Nintendo might not have been the first company to dream up the notion of the 'mini' console, but it has arguably been the most successful, thanks to its massively popular NES and SNES Classic Editions.
Since then, we've seen the likes of Sega, SNK, Konami and Taito join the micro-console club, but there have also been some mini-systems based on home computers, like the ZX Spectrum and C64. The latter, made by UK-based company Retro Games, is about to get a successor, proving that there's still some mileage left in the micro-console market.
The A500 Mini is due for release early next year and will bring with it 25 classic Commodore Amiga titles (the copyright minefield surrounding both Commodore and the Amiga brand means that neither of those names can be officially used in the machine's title). Koch Media is handling the distribution.
Here are all of the included games – interestingly, you'll be able to side-load more titles using a USB drive:
Alien Breed 3D
Alien Breed: Special Edition'92
Another World
Arcade Pool
ATR: All Terrain Racing
Battle Chess
Cadaver
California Games
The Chaos Engine
Dragons Breath
F-16 Combat Pilot
Kick Off 2
The Lost Patrol
Paradroid 90
Pinball Dreams
Project-X: Special Edition 93
Qwak
The Sentinel
Simon the Sorcerer
Speedball 2: Brutal Deluxe
Stunt Car Racer
Super Cars II
Titus The Fox: To Marrakech And Back
Worms: The Director's Cut
Zool: Ninja Of The "Nth" Dimension

All of the usual features are included, such as save states and screen filters, and the machine even ships with a mouse and joypad (the latter is based on the utterly horrendous CD32 controller, so let's hope they've made some improvements). The unit outputs in 720p via HDMI.
The original Commodore Amiga launched in 1985 and was one of the first home platforms to feature a 16-bit CPU. Competing with the similarly-specced Atari ST, the Amiga became one of the most popular home computers of its era and was widely supported by western studios; many of its more popular games – such as Lemmings, Sensible Soccer and Cannon Fodder – made their way onto consoles such as the SNES and Game Boy. Spin-off systems such as the CDTV and CD32 flopped badly, however, and the rise of consoles such as the Mega Drive and SNES – as well as the ascendence of the PC – saw the Amiga's market share diminish to the point where Commodore was forced to declare bankruptcy in 1994.
While other companies still see the value in micro-consoles, Nintendo hasn't produced any new products in this sector of the market since the SNES Classic Edition – although rumours of Game Boy and N64 versions got fans dreaming a while back.
The A500 Mini is expected to sell for £119.99 / EUR€129.99 / USD$139.99 / AUD$199.99 when it launches in early 2022.
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Comments 59
Day one if it has Typhoon Thompson! (So tempted by this.)
Fantastic. Best news ever. I look into detail later, hope the game selection is good
Edit (again): Chaos Engine, Speedball 2, Alien Breed are listed on the Amazon Details
oh cool can't wait to see what it has to offer....I still have old Amiga games on floppy wonder if I can somehow transfer to the mini with USB floppy drive?
I'm not the demographic for this, but I can see why this would sell. It's definitely leagues ahead of other "mini" consoles by including an official method to load more games. Thumbs up.
Good gravy! I'm so wanting this. Can I justify £100 odd though? Yes. Yes I can.
Oh you can side load? Oh very interested in this
I hope they can get sensible soccer and Dizzy on there.
I'm very interested in this. I have the C64 mini, and after some modding, it's a super fun system. I never played any Amiga games as a kid, but the games included on this are already better than what were included on the C64.
An Amiga Mini? I find that rather extraordinary. I can remember when the Amiga was the most advanced PC on the market. It was even used for early CGI effects in Hollywood productions like Robocop and Babylon 5.
This will surely destroy the Switch.
Only 25 games!?!? £120!?!?
I had an Amiga back in the day. Bought at computing forum thing at Earls Court. I had 100s of games. They have a few classics named in that list but truly 25 for that price it’s a no from me and I’m it core demographic target.
SWOS, Cannon Fodder, Lotus Turbo Challenge, monkey Island, Turrican 2, Sim City, Wings, formula one Grand Prix, pinball dreams, Chaos Engine, Indiana Jones and the fate of Atlantis, north & south, super cars II… Hunter and PGA tour golf are probably my faves that spring to mind apart from the few in the list announced… so that’s 15… just without thinking… so many classics and I’d want both Lotus games… both Turricans and all the lemmings…
Give us the N64, Saturn & Dreamcast!
Nintendo should take the modern Game & Watch one step further. Make the Virtual Console Boy with the ability of dowloading NES, GB, SNES, N64, GBC, GBA and maybe even NGC games. That would sell like hot cakes!
oh wow! I have such fond memories of my amiga! Games a doddle to copy and this was when i was at school, so we all had boxes of ripped off games!
