The first point is fair…as many people have claimed that the NES mini wasn’t really capable of doing Punch-Out, for example, with the pinpoint accuracy of the real thing. Whether or not the SNES will have similar issues remains to be seen. The WiiU emulations of SuperFX games isn’t bad…so there’s a good chance the SNES mini will get these right too (typically very difficult for emulation). However, you do get a couple of tradeoffs, including a system designed for modern televisions, and save states.
As for your next point…I think that may be due to your choice of systems. The Gamecube had relatively little breakout 3rd party titles…but surely you understand that this doesn’t apply to all systems? Even Nintendo’s modern handhelds heavily rely on 3rd party support for some of their best games…
I’d fully expect an SNES mini to be full of great 3rd party titles, made up, more or less, from the things you can already get via the virtual console. However, I seriously doubt we’re going to get a “$60 for 30” deal this time around. Nintendo already charges more, per title, for SNES games. I’d expect a much smaller initial roster, along with the option to purchase additional titles, as premium DLC. There ain’t no way SE is going to allow someone to sell FFVI for $2…
Obviously, which games you prefer is a complex matter of personal preference. My argument, here, is that an average person will probably find the SNES’s lineup the easiest to sit down and play, without wanting to quit after 5 minutes due to crushing difficulty, unfamiliarity, loading times, relatively complex controls, etc. It’s not really an argument about preference, but what we might call “casual appeal”.
I think the NES mini was riding hard on nostalgia, but actual NES games are pretty brutal to play, for people that didn’t grow up on them. They’re pretty simple to get going, but you die a lot, and continues/saves are a luxury. Meanwhile, 3d games, like Wind Waker, have the opposite problem. Hand Grandpa the controller, and they spend about 10 minutes trying to wrap their brain around moving a 3d character with one hand, and a camera with the other, before passing it off, overwhelmed. I believe the SNES mini will ride a much finer line, offering a fair amount of nostalgia and challenge - thus keeping the “retro” image intact - but offering much more playable games.
Regardless, it’s debatable how far you could really keep the trend going, honestly. Maybe they’d do a handheld, old-school gameboy version, complete with a bundle of built in games…but a “mini-N64” would be a laughing stock without the Rare games, like Goldeneye. Rare was bought by Microsoft, and, obviously, there are going to be some major licensing issues…this is why you can’t get some of the N64’s better games, like Banjo-Kazooie, Goldeneye, Diddy-Kong Racing, Perfect Dark, etc. on the Virtual Console.
