Here are the top 10 of the most expensive retro games currently sold in Tokyo’s Akihabara district (based on my research in about 10 stores). I took the picture above in the place I love the most on this earth, the Super Potato used game store in the heart of Akihabara. Believe it or not, I didn’t see anything cool gear-wise so this list must do as a “live” report from the world’s Nerdvana for now.
Compared to 1999, when I was still a game collector and went there for the first time, prices went down dramatically but there are still some very, very pricey carts and CDs for sale. Some of these were available outside Japan in localized versions.
Top 10: San San $420/boxed
(1994, Genesis, based on the Japanese board game Go)
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If that old NES of yours has died, odds are the culprit is a 72-pin connector. Luckily, it’s easily fixed, as this video from Wired shows.
And how’s this for an embarrassing admission: I never knew the pleasure of having an NES because of my parents’ strict “video games will rot your brain/no son of mine…” mentality. Once the SNES came out, though, all bets were off. My dad would stay up late into the night playing Super Mario World, beating levels for me that I couldn’t.
I actually don’t recall many ultra-violent games for the NES. Am I misremembering?
Here’s something I didn’t cover in my Emulation Orientation a few weeks back, though I did mention NESticle. A couple guys have decided the most noble job for a venerable 486 is to run the venerable NES emulator full time, complete with controller ports. Find out how they did it here (good luck with doing it yourself).
Of course, there are much, much easier ways to go about this. Every console capable of being hacked has an NES emulator; it’s kind of a rite of passage for the homebrew developers. And if NESticle can run on a damn 486, you can imagine it’ll run just fine on your 360. In fact, you could keep every NES game ever made on the hard drive (it’s less than 150MB) and have the benefits not only of savestates and a cool graphical browser, but also enjoy graphical filters, cycle-exact emulation so every game works exactly right, and so on.
Still, the 486 thing is pretty cool. [via MAKE: Blog]
Yama hama. For my friends and family out there who have complained that I’m impossible to shop for, the above video contains an example of the type of gift that I’d really, truly enjoy. All you’d have to do is craft a giant NES controller out of medium density fiberboard (MDF) and wire the corresponding buttons up as they’re connected inside a standard controller. Is that so much to ask?
Kyle Downs did it. And it only took him a couple months. Nice work, Kyle.
via Gizmodo
This is a cool looking lamp, yes? What’s even cooler is that the girl who put this together made that Duck Hunt cartridge out of cardboard because a standard Nintendo cartridge didn’t provide enough stability.
"A regular cartridge was too small a base, so I measured one and made a 1.5 scale replica out of cardboard, and screwed the gun to it. I weighted it with stones, and then tackled the shade.
I picked up a $2 shade at the re-store, a pack of fun foam, and voila! After hours and hours of cutting pixellated shapes, I was done! A little dab of glue to secure the shade, and… ta dah!"
That shade’s pretty phenomenal. Nice work, young lady. Nice work indeed.
via NWFB
Meet the FC Mobile, a really interesting looking cloned NES console that’s perfectly portable. But unlike most NES clones, this one takes old school NES cartridges, so you can dust off the ones in the back of your closet, blow into the slot, and play Zelda just like you used to.
We haven’t tried one out ourselves, but it’s really hard to muck up a decent emulator. My main concern would be the battery life — it probably takes AAs — and screen brightness.
Do you have one? Seen one? You can get them on eBay for a little under $60 shipped, it seems. I might have to partake.
I think I’ll let the bionic arms do the talkin’ here. This highly-anticipated XBLA game is looking to be an unbelievable bargain: the full single-player remake of Bionic Commando from the NES, plus a crazy 4-player deathmatch mode that looks like a barrel of fun. I’m going to make Matt buy it.
Don’t forget to confirm your age for the player app! (wtf?)
This is one of the most fun casemods I’ve ever seen. Someone — apparently a Frenchman — was able to cram all the guts of an NES clone into a Super Mario Brothers cartridge shell.
It’s got a slot on the top for actual game cartridges, two NES controller ports, and external power button and LED. It even has standard AV outs so you don’t need to use that pesky cable RF converter.
Nintendo should just start selling stuff like this.
Ah, one of my most favorite Nintendo games of all time, “River City Ransom,” hit the Wii Virtual Console this morning. So long, five dollars! Have a safe trip.
You’ll recall that brothers Ryan and Alex must fight their way across River City to save Ryan’s ladyfriend Cyndi from the evil cross-town rival, Slick. Good stuff. Along the way, you can buy power-ups like (remember these?) Acro Circus, Stone Hands, and Dragon Feet. Ha! Man, what a great game.
