Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles fans and retro gaming enthusiasts were given a surprise gift from Konami this week. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Cowabunga Collection will feature 13 TMNT games from the franchise's late '80s to early '90s heydays. Players can expect a surprisingly exhaustive collection that covers classic games from the arcades and Nintendo and Sega's 8-bit, 16-bit and handheld consoles.

The game's first trailer had many fans hyped by the Konami announcement instead of angry about one for the first time in a while. While some were eager to press money into the publisher's hands, others weren't sold on the Cowabunga Collection's initial MSRP of $40. While it's understandable to be conditioned to wait for a discount by generous Steam sales, TMNT games have an unfortunate history of being ones that need to be purchased as soon as possible.

RELATED: Forget a New Silent Hill - It's Time For Konami to Remake The Original

Preordering games is usually a pointless endeavor at this point. Beyond physical copies of most games being plentiful and digital distribution increasing accessibility, there's another reason to avoid the practice. The sentiment expressed by Kotaku's Luke Plunkett seven years ago remains as true today as it was then: Preordering incentivizes companies to ship lackluster products. Games like Cyberpunk 2077 and Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy are recent examples wherein players should have waited for the games to be updated into an acceptable state, but they're far from the only ones.

Retro games are generally safe to preorder, but there's another way that The Cowabunga Collection is an exception to the rule. TMNT games do not have a good track record when it comes to availability. While licensed games being pulled from digital storefronts after agreements expire is something players have become accustomed to, two TMNT games have had shockingly short shelf lives on digital platforms.

The arcade versions of the classic TMNT beat 'em up, Turtles in Time, is a centerpiece in The Cowabunga Collection. Its first re-release was an HD remake for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, Turtles in Time Re-Shelled. It was pulled from both consoles' digital storefronts less than two years after its 2009 release, when the license expired. The game hasn't been re-released since its delisting, possibly because the TMNT license has bounced between multiple publishers over the years.

RELATED: EXCLUSIVE: NECA Reveals TMNT Cartoon Tokka & Rahzar Action Figures

There's an even more egregious example of a Turtles game being delisted than Re-Shelled. Bayonetta developer, Platinum Games' TMNT game, Mutants in Manhattan, was released in May 2016, for Xbox One, Xbox 360, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 3, and PC. It was delisted from every one of those platforms' digital storefronts in January 2017, meaning that the game was available digitally for less than 8 months. Physical copies were still available in stores, an advantage fans looking for a copy of Mutants in Manhattan had over Re-Shelled, which never received a physical release.

Despite Platinum's pedigree, and the influence of the best-in-class IDW comic book series on the game, Mutants in Manhattan was more Babylon Falls than Nier: Automata as far as quality goes. While fans weren't missing out on a brawler on the level of Streets of Rage 4 if they didn't pick up a copy of Mutants in Manhattan, it's still a disappointment when a game becomes scarce so quickly after release. Completionists, collectors, game preservationists and the curious alike have to hope they can find a reasonably priced physical copy when licensing agreement expirations take games offline.

RELATED: TMNT's First Female Turtle Returns to the Franchise After a 24-Year Absence

There are some good reasons to be wary of preordering even a compilation of retro games. While unlikely, the compilation may suffer from the same emulation woes as Nintendo Switch Online's recent Nintendo 64 ports. Even if they avoid paying in advance, TMNT fans shouldn't procrastinate when it comes to picking up a copy of The Cowabunga Collection. The amount of concentrated nostalgia contained in that package should make it a solid seller with Turtles fans of a certain age.

If players miss out on a retail copy and the game's delisted, they'll have to turn to pricey options like the secondary market or Arcade 1Up's cabinets for their retro Turtles fix. Limited Run Games might offer an additional chance to snag a physical copy, but that comes with its own pitfalls, including the temptation of one of their collectible-packed limited editions. Anyone who wants to The Cowabunga Collection should make sure to get one as soon as possible r risk missing out altogether.

KEEP READING: The Smartest Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle Nearly Died - And It's Made Him Reckless