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Oh you've got to be kidding. They had the lockout chips on the NES to prevent *third party manufacturers* from producing games.

Nope. The lockout chip had a minor impact with forcing development companies to use Nintendo's fabrication plant at highway-robbery prices, but it was conceived with the idea that "pirate companies" (based in locations like Russia, Hong Kong, and Brazil or even showing up in places like Akihabara right in Japan) would be unable to copy the cartridges easily. Today, these same companies Nintendo was worried about can slap quite literally the whole NES/SNES library into a small memory card, jack it into one of a dozen NES/SNES-on-a-chip implementations inside a cheap knockoff playstation-ish controller with a battery bay and a set of RCA leadouts, and you get shit like this.

They stuck with the cartridge format on the N64 because, despite people's tolerance for awful load times on the PlayStation, the CD just was not ready for the kind of experience that Nintendo provides.

By which you mean what, precisely - games that have crappy polygon outputs with no textures? A dozen pokemon turdbombs?

They bled developers on the Gamecube because Microsoft and Sony waved wads of cash at dev studios to get themselves exclusives

BZZZZT! Try again. They bled developers on both the N64 and Gamecube because developers were tired of getting jerked around Nintendo, tired of Nintendo trying to charge them out the yin-yang for proprietary fabrication plant usage. Here's a hint: Final Fantasy VII went to the Playstation not because of the media, but because Squaresoft was fed up with Nintendo's wanting them to censor the fuck out of their games, and it's no coincidence that the only bones they've thrown Nintendo since have been the kiddyfied crap-tastic "Crystal Chronicles" series.

The bleeding continues on the Wii because of some inexplicable desire by the major studios to compete with each other at the ultra-high end HD segment in some sort of pissing war, rather than going with the platform with a 50% market share.

Nope. The bleeding continues on the Wii because it's a gimmicky console. They can make games for a pair of consoles that, collectively, carry higher penetration than the Wii does singularly. They can make games for a pair of consoles between which porting is actually rather simple these days. They cannot, *easily*, backport the same games to the Wii's "two gamecubes duct-taped together" architecture, and nobody really knows what to do with the Wii's motion controller, as evidenced by the fact that the various games with motion controls either do it (a) really badly or (b) attach a stupid fucking gimmick to it, like having you shake the controller instead of just hitting Button B in order to launch a special move.

Sure you could claim it has "50% market share." The problem there though is that it has the wrong kind of market share. Want to know the average number of games bought a year by a Wii owner? TWO. Average games bought by a 360 or PS3 owner? SIX. Most of the "market penetration" of the Wii is units bought by grandparents who just keep it around either to use Wii Fit or Wii Tennis, and that's all they play when their 6-year-old grandkids come over.

Hey speaking of which - tell your grandparents hello and give your grandma a big kiss on the cheek when you visit them to use their Wii, wouldja?

Obviously it doesn't have the cool-factor of a lone hacker putting something together like this, but Nintendo offered a similar device for the NES in the late 80s called the Nintendo Hands Free Controller (HFC).

I seem to remember reading about it at the time (though I can't verify) that Nintendo also worked with the Starlight Foundation to distribute the devices to hospitals as well.

Link to Review of Silver Surfer game... I didn't have a slow button controller. http://www.nesplayer.com/reviews/silversurferr.htm

I'll buy that the tactile sensation of real buttons is unnecessary for dialing a phone or browsing a web, but it seems like it would be essential for playing most fast-paced games like most NES titles.

Do you actually have to tap on the screen, or can you just slide your fingers over the designated areas? Back in the 90s, Triax released a touch-sensitive controller for all the big systems of the time. With those you just slid your finger over the pad area, no tapping.

Suncom (halfway down, or search for "Joy Sensor") also produced a similar controller back in the 80s for the 2600 (and pretty much anything else that used the same plug.)

It's hard to tell from the picture that I found but it looks most like it plugs into a controller port. That's pretty interesting because the piano's interface was MIDI. This may be the only example of a MIDI interface that plugs into a console game system's controller port.

Growing up, I lived in North Central Indiana, and never got any cool shows. I was lucky enough to get a Chicago station (WGN) that aired G.I. Joe, M.A.S.K., and The Transformers. As well as The Bozo Show, but that's another story. I wanted desperately to be able to see Gamepro TV. It might have sucked, but I had no way of knowing. Sometimes I miss the olden days where we had to wait for magazines to find out what's new in gaming.

