Nintendo Classic Mini: NES demand was "greater than we anticipated," says Fils-Aime

Demand for Nintendo’s Classic Mini: NES was greater than we anticipated,” Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime has admitted.

Speaking with CNET, Fils-Aime said that Nintendo was aware of the console shortages and that the company was doing everything it could to help ease consumer demand.

"Every day there’s more going into the retail channel,” he said. The overall level of demand is certainly greater than we anticipated, that’s why we’re suffering through the shortages out there in the marketplace."

Nostalgia and obviously plays a huge part in the Classic Mini: NES’ appeal, but Fils-Aime said the Classic Mini: NES plays a much greater role for them than simply allowing gamers to take a trip down memory lane.

"We saw the NES Classic as an opportunity to engage with millennials, gen-Xers, boomers, people who had played those games back in the day, but life had gone by, and they had somewhat walked away from gaming,” he said.

It was a great way to re-engage them, and our belief is that by re-engaging them, it creates an opportunity for Super Mario Run, it creates an opportunity for our 3DSbusiness, it creates an opportunity for Nintendo Switch, because all of a sudden they’re recognizing what they knew 20 or 25 years ago: they love Mario. They love Zelda. They love all of our classic IP, and they’re re-engaging with it right now."

Nintendo’s new Switch console was shown to the public for the first time yesterday during a live demo on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon in the US. After a brief demo of upcoming iOS platformer Super Mario Run, Fils-Aime unveiled The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild running entirely on the Nintendo Switch. This is the first time the game has been publicly shown running on the Switch.

Super Mario Run launches first on iOS on December 15th, but we probably won’t see the Switch again before Nintendo’s planned hands-on sessions with journalists on January 12th.