When it comes to entertaining millennials, everything old is new again.

This week, Nintendo announced plans to release Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES) Classic, a miniature version of the gaming system that came out in 1991. The news generated enormous hype: A few sites in the United Kingdom offered preorders and quickly sold out. Potential customers in the United States took to the internet to strategize how to snag one of the systems, expecting demand to outpace supply. “We’re standing in line wherever and however long it might take,” one Facebook commenter said.

Today’s gaming systems like the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 have 64-bit graphics, compared to 16 bits on SNES, and enormous computing power. A modern game like Call of Duty needs 60 gigabytes of memory, according to the gaming site Polygon, whereas an SNES game usually took no more than 4 megabytes.

But the SNES Classic has something the modern game systems don’t have: nostalgia. Nostalgia marketing is a go-to tactic for companies trying to reach millennials. Rather than fostering a new emotional connection with a product, nostalgia ties a product to a strong, positive emotion that already exists. Millennials, who grew up in decades of economic prosperity, have troves of happy memories tied to the material and cultural staples of their youth.

That’s why brands like Star Wars, Pokemon, and Lego have had so much success in recent years. (Nostalgia is the key ingredient of the Netflix phenomenon Stranger Things, a spooky series set in the 1980s.)

Nintendo capitalizes on nostalgia by adding an element of scarcity. Last year, the company made a limited offering of the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) Classic, a miniature version of the console that preceded the SNES. Savvy customers quickly lapped up the NES Classic for only $60 and are still selling them on eBay for around $200. Nintendo told Business Insider the SNES Classic would be available for three months starting Sept. 29 of this year. The result? Millennials continue placing a high value on Nintendo and its products long into adulthood.

A Downton Abbey movie? Yes, please!

There are two kinds of people when it comes to the British period drama Downton Abbey: Those who love it and those who haven’t watched it yet. For six seasons, the high-brow soap opera, set between 1912 and 1926, was must-see TV, and now its creators say a follow-up movie is in the works. Michael Edelstein, president of NBCUniversal International Studios, said last week at a Downton Abbey exhibit in Singapore he hopes production on the film will begin in 2018. “We are working on getting the script right and then we’ve got to figure out how to get the [cast] together. Because as you know, people go on and do other things. But we’re hopeful to make a movie sometime next year,” Edelstein said.

Cast members at the exhibit said the plan was news to them. Laura Carmichael, who played Lady Edith Crawley, welcomed the idea, though. “Tell my agent, because we’re still waiting to know. We’re hoping that will happen soon,” she said.

All six seasons of Downton Abbey are available for streaming on Amazon Prime. The show dealt with the same subject matter popular on primetime TV—sex, violence, cheating, and greed—but the characters faced those topics with a worldview based on Judeo-Christian morality. The cycle of sin, conviction, redemption, and repentance reoccurred throughout the story, and most of the episodes were clean enough for older kids to watch. —L.L.

SaveSave

Extreme theater

A new stage adaptation of George Orwell’s 1984 opened on Broadway last week and has audience members literally fainting in terror. The play uses blood-curdling effects to recreate scenes in which Big Brother tortures the main character, Winston Smith. A warning accompanies the show: “This production contains flashing lights, strobe effects, loud noises, gunshots, smoking, and graphic depictions of violence and torture. Children under 13 will not be admitted.” The show had several successful runs in London, but U.S. reviewers don’t seem impressed. Ben Brantley of The New York Times called it “feel-bad entertainment,” and The Hollywood Reporter’s David Rooney said it was “sphincter-clenching.” —L.L.

Days in court

Bill Cosby’s ongoing legal defense against sexual assault accusations moved to the West Coast this week. In a hearing Tuesday, a California judge set a trial date of July 30, 2018, for a civil lawsuit against Cosby for allegedly abusing a 15-year-old girl at the Playboy Mansion in 1974. On June 17, a judge declared a mistrial after a jury deadlocked while deliberating whether Cosby drugged and assaulted a woman in his suburban Philadelphia home in 2004. Prosecutors have vowed to retry that case, but Cosby’s legal team declared the outcome a victory. The comedian is fighting 10 lawsuits on both coasts filed by women who claim he assaulted them. —L.L.

A conversation with Jennifer Knapp

On Friday’s Listening In, Warren Cole Smith interviews singer-songwriter Jennifer Knapp, a popular 2000s contemporary Christian artist who has become an LGBT activist. Smith challenges Knapp’s theology and explores the factors that influenced her conversion to Christianity and subsequent coming out as a lesbian. —L.L.