This trademark probably means nothing other than renewing their monopoly on the involved copyrights, so I wouldn't be expecting anything to come of this, and especially not this year.

Even if it IS for an N64 Mini, then that's not going to be released in 2018. Like some others have already said, Nintendo is quite busy with re-releasing the NES Mini, continuing to make SNES Minis, and then there's obviously their main area of attention, the Switch.

So, all these factors combined, make it highly unlikely that this Mini, if it is even going to become a reality, is going to be released that soon.

But having said that, I certainly wouldn't mind, and even without Rare's titles, there will be more than enough games left, although personally, I'm actually not going to be surprised at all if Microsoft and Nintendo strike a deal over this. They've been cooperative multiple times before, both on the GBA and on the DS, so I see no reason why this couldn't happen, or at least not any insurmountable hurdles that will prevent this from ever happening...

And sure, those graphics have certainly aged worse than those from earlier consoles, but some of the things I've read here in the comments section, border on the ridiculous or insane.

The games themselves are still perfectly playable and entertaining enough to warrant giving them another go. Once you're playing for a couple of minutes, and let go of the microscopic view of all that's happening (or not happening) on the screen and just get yourself in the game, you won't even notice anymore, or at the very least, you'll notice it less.

A classic is a classic, and remains a classic, no matter how many years will pass. And having played most of these games more than enough over the years, courtesy of a soft modded Wii, I can definitely say that these graphics, as seen over either component or HDMI cables, are anything but horrible.

I would personally call them simple, or worst case scenario: somewhat crude, but the water and snow effects in Wave Race and 1080 Snowboarding for example, still hold up to this day, as do the physics.

And there are some other games, amongst which at the very least a dozen, who also make use of the expansion pack to "up" the graphics to high res, and those will also still look decent enough, as long as you can (temporarily) get your head out of the 4K era...