Waiting on the Nintendo 64 Classic? Don't get your hopes up

Nintendo released the NES Classic and SNES Classic in 2016 and 2017 consecutively, so a Nintendo 64 Classic should be just around the corner. Alas, it’s not to be. Reggie Fils-Aime, President of Nintendo of America, announced that a Nintendo 64 Classic is not in the works.

In an interview with Kotaku, Fils-Aime explained that developing a Nintendo 64 Classic at the moment just doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, business-wise:

“We were clear when we did the first two Classic series that, for us, these were limited time opportunities that were a way for us as a business to bridge from the conclusion of Wii U as a hardware system to the launch of Nintendo Switch. That was the very strategic reason we launched the NES Classic system.”

Nintendo sees the Classic line of consoles as a limited-time project, rather than an annual release. Instead, Nintendo hopes fans will use Nintendo Switch Online for all of their retro gaming needs.

Still, when pressed on whether a Nintendo 64 Classic would ever be released, Fils-Aime said, “I would not ever rule something out,but what I can tell you is certainly that’s not in our planning horizon.”

So while a Nintendo 64 Classic isn’t totally off the table, it doesn’t look like it will be making an appearance anytime soon. Nintendo fans will have to seek their N64 fix elsewhere.