Can't really see myself getting one though, most of my favourite games were arcade conversions, many of which i have on my switch.
But fond memories playing Speedball 2, Xenon, Lotus esprit turbo challenge, super cars, iron iron man stewarts super off road, new zealand story, rainbow islands, rodland, turrican, james pond robocod, the beach volleyball game made by ocean?
Gonna pre order this I have the c64 mini and I bought a usb memory stick with practically every game that was made for the c64 hoping something like that will become available for this my only problem with the c64 mini is the horrific joystick
So many great games available for the Amiga there's no way they are going to be able to narrow that down to 25 without missing out on some absolute classics.
Anyone else remember that Great Giana Sisters platform game for Amiga? It was brilliant but got instantly banned.
@BillyB yeah played it on both the c64 and Amiga. Think rainbow arts got scared of Nintendo it’s so similar to super Mario bros practically a 1-1 copy
The Amiga literally spawned so many brand new genres. Dune 2 I think was the very first true real time strategy game "RTS" It was beyond mind blowing when my friend loaded it up and said you're going to love this!! There are too many quality games to even mention and of course there is plenty of garbage as most of these games were done by a few people.
Blood Money and Xenon II Megablast and it’s an instabuy for me.
Got a Mister early this Year and tested some of the Games.
Some were better than the Console Variations, some much worse.
For Example Jurassic Park has so much in common in its DNA with the Super Nintendo Version, but is overall better designed.
Street Fighter 2 on the other Hand is crap.
Other Games i have tested seemed as well as the Dos Versions that i knew.
Overall, seems like it was a pretty cool Machine.
Sad that it isn't still around as a Competitor to Microsoft and Apple for Desktop Machines.
As the Trend goes to a golden and hip Cage, a third (commercial) Party could break that Trend.
I’m getting this just for speedball II
Ice cream, ice cream!
I jumped ship from my 8-bit Atari XL as soon as I saw an arcade perfect version of Marble Madness running on the new Amiga. I loved the graphic innovation of those early Cinemaware titles & the bitmap bros games & massive sprites on Sword of Sodan
I think I will buy it anyway, but I feel 25 games is not enough for a computer. With the NES and SNES Mini the included games covered everything I did own back in the day, which really gave me the nostalgic feel these machines were build to convey, but 25 games will not even come close to the boxes and boxes full of Amiga and C64 floppy disks I bought on the flea markets.
To be honest: The most fond memories of these computers are actually not of playing certain games, but to do hour long dives into the content of unlabeled floppy disks on the search of hidden gems. Yeah, highly problematic from a modern anti-piracy view, but I had zero awareness for that as kid.
Day one for me.
So many great memories from the Commodore days. The Amiga was king among those. Sensible Soccer, Project X, Cannon Fodder, F1, Walker, Stunt Car Racer, Wings and X-Copy 😀 among others.
Totally getting this!
Love my C64 Mini. Cant wait!
EDIT: This is available for Pre-order on Toys.ie if anyone wants to avoid import charges for Ireland.
I had no history with this system so I'll pass but for those who had fond memories this is a treat to you. Still they could had include more than 25 games, at least include 40 games like what Sega and Atari did.
Speedball 2? Loved that game.
@samuelvictor
They sorted the memory stick thing - also it's got to be permanently inserted, it functions as normal. Mine has 10,000+.
The original Worms and Zool by themselves make this worthwhile!
@Gs69 They released a second version of the joystick called the C64 Micro Switch Joystick that is apparently better than the original one. Also, Speedlink released the Competition Pro Extra that's much better.
@BionicDodo I need to look into getting one it’s the only thing that lets it down for me I actually got a DualShock 4 working but it’s hit and miss and the menus and virtual keyboard don’t always work
This machine made me hooked with gaming, and is from my age when i was 16.
Was it not for my older brother, who earned to much money, i did not get it at that time.
It was like €1200,- at that time. He also got one and delivered the games for me.
I definetly want this to have, it is one of the best(if not best) home computers ever made. I realy loved the sound and 16bit colors. It could not compare to a megadrive, but the games had a unique sound, and rare gameplay.
It also looks decorative in my home.
And i am curious. How many amgia games it can play because i see some a1200 and a4000 games in the trailer.
It would be great, if the keyboard actualy works, if not there will be bluetooth on it for an additional keyboard.
Woohoo. Pleasure overload!!!!
I miss my Amiga so am pretty tempted by this. I remember my mind being blown back in the day when I saw how good the graphics were on treasure Island Dizzy compared to my Amstrad CPC 464.
Would be great if this had Cinemaware games like it came from the desert and rocket ranger!
I remember unsuccessfully trying my best to persuade my parents to buy me one when I was a wee lad. In hindsight the price was a lot in today’s money. I guess that is why the consoles were able to take over in the end.
