RUMOUR: Is the N64 Mini on the horizon?

New rumours have begun circling about the next Nintendo Mini that could be on the horizon; the Nintendo 64 (N64).

In the war of the consoles one would expect to see Microsoft and Sony battling it out. While Nintendo have been highly successful with their launch of the Switch console, it’s their line of miniature classic consoles that has gamers screaming at the top of their lungs. Nintendo turned the sales market into a black market late last year with their launch of the highly coveted NES mini. The console, which was only released in limited numbers, sold out quickly leaving many retro gaming fans asking the question “What the hell, Nintendo?”

Since then we have discovered that this wasn’t just a one time deal for the company with the recent announcement of the SNES mini due for release in Australia on September 30th 2017.

Nintendo stated that allocated sales numbers would be higher for this mini console, however this hasn’t stopped yet another mini Nintendo console from selling out within hours of its announcement. Will Nintendo allocate more before the September 30th release date? While we can’t answer these questions, we can tell you that Nintendo instead appear to have more miniature fun planned for you.

Nintendo have recently filed a bunch of trademark applications for various game controllers. A thread over at NeoGAF has shown a bunch of applications filed at the European Union Intellectual Property Office in Europe on July 18th, which show that Nintendo are looking to register trademarks for a bunch of their old controllers. The list includes line drawings of NES, SNES, Nintendo Switch and N64 controllers, which is exciting news for us retro-loving console fans out there, as it points to a the potential next console in line for a revival: the Nintendo 64. Following on from the success of the NES and SNES mini’s, it wouldn’t be a surprise if Nintendo want to take advantage of the hype and ride the retro train all the way to the end of the line.

So what would the line up for a Nintendo 64 mini look like? Well sadly due to some licensing issues with Rare (which was slightly evident in the line up for the SNES mini), we are unlikely to see some much wanted titles. However this is our Team Checkpoint speculation of what a 30 game line up could look like for a Nintendo 64 mini.

1: Mario 64
2: Mario Kart 64
3: Mario Party
4: Mario Party 2
5: Mario Party 3
6: Goldeneye
7: Pilotwings
8: Blast Corps
9: Pokemon Stadium
10: Pokemon Snap
11: Mario Tennis
12: Paper Mario
13: F-Zero X
14: Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards
15: Super Smash Bros.
16: Star Fox 64
17: Zelda: Ocarina of Time
18: Cruis’n USA
19: Perfect Dark
20: Star Wars: Rogue Squadron
21: Yoshi’s Story
22: Wave Race 64
23: Turok: Dinosaur Hunter
24: Harvest Moon 64
25: Bomberman 64
26: South Park
27: Snowboard Kids
28: Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater
29: Mario Golf
30: WWF No Mercy

To be perfectly clear, this is all simply speculation on our part at this point. Nintendo have not yet announced that they are making a N64 mini or even whether or not they have plans to make one, but with the filing of trademark registrations and the previous success of their other mini consoles the odds are very much in our favour of this happening.

Whatever their plans, Nintendo are staying quiet, for now. So until we do hear some solid news on a mini N64, it cant hurt to dream what other future mini consoles Nintendo might have coming our way in the years to come… My suspicion lands firmly on us seeing a mini console launch each year from them until we reach the Wii mini.