classic.
In an interview with Kotaku, Reggie Fils-Aime, the president of Nintendo of America said that the Japanese video game giant is unlikely to follow the recent trend of releasing copies of classic ’80s and ’90s consoles (see 2016’s NES Classic and 2017 SNES Classic reissues).
“We were clear when we did the first two Classic series that, for us, these were limited time opportunities that were a way for us as a business to bridge from the conclusion of Wii U as a hardware system to the launch of Nintendo Switch,” he told Kokatu. “That was the very strategic reason we launched the NES Classic system.” The Wii U had been fading fast by early 2016 and it wasn’t until early 2017 that the Nintendo Switch launched.
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Fils-Aime continued: “So while consumers may have been anticipating something, we view these as limited time opportunities. We’ve also now been very clear that as the consumer looks forward to engaging with our classic content that is going to happen more and more with the subscription service.”
When asked if he would rule out releasing an N64 Classic, he replied: “I would not ever rule something out but what I can tell you is certainly that’s not in our planning horizon.”
Elsewhere, Nintendo has been celebrating the success of its Zelda: Breath of the Wild paid expansion pack, which Fils-Aime said has done “exceptionally well in our marketplace”.
Later this month marks the 20th anniversary of one of Nintendo’s groundbreaking games, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, which retains the record for the highest-rated video game in history.