Looking for a Nintendo Classic Mini? So is the rest of the world who didn’t get one.

One of the most coveted items this year may be a little hard to find.

The Nintendo Classic Mini is based on gaming world nostalgia. It comes with 30 games pre-installed and includes an original controller. The cost is listed at $59.99 and additional controllers are available for $10.

“We are trying to find one,” John Spranza said. “My younger son, Nick, wants one, he likes the old school stuff.”

Spranza himself is pretty interested in buying the device, too, he admitted.

“These are the older games I grew up playing,” he laughed. “Playing these, I might be able to beat him.”

Cynthia Armstrong Chaplin, formerly of Rome, now lives in California, and also is searching for the device, she said. She bought the original Nintendo when it was first released and said it was her first gaming system.

“I want to be able to play the games I grew up with like the original Super Mario series,” she said. “These games are nostalgic, they have a certain charm in their simplicity.”

The classic game is back in a familiar form as a replica of Nintendo’s original home console, which was released in 1985.

The device also allows players to choose different display modes, ranging from a filter that makes it look like an old TV with scan lines or another that gives an original Nintendo-game look with a slight stretch. The “Pixel Perfect” option allows players to see each pixel as a square, so the games look exactly as they were originally designed.

The games are classics such as Castlevania, Donkey Kong, Double Dragon II: The Revenge, Dr. Mario, Final Fantasy, Galaga, Ice Climber, Kid Icarus, Kirby’s Adventure, Mario Brothers, Mega Man 2, Metroid, Ninja Gaiden, Pac-Man, StarTropics, Super Mario Bros., The Legend of Zelda and Zelda II: The Adventure of Link.

Zane Cochran, an instructor at Berry College and founder of HackBerry — a space where the college’s students may design, invent and build everything from video games to robots — said his students have already been mining the video game nostalgia craze.

“Last year, a student who graduated in the spring built an arcade game in a wooden cabinet that looked like the classic arcade video games,” he said. “She downloaded the classic games and installed them. She left her project at the HackBerry Lab for a while, and everyone got hooked on it.”

When the student picked up her project, other students decided to build another one. So now, one student has built a coffee table with Pac-Man installed in it and another is working on a similar arcade game.

Meghan Dooling, the creator of the Pac-Man coffee table, said she was originally inspired by her dad’s love of the classic arcade games.

“Growing up, dad always wanted an old-style arcade game,” she explained. “I wanted to build something like that.”

Dooling said she loves the classic games for many reasons, including the fact that they are good for all ages.

“I feel like so many games now are more about warfare or violent,” she said. “If you go back to the older ones, they are fun for any age. I can play with my grandma and my 6-year-old sister.”

As a student who loves new technology, Dooling is pleased to see how the old tech is “crossing time.”

“It is not obsolete at all,” she said. “It’s bringing generations together.”

Cochran said he is happy to see the rerelease of the gaming system, but he doesn’t need one — he still has his original system.

“My 9-year-old son and I play on it,” he said. “There is a definite draw to it. When we downloaded some 8-bit games in the lab the other day, one student spent about three hours playing them.”

The Mini was released Nov. 11, with every store across town selling out the device that day.

Employees at GameStop in Riverbend Market Place had people waiting in line overnight to purchase the entertainment system. An employee at the store said the store was sold out before they opened the doors.

Toys “R” Us also had some on the date of release, but they, too, had a line waiting for them on release day and they were sold out quickly, a manager said.

Local managers do not know when they will receive more of the system.