@Nintendo_Alski hah same for me but with Batman! I couldn’t believe how good the sound was especially…
@samuelvictor Andrews? What's that mean?
@SwitchForce Unless you HAVE a USB floppy drive that can read Amiga disks natively, I don't think it's possible. Closest thing I can think of is getting an Amiga floppy drive and using adapters with adapters for it.
One of my friends had an A500 in the '90, I lover it, except for the load times and the fact you needed to swap floppies in some games...but the games were (usually) good: the only really bad thing was that all the joysticks (my friend had) had only one button, it was annoying for some games that needed at least two!
im more excited for this than a switch never to be seen pro
@Nintendo_Alski I was the same going from Amstrad to Amiga. Ocean games / conversions were very good on the Amstrad, but I remember the difference of Batman the Movie and was amazed
Yes please! My word if you can run AmigaOS on this thing... I have licensed disk images on my PC!
Get Sensible World Of Soccer on this and that'll be me just about finished with the outdoors and people.
@IronMan30 ok, I get your sarcasm now.
It includes some great games but at £120, the Amiga had so many more fantastic games that will miss the list of 25.
I would normally be all over this as the Amiga following the C64 had a big place in my childhood but whilst I can afford this I cannot justify the cost at 25 games.
I still have over 150 original amiga game disks, some boxed, so I would rather chance getting lucky at a car boot and finding an old one. Unfortunately I had to bin one that I picked up five years ago for £10 due to water damage from storage.
Whilst I am not advocating this, you can on occasion get the full catalogue of games on a CDrom on ebay for under £10.
@samuelvictor Redimensioned isn't a sequel, it's a widescreen remake/remaster of the Genesis port of the first Zool game
If it sells, I hope they give the same treatment to Zool 2 (hopefully basing it on the Jaguar port too)
Fond memories there. My favourite game was a Boulder Dash Clone called Emerald Mine. Really loved that game. Ports of Call was also a lovely game.
Happy memories. Throw in some Settlers, some Syndicate, some SWOS and some other games that don’t begin with S, and you’ve got a winner.
Had an A600HD - with a 20Mb hard drive. Saved me swapping around the 9-11 discs of Legend of Kyrandia. Loved that machine.
@Krull cant remember whether Monkey Island had that disk count beat but it was literally every scene changed needed a disk swap.
One of my fondest memories was the unique anti piracy approaches you got with games. What is the 3rd word of the 4th page in paragraph 2. A cardboard disk that you had to rotate for a code. A code that would only show up in the manual with a red filter bit of plastic. I miss these little touches along with manuals.
I would love to see a best of article covering some of these.
It's funny that I even remember some publishers advocating that you create copies of the original disks as back ups to use.
@Whitestrider zipsticks were the weapon of choice. SNES and Megadrive pads were still considered weird abominations at that time. Well in the UK only. It was all about the joystick.....In hindsight the worst name you could have used.
LOVED MY AMIGA 500 so very Very interested but I’d prefer to see a bunch of games that didn’t make it to 16-bit consoles but regardless here’s what I’d like to see whether they made it to consoles or not:
Vyper
Puck-Man
Menace
Dark Castle
Operation Wolf
Lotus Turbo
Arkanoid
The Three Stooges
Zool 2
It came from the desert
Marble Madness
Winter Games
California Games
Summer Games
Blood Money
Xenon II
Sword of Sodan
Bubble Bobble
SWIV
Just a very small list of tons!!
Day one! Amusingly my pre-order with Amazon has an estimated delivery of Friday 1st April ! Let's hope that's placeholder and they haven't gone with that date...!
Only concern my side is the game selection. The Amiga had so many decent games it's impossible to get a list of 25 that will satisfy anybody. There isn't a single game on that first set announced I'd personally be interested in - although Battle Chess was always fun.
The promise of additional side loading and the inevitable hack to add what you want combined with the fact Amiga emulation is genuinely still a bit of a nightmare for the average gamer and with certain games/roms make this a good package.
Some of the games I'll hope to see in the next announcement...
North & South, Batman The Movie, Turbo Outrun, New Zealand Story, Rainbow Islands, Bubble Bobble, Onslaught, Cannon Fodder, Xenon II Megablast, Captive, Blood Money, Soldier of Light, Eliminator, Nebulus, Hostages.
No Swos. No party
Really hoping megablast is on there!
@Duncanballs
I remember way back it was hilarious when one of our friends came round to show off his new game Elite on ZX Spectrum, but failed to get the code working thanks to struggling to use Lenslok, even though he had genuinely purchased a retail copy. He later claimed to have got it working at home but I think that was to save face, as we never saw it running to this day.
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