New Nintendo Mini NES to have Extra Retro HDMI Modes

We covered the impending autumn release of the Nintendo Mini NES in a recent article.

Further information has emerged from nintendoeverything.com who have translated a French language Canadian radio show in which the communications manager for Nintendo in Canada, Julie Gagnon, revealed that the unit will come with some special retro video modes.

It sounds like there will be a mode that emulates the characteristics of old CRT televisions. Hopefully this will be something like the TV mimic mode you can enable in the great ZX Spectrum Emulator Spectaculator which adds scan lines, pixel smoothing and the general picture degradation caused by using an RF video connection.

Before enabling TV mimic mode (left) and after (right). Note the fine horizontal scan lines, pixel blurring and some very slight ghosting. (Click the image to enlarge.)
Before enabling TV mimic mode (left) and after (right). Note the fine horizontal scan lines, pixel blurring and some very slight ghosting. (Click the image to enlarge.)

There’s also a ‘pixel perfect’ mode that we’re guessing just makes your modern telly down-scale itself to match the original lower definition of the day. Then it sounds like there will be a mode that retains the 4:3 aspect ratio but using the full benefit of modern displays to give the best possible picture.

Who knows for sure, this is just speculation based on a translated quote, time will tell but it’ll be fun finding out.




Leave a Comment