According to a news story that came out from Forbes.com, the Super NES Mini pre-orders sold out in less than eight minutes. Apparently, last year's NES Classic was also very hard to get.
I have fond memories of my NES days from Mega Man 1 to Battle Toads, Mario and Final Fantasy. However, I never did get an SNES. My Brother and I were both adolescents or tweens around the time that the SNES was big. My Dad was all "there's no difference between these games and the NES ones, they just look better. You play too much and I'm sick of the music."
The release of the SNES Classic/Mini was announced several months ago now. It's an opportunity for a lot of people for various reasons. I picked up the story that the machine was dropping pretty much right away for animeright.news. For 70 or 80 bucks, the SNES Classic is a pretty good deal as it's packaged with over 20 games.
At this point, I am of the mind that my Dad was right and pretty much all the games are basically the same. I've had the XBox, XBox360, PS2, PS3 and PS4. By the time I got the PS4, I was pretty much over games. I even went into denial and bought a second PS4 after selling the first.
I think it's telling that no one was able to sell the XBox One or the PS4 on their respective release days for any real markup.
To get and play the SNES is a tempting proposition but I've heard the old games can only really be called affordable for top Steemit Users, the ones making bank. I think the 20+ games bundled would probably last pretty long. On the other hand, the Nintendo Switch looks pretty different and interesting.
So, do you want an SNES Mini/Classic ASAP but are locked out of pre-orders because of the low allocations and hype?
Back when the XBox one came out, I found that even though everyone who took pre-orders was sold out, there are stores that don't take preorders. Check your local electronics stores and small regional chains on the day of release. There may only be four stores of a chain located in 200 sq miles but a call or trip may be worth it. Chances are, they don't and didn't take preorders. The store that had the XBox One still had it in stock iirc between 1 pm and 3 pm on the day it released.
On the other hand, you could build an emulator with the Raspberry Pi platform for about the price of the SNES Classic with thousands of games from multiple consoles. There are guys online, I believe on sites such as Ebay where people will sell you preloaded SD Cards with the games and operating system for the emulator.
SNES, Switch or Emulator, whatever you choose, be safe and have fun.