The C64 Mini is basically what you’d get if you shrunk the case of a 1982 Commod 64 computer, added an HDMI port, and pre-installed 64 classic games.
First announced last September, the Retro Games Ltd has now revealed that the new system will be available starting March 29th, for $70 (or £70 or €80, depending on where you live).
The company has also revealed the list of games that will ship on the C64 Mini. But the C64 Mini isn’t just for gaming. It’s also a fully functional computer that supports the BASIC programming language and works with USB keyboards.
That helps set the C64 Mini apart from other retro game consoles like Nintendo’s NES Classic and SNES Classic, which are both designed to play games, but not much else.
The C64 Mini comes with a joystick and ships with the following games:
- AlleyKat
- Anarchy
- Armalyte: Competition Edition
- Avenger
- Battle Valley
- Boulder Dash
- Bounder
- California Games
- Chip’s Challenge
- Confuzion
- Creatures
- Cyberdyne Warrior
- Cybernoid: The Fighting Machine
- Cybernoid II: The Revenge
- Deflektor
- Everyone’s A Wally
- Firelord
- Gribbly’s Day Out
- Hawkeye
- Heartland
- Herobotix
- Highway Encounter
- Hunter’s Moon
- Hysteria
- Impossible Mission
- Impossible Mission II
- IO
- Jumpman
- Mega Apocalypse
- Mission A.D
- Monty Mole
- Monty on the Run
- Nebulus
- Netherworld
- Nobby the Aardvark
- Nodes Of Yesod
- Paradroid
- Pitstop II
- Rana Rama
- Robin Of The Wood
- Rubicon
- Skate Crazy
- Skool Daze
- Snare
- Speedball
- Speedball II: Brutal Deluxe
- Spindizzy
- Star Paws
- Steel
- Street Sports Baseball
- Summer Games II (inc. Summer Games I)
- Super Cycle
- Temple of Apshai Trilogy
- The Arc Of Yesod
- Thing on a Spring
- Thing Bounces Back
- Trailblazer
- Cosmic Causeway: Trailblazer II
- Uchi Mata
- Uridium
- Who Dares Wins II
- Winter Games
- World Games
- Zynaps
The C64 Mini seems like the sort of device that’s more likely to appeal to nostalgic gamers and PC owners of a certain age than to new audiences itching to get their hands on a device that plays 35-year-old games with pretty lousy graphics by modern standards. But $70 isn’t a lot of money to spend for a trip down memory lane.
For what it’s worth, the original Commodore 64 was considered cheap for the time, with a $595 price tag (the equivalent of about $1500 today).
via Guru3D
🙂 I’m in… as long as they don’t charge harm and leg for the shipping to south europe…
Choplifter? Wizzard of Wor? Last Ninja? Karateka? Come on! Can we at least sideload?
Hoping that they have enough units to satisfy demand. Afterall, the C64 doesn’t hold the “best selling computer of all time” title for nothing.
Another item for the knick-knack shelf… or the junk drawer right next to the Raspberry Pi.
If you can’t find an use for a RasPi, you didn’t try hard enough. It’s like a hammer: you don’t use it all the time, but that doesn’t mean it’s useless!
Exactly, you could at least run PiHole at a minimum? The Pi is great for things like that.
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I’m wondering about the legality of this. I notice that the company website doesn’t use the word “Commodore” so it doesn’t appear to be officially licensed; for that matter, I don’t know if there is any entity left to license the form factor from. (Nintendo, of course, wouldn’t have this problem since they created the original hardware on which their retro game consoles are based.) Never having used a Commodore 64, I’ve no idea who created the games, but surely someone must own the copyrights.
Drat! No Joust!
Aw, no Mini-Putt? That’s OK, plenty of goodness here!
Plus, I could always fire up one of the C=64s I’m still hoarding…
the “included” keyboard doesn’t work. why?
Because it would cost more than $70? And maybe because using a half-sized keyboard would be a real pain.
This is way cool! How can I pre-order one?