The Holiday season is in full force and avid gamers have packed consumer electronics stores to get there hands on the next generation of gaming consoles, the Xbox 360, Nintendo Wii, and Sony PS3.

 
But one Los Angeles based company, Messiah Entertainment, promises a gaming alternative for everyone who wishes for the nostalgic, simpler gaming of the original Nintendo’s heyday. Messiah Entertainment’s Generation NEX plays practically the entire catalog of both NES (Nintendo Entertainment System) and Famicom (Japanese Nintendo) games (97.25% of them to be exact), a gleaming ray of hope amongst this season’s complicated systems and steep prices.

 
Selling for $59.99 (console package and one newly designed controller) the Generation NEX has drastic improvements over old NES systems that are becoming increasingly difficult to find in decent condition. Besides playing all NES and Famicom games without having to blow and blow and blow on the game cartridges for hours, the NEX also offers dual mono sound, integrated 2.4 GHz wireless connectivity for wireless peripherals, and works with all your old NES accessories. Another nice feature of the Generation NEX is the slim, solid construction featuring recessed power and reset buttons, a great improvement over the NES for those times when you would accidentally hit the reset button on the last boss in Zelda.

 
The improvements are not just in the system itself, game play is vastly improved with Messiah’s redesigned controllers. Messiah’s stock NEX controller features touch-activated turbo and slow motion buttons, set onto a more ergonomic, rounded controller. These useful and efficient features can also be seen on Messiah’s Wireless NEX Controller pairs (two controllers selling for $49.99), which work seamlessly with the NEX, finally offering retro-gamers wireless NES gaming support. Messiah Entertainment is also selling a Wireless NEX Arcade stick which is extremely useful for a variety of games, specifically arcade-ported NES games. Have your old NES controllers? No worries, just plug them in and they’ll work perfectly fine with the Generation NEX.

 
With the reemergence of classic NES gaming, it comes as no surprise that Nintendo has released a NES virtual console for the new Wii. However, the Nintendo Wii might not be the best solution for classic NES gaming, as any gamer will have to repurchase NES games they might already own for 5 dollars, which can get expensive given all the great titles for the original Nintendo. Another drawback to the Wii as a replacement for the NEX is the likely possibility that the Wii will not support many of the titles from third-party NES developers and unlicensed games, while the Generation NEX guarantees to play 97.25% of the entire NES / Famicom library. For example, the majority of Wii NES virtual console games on the Wii Marketplace are Nintendo exclusives and not from companies like Data East, Taito, Konami, etc., an obvious disadvantage not found in the Generation NEX.

So get your Contra, Trojan, and Kid Nikki cartridges ready! Given the Generation NEX's inexpensive price, high-quality, and efficient game play, gamers of all types will be pleased to see the NES is back and better than ever.

Check out the details on the Generation NEX here.