Who Needs a DS or PSP? Check Out the Pocket Fami!

[JFo]

http://www.xploder.net/?s=100_58fa81f4-330a-405a-8067-9ecad5388eb6&a=products&id=86&c=

 

Apparently, this baby lets you play any classic NES and Famicom games. You can play it on the go, or you can hook it up to a TV and play it on there. You can also hook up two gamepads to it for multiplayer games.

 

I have two questions about this. First, does the thing have a backlight? Second, how does someone sell something like this and get away with it? Shouldn't Nintendo's legal department be going berzerk over this?

 

Still, it's a cool idea. I wouldn't mind trying it out.

[secretvampire]

There seems to have been an explosion in NES hardware lately, I have counted at least three third-party NES substitute systems, plus this one. Either Nintendo started licensing their technology like mad, not wanting to worry about it themselves, or a whole lot of pirates figured out there is money to be made here. I'll be honest, I've debated buying one of the dubious black market toploading NES systems just so I don't have to deal with the finicky authentic NES system any longer.

[GreenMonkey]

I would speak up for the Supercard as per my previous review, available for about $30, to emulate NES games on GBA/DS. Just dump the games on the compactflash and create some save files, and off you go.

 

Legal? Not exactly...I'm all for the authentic thing and all, but US Nintendo cartridges aren't exactly portable. Portable Dragon Warrior IV without endangering my original DWIV cartridge (ebay value $25-$40).

[Ryan FB]

There seems to have been an explosion in NES hardware lately, I have counted at least three third-party NES substitute systems, plus this one. Either Nintendo started licensing their technology like mad, not wanting to worry about it themselves, or a whole lot of pirates figured out there is money to be made here. I'll be honest, I've debated buying one of the dubious black market toploading NES systems just so I don't have to deal with the finicky authentic NES system any longer.

Basically, technology now is such that you can place an entire NES-alike system on a single chip (such as the NMOS 6582 and NT6578). They're probably pretty cheap to make, so they can just mass produce them and rake in the profit. Technically, I don't think there's anything wrong with the systems that just take NES carts and aren't the "OMG 100000 GAMEZ IN ONE L@@K" type (i.e. I'm pretty sure the NES-on-a-chip implementations don't actually use anything trademarked/copyrighted by Nintendo).