28th January 2012, 8:35 PM
They'd take more to make, but my idea is that they'd be sold on a "time limited" basis every few years (think Disney Vault) for actual cash monies instead of "coins". They'd certainly be cheaper to make now than back then. If they made an NES, it would have to resemble the original model. It's just not that "retro" if it was the later remodel. Yeah, the cartridge slot would need to be changed to fix the original's flaw, and it would probably have an updated a/v plug ("stereo" even though the NES is mono anyway). Other than that, it'd be doable. Again, the idea is making limited runs for a smaller market. I think there's money to be had there. I mean there's already a decent "reproduction" business out there (and that leads me to warn you to be careful shopping for certain rare games). The difference would be it would be made to the original specs, which Nintendo has, instead of a "close enough" reverse engineering like current reproduction systems and carts, which occasionally come back to bite you when some exotically coded game doesn't work right in the system.
"On two occasions, I have been asked [by members of Parliament], 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able to rightly apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question." ~ Charles Babbage (1791-1871)