Oh, also Phantasy Star III was made available this morning as well, for $8 (it’s a Genesis game — I’ve never played it personally but the Phantasy Star series is a phat phranchise with lots of phervent phans).
via Kotaku
Normally, if I were to meet a girl with a tattoo from an NES game, I’d likely fall in love. But man, this is just mean: The Duck Hunt dog laughing. If you see this in real life, you can only assume you’re doing it wrong, because that’s what this snickering canine has come to symbolize.
via Geek Stir
Friends, a lot of you said it couldn’t be done: the Internet couldn’t get any better. Well, I’m here to tell you it has. Feast your eyes on this list of 100 Flash-emulated NES games that run in your browser. Like Head-On, we encourage you to apply this directly to your work-day.
List
Someone, for some reason (probably “because I can”) ported Final Fantasy VII over to the NES. Apparently it’s the entire original, wildly overrated PlayStation game in one small ROM. Can we expect an English translation soon? A fan translation couldn’t be any worse than the first one we had to deal with, of course.
FF VII Famicom, with video [insertcredit.com via Kotaku]
Fly has a new handset, the MC100, that has built-in support for NES, SNES, and Gameboy games, along with built-in game downloading. It’s saying this is the first phone to ship with the support built-in, and we don’t doubt it.
Really, though, shouldn’t all cell phones have built-in NES? Shouldn’t everything, really? I want it on my fridge.
New phone runs Nintendo games [Mobile Ent]
Portable NES and Game Boy emulation without having to stop for batteries? I like. You can also use the solar panels to recharge your cell phone and other small devices. There’s a 3.5-inch screen (320×240), 2GB of internal storage plus the ability to add a 2GB SD card, MP3 player, video player, and e-book reader. All for $123. It’s actually being sold as a 2GB MP3 player but, come on, NES emulation!
This company, Chinavasion, has some weird and wonderful products. I have a box full of them that are pending review, so watch out. I’ll see if I can’t get my grubby mitts on one of these as well.
Solar Powered MP4 Player 2GB – Mobile Power Station [Chinavasion] via Technabob
How come I don’t find things like this before Xmas? This is the Gen-X Dual station, likely the weirdest console I’ve ever met. It’s an NES and a Sega Genesis combined into one, but the thing is it doesn’t use ROMs; it uses the old cartridges you’ve got in that box in the back of your closet.
Yes, this is real.
Gen-X Dual station plays Sega Genesis and NES games [Technabob, via Robot Ramblings via Slippery Brick]
If the Game Boy Advance slot on your DS Lite isn’t getting much use, this adapter might be just the thing to bring it out of its funk. It’s called the CYBER Familator Lite and it allows you to play Famicom games and, with yet another adapter and a lot of extra work, NES games from the US and A.
It’ll be a Japan-only device at first, due out next month. No word on pricing but if you’re hell bent on playing old Famicon and/or NES games on your DS, are you really going to let a silly thing like money stand in your way?
Famicom adapter makes the DS useful [DS Fanboy] via Ubergizmo
Here’s a giant NES controller for your amusement. It has a working Nintendo Entertainment System inside of it. The buttons on the big controller are functional but due to its size, you need a friend to help you navigate around the Mushroom Kingdom. Sounds sort of fun, no? Maybe it’d be a hit at some sort of party.
I seem to remember finding something a few years ago that was basically a normal size NES controller (actually maybe it was an N64 controller) that had a bunch of old NES roms loaded onto a chip inside the controller. You just hooked it right into your TV and started playing all your old favorite games. Now that was a good idea.
Video after the jump…
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I may give Nintendo a lot of crap for the Wii, but every other system that company has made is gold sans Gamecube. Now, after 22-years, Nintendo of Japan is officially dropping support for the original NES, SNES, Nintendo 64, Gameboy and Gameboy Pocket. After October 31st, if your SNES breaks and you need your Super Scope fix, you’ll have to visit a 3rd-party repair center or just buy another console. Quite a scary thought for Halloween.
The moves comes as more and more classic titles become available on the Wii’s virtual console. Sure, you can buy Contra for a few bucks and play it on your Wii, but you won’t be able to enter your beloved Konami Code. At least there’s YouTube videos to remind us of how awesome the time from the 1980s into the 1990s was.
Nintendo of Japan dropping Hardware support for the Famicom [Arcade Renaissance]
Oh wow. We’re looking at what appears to be a working Nintendo Entertainment System built into the bottom of a shoe. This photo was apparently taken last night in New York City at the end of the Sneaker Pimps’ nationwide tour.
Flyguy’s goldfish platform shoes from I’m Gonna Git You Sucka were pretty awesome but, come on, full blown NES in a shoe here.
Sneaker Pimps Nintendo [Flickr] via Digg
