In case you missed it, Nintendo is releasing an adorable mini NES console that includes 30 classic games. It's not unlike the Flashback systems, but this time it's coming from the big N themselves, which likely equates to a certain level of quality that I'm looking forward to. Where things really starts looking different from other similar products is the fact that this little guy includes an HDMI out, and earlier today, that fact just got a bit cooler.

If you've ever heard me rant about it on The Stone Age Gamer Podcast, you may know that I hate the NES Virtual Console on Wii U. Not the VC in general, just the specific NES emulation. It's awful. It's laggy, dark, and out of focus. The sins of this are compounded by 1. If you switch over to Wii mode on the SAME CONSOLE and play the same games on the Wii VC, they look spectacular, and 2. Every other console represented on the Wii U VC looks flawless. Naturally, when they announced this NES Classic Edition, I thought that we were going to get similar visuals to those used in NES Remix or the Wii U VC service. Today, I found out that I was pleasantly wrong.

It turns out that there will be a CRT filter (likely similar to the one used in Super Mario Maker) and a pixel perfect mode, which if you've played GBA games on the Wii U Virtual console, you know looks pretty darn good. But most importantly, they specifically called out the perfect squares of the pixels being represented. Now, a large portion of the nostalgia related to the NES era has to do with the graphics. That pixel art has become part of pop culture itself, and seeing Nintendo treat these games with such respect warms my heart to no end.

So yes, I own these games several times over, and yes I was planning on getting this thing anyway just for the novelty of it, but now I'm genuinely excited to play around with it. If only they included EarthBound Beginnings...