Ever since the start of the new century, game companies have been trying to find ways to release the same content over and over, and quite frankly, they have been successful. Let's look at the re releasing of game consoles over the years. 



The year was 2004, in between the eras dominated by, on one side, the Gamecube, XBOX, and playstation 2, and on the other, the revolutionary Nintendo DS. Atari had been out of it for a while, they hadn't released a system since 1983 and were not really on the main page, and they wanted to be back- quickly. What did they do? Naturally, they released the Atari Flashback, a gaming console containing some of their games on a system. This was the system to begin the fad of "Plug-n-play" systems which is still thriving to this day. The Atari Flashback was simple, containing Atari 2600 and 7800 classics. The system sold well, and set forth the line of "Plug-n-play" game systems for years so come. 



Atari knew it had hit something big after the initial release of the Atari Flashback, so they did the only logical thing. The next year, 2005, Atari released the Atari Flashback 2. This time, they had major success. Atari gave unreleased games on the Flashback 2, making these games only playable if you bought the flashback 2- this would later be called genius. The flashback 2 was a master system, Atari knew what it was doing.



Atari wasn't stupid. Atari knew that releasing another system in 2006 would hinder their current sales of the Flashback 2. They knew what was best, so they waited. In 2010, 6 years after the initial release, Atari released the Flashback 2+. The thing is, the games are the same, but they look different. That was enough to seriously boost sales for the Flashback 2+, but Atari wanted to get new games out there.



In 2011, yes, the next year after the Flashback 2+, Atari released the Flashback 3. This system include 60 games, yes, 60. The system had more than just classics, the system included lesser known games and was able to sell sell sell. The Flashback 3 was the first actual system since the Flashback 2. 



In the same year as the Flashback 3, 2011, Nintendo released the Nintendo eShop, with one thing in mind, selling digital games. Nintendo had this eShop on the Wii and 3DS (later added to WiiU). Nintendo resold every game they had made, from Megaman to Castlevania. Nintendo made a fortune off of this. The eShop is still adding new games to be resold every time they are found. 



Atari wasn't done. In 2012, Atari released the Atari Flashback 4. This system includes 75 games, 60 from the Flashback 3, and 15 new additions, again, lesser known games that turned into big hits with Atari fans. Atari seems to make tons of money by adding a few games and having the same as the last system, so that becomes their gameplan. Atari rode the Flashback 4 for 2 more years.



However, in 2014, Atari released yet another Flashback system, the Flashback 5. The system contains a huge 92 games preloaded, 17 new games and 75 from the Flashback 4. This still worked, Atari's gameplan was working. Atari didn't know how to get more success, but they knew they had to find a way to do so. 



On September 15, 2015, Atari took their most recent step- and probably their final- in the flashback series. Atari released the Atari Flashback 6. This system was magic, they added only 8 games, but boosting the total game count up to 100 was a magic number. Atari knew what they were doing, they knew they had to keep adding them up. Nintendo decided to feed off of Atari even more. 


On July 14th, 2016, Nintendo announced they would be re releasing the NES, called the NES Mini, with 30 preloaded games on it. This may not seem as many as the Atari Flashback 6, with 100 games, but Nintendo Games are much more well known, so they can get away with releasing less games. 


 

Not to mention NES games are bigger in size both gameplay wise and file wise. Still thirty was pretty skimpy, I mean look at the SEGA mini consoles with eighty games (though forty are cheaply made games by the developers of the system, which is not SEGA by the way). Nintendo could have tried harder, but my guess as to why they didn't is either because all thirty games are Nintendo first party games (I haven't checked) and they as usual didn't want to share their money, or because they knew they didn't have to try harder.

I have to wonder if this is any indication of a plan B for Nintendo. Like if they stop making systems, will they keep making these things? And if so, will they also make new games for other systems like Atari? I can hope so.


Like you said - or implied - these things are great for casual gamers, but I don't think they're a good buy for serious gamers. I was gifted the Genesis one a few years ago and it was nice until I ran out of games I cared to play, which as you might imagine, was nowhere near the eighty that were built in. That's the problem with these things: developers don't know what games you personally want to play, so it's a grab bag and you'll probably enjoy a third of them at best. However the Genesis one was better as it allowed cartridges to play as well as downloaded ROMs which really extended it's lifetime. They also made a Game Gear rip off that played the same way (built in games plus ran ROMs). Now those aren't a bad purchase for a serious gamer, but don't expect them to pack in enough good games to make you happy for long.



Nice work on the article by the way.

This was an interesting read. I didn't even know about all these Atari consoles until now XD I did know about the NES Mini though, because I saw a Facebook post from Nintendo announcing it yesterday.

I don't know if I'll be buying any of the Atari Flashback systems but I think it would be pretty cool to have one, and maybe even something for me to brag to my friends about

Eirinn : Size matters not on the NES re-release. Trust me, if todays gaming can put A TERRABYTE into an Xbox, PRETTY SURE years ago they could have made an NES the size they chose, and put in every NES game out there. It'd still be several hundred times smaller filesize wise even.

manicman66 : Oh no, what I meant was that the file size of an NES game is much larger than that of an Atari VCS/2600 game, meaning much larger game worlds, longer games, more detail, and overall better quality, so that thirty NES games were - in my opinion - easily a better deal than 75+ Atari VCS/2600 games. There's a lot more content anyway.

No, I agree with you completely. The entire NES library could easily fit on a modern console. In fact you could fit thirty of the right NES games on less than ten megabytes probably. Many were only 100 or so kilobytes, and the average one (for what I've seen) is well under 500 kilobytes.