The Mini NES is Extremely Difficult to Mod

The Nintendo Entertainment System revolutionised the home console market and introduced a number of iconic franchises including Mario, Zelda and Metroid. Not only that, the system features a bold design which can easily be recognised. Given today’s thriving retro gaming market, it seems sensible for Nintendo to pay homage to their history and release classic consoles. The Mini NES is a wonderful machine and comes with 30 classic games in a small, affordable package. Of course, your favourite NES title might not be included which limits the device’s appeal. Unfortunately, any hopes of modding the product to support NES ROMs via an SD card have been dashed by an early teardown. As you can see, the only means of changing the default configuration is to desolder the flash memory:

This isn’t a surprising revelation because Nintendo has released consoles with region locks and other kinds of encryption. They clearly don’t want anyone tampering with the device and allowing support for the NES’ full library. This is a shame because it’s so easy to play NES games through emulation on almost anything and adding this functionality would help to make the Mini NES to be a great legal alternative to emulation. Despite this, it’s looking likely to be a best seller this Christmas and I’ll probably pick one up myself for the nostalgia.