Even if Nintendo could get the rights, many of those titles recently appeared in Rare Replay, a collection released in 2015 for the Xbox One. Several of the N64's remaining iconic games were transplanted to the company's handheld consoles, like the 2004 port of Super Mario 64 for the DS or the graphically updated Zelda: Ocarina of Time in 2011 for the 3DS, so you've likely recently revisited the best games the N64 had to offer.
Engadget isn't the first outlet to say that they don't believe an N64 Classic will ever exist, but I think those people are grossly underestimating the appeal of the N64 (much of that appeal being the local co-op play a lot of N64 games had).
I think, if anything, the N64's appeal is grossly over-estimated. Unless you live in North America, N64 has pretty much zero nostalgic appeal, since it was so poorly received in Europe and Japan. And even North Americans don't remember it with the same universal fondness as the NES or SNES, so their ability to sell them greatly diminishes. GameCube has a similar problem. Selling minis past the SNES era is extremely dicey. And this is without mentioning that the main reasons people would want to reminisce about the N64 wouldn't be there.
How did they forget this gem? One of my all time favorite launch titles of any system.
How did they forget this gem? One of my all time favorite launch titles of any system.
Yeah, acting like the N64 library without Rare wouldn't be worth it is dumb, there's still plenty to choose from (Mario, two Zeldas, Smash, Mario Kart, Star Fox, F-Zero, Kirby, etc) and they could clearly haggle for some of the Rare games too (we already know DK64 is a possibility). Hell even Goldeneye they would only have to go through Activision as Nintendo owns the code.They're downplaying the N64's non-Rare library, and again, Diddy Kong Racing and DK64 are likely, since DK64 having Jetpac (owned by Microsoft) was not an issue for VC, I bet a deal could be worked out for both.
So that's two of Rare's huge N64 titles and there's quite a bit else. The N64 had a tonne of great games and seems like an obvious choice for a microconsole also.
And for the 60 FPS or bust types here on GAF, there's F-Zero X. The N64 library is incredibly solid and shouldn't be downplayed.
There is no Final Fantasy Beta.I want the Final Fantasy Beta
If they added StarFox 2, they might as well add in another unreleased game for N64 Mini.
*I was also hoping the SNES Classic contained some unreleased SNES games like Star Ocean and Tales of Phantasia
No Zelda, no Paper Mario !?No Rare Games except DK 64, no Star Wars games, no licensed 3rd party games except from companies that cooperate with Nintendo from companies who have licenses: