NES Remix not on 3DS because of lack of 'machine power'

NES Remix and NES Remix 2 have been pleasant additions to the Wii U digital library, so why can't the same idea be applied to mix Nintendo's classic handheld games on 3DS? Series director Koichi Hayashida explains why.

Ozzie Mejia

April 21, 2014 4:00 PM

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NES Remix has been a fun look into Nintendo's 8-bit past. But while the game seems like an appropriate fit for handheld, director Koichi Hayashida says the Remix concept requires Wii U's more advanced hardware.

"One of the easiest ways to answer that is to say, 'I was working on [Super Mario] 3D World, which was developed on Wii U. So I was already familiar with the system's architecture and developing for that platform lent itself to the early stages of the project,'" Hayashida explained to IGN. "But, if you step into the shadows a bit more, in order to accomplish what we wanted with NES Remix, and get the effect we wanted out of it and the value that we wanted it to have, we needed some more machine power."

The additional machine power came from Wii U, with Hayashida adding that a Remix game would be more difficult to produce for the less-powerful 3DS. "It's just that the Wii U had the machine power we were looking for in order for us to build the software we envisioned from the get go," he said.

While a handheld Remix may be ruled out for now, NES Remix 2 is set to arrive on Wii U later this week and our own Steve Watts thought it was pretty decent. Nintendo has released a new trailer, which can be seen below.

Ozzie Mejia

Senior Editor

Ozzie has been playing video games since picking up his first NES controller at age 5. He has been into games ever since, only briefly stepping away during his college years. But he was pulled back in after spending years in QA circles for both THQ and Activision, mostly spending time helping to push forward the Guitar Hero series at its peak. Ozzie has become a big fan of platformers, puzzle games, shooters, and RPGs, just to name a few genres, but he’s also a huge sucker for anything with a good, compelling narrative behind it. Because what are video games if you can't enjoy a good story with a fresh Cherry Coke?