Wireless has been around longer than Sony and Microsoft were even in the game market. Check out: http://www.nesplayer.com/database/accessories/accl aimwireless.htm It was not the best tech for wireless, but it worked (until someone passed in front of it). So, all this hype about wireless is just about the systems adding it as a standard feature and not an add-on. This is just one example of how video games have not improved that much in over 20 years. I am just hoping that Wii helps change the current direction that these systems are going. I want new features and a new gaming experience, not just the same old crap.

What? No Roll 'N Rocker? That thing looked like two broken ankles just aching to happen.

Just in control schemes: Directional Pad, shoulder buttons, rumble packs, analog sticks, touch screens, and soon motion sensors.

I recall using a motion sensor controller with the NES back in the 80's.

Don't forget the POWERGLOVE!

I've got a Power Pad 64

Power Pad for N64? What's that for? DDR Disney World Dancing Museum (Japan only)?

FYI, the game you're talking about was called Doki Doki Panic:

http://www.nesplayer.com/features/doki/doki.htm

In the "Oh my god if video game marketing continues like this I may never play video games ever again" genre I nominate Yo! Noid on the NES

NES/FC and SNES/SFC clones have been a hot commodity for many years, especially in Asia and Brazil. For a selection of pirated systems, check out this page.

Seeing this made me remember one of the coolest and most underappreciated Nintendo NES accessories, the Konami Laser Scope http://www.nesplayer.com/database/accessories/lase rscope.htm I wonder if this could be modified to work with today's modern computer hardware, it would definitely be a cool thing to still use today :-)

There are pirate Nes/Famicom consoles are shaped like popular consoles, like for example the first playstation.

How nice of them to keep the PS box with its advertisements for playstation games. It even has a flyer that advertiess NES/Famicoms in the shapes of a Genesis, SNES, N64, NeoGeo?(I think, I can't quite tell), and the different versions of the same consoles(i.e Genesis version II).

So I can see them making a GameCube shaped pirate Famicom/Nes if they haven't already.

to the NES version.

SKATE or DIE!

The game which became Mario 2 in the US (I can't remember the name of it, anyone else know?)

Doki Doki Panic.

Info here.

The fact of the matter is that if you played SMB 2 you didn't miss anything. The game was actually quite popular in its Doki Doki Panic form in Japan, and Nintendo bought the title from a client developer and repurposed it into a Mario game. SMB2 is identical to DDP except for the use of different sorts of main characters (Mario folks as opposed to a family in DDP.)

Back to the Future for the NES gets an honorable mention for worst game. In an era where movie licensed games sucked, LJN was renown for their crappy license games. BttF had a 7 second audio clip that played over and over until you turned the game off. Torturous for the player and anyone else in the room.

But the winner(s) would have to be Link: Faces of Evil and it's sister game Zelda: Wand of Gamelon. The CDi had more than it's share of failures *cough* Alien Gate *cough*, but aquiring the rights to a well known and respected franchise and releasing this upon the world deserves a stupidity award. Gameplay is rudimentory and very choppy, and when your reward for completing objectives is another bouncy cartoon that makes you want to jab pointy things into your eyes, you will understand why this earns the title.

There have been quite a few games that haven't been bad, per se, they've just been disappointing. These games are what really makes me sad. Notable titles include:

Sonic Adventure/Heroes series - You would think that by the third game that problems like the camera being the biggest enemy in the game and players die by being "clipped" through the solid floor would be fixed. Nope.

Kingdom Hearts - Yet another license snafu. It has wonderful graphics, cinemas, music, and humor. Everything that an Epic Disney/Final Fantasy game should have but it falls flat on playability. Gameplay consists of pressing the X button lots of times while battling the evil camera system. Platforming elements are boiled down to a chore. Computer controlled allies try to waste as much magic/items as possible. It's simply not fun, and with so many things going for the game, it's a real shame.

Castlevania: Lament of Innocence - Igarashi saying that Castlevania should not be in 3D is fine but why does he have to prove his point by making this forgettable game? Someone should tell all of those developers working on "Devil May Cry" clones that DMC wasn't really that great. C:LoI has players haphazardly fighting recurring monsters in rooms that, while finely detailed, tend to look all the same. To quote from Zork: "You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike".

These games and more aren't really terrible, they just could be better if more thought/time was put into them. As Shigeru Miyamoto said: "A delayed game is eventually good, a bad game is bad forever".

It's way older than that . . . the NES Power Pad showed up in the 80s. It may have encouraged a bit of exercise at first, but kids quickly discovered that if you pushed the pads with your fingers instead of your feet, you could easily make the character run at instant-heart-attack speeds.

There are actually a few NES one-handed controllers to display.
Quickshot XII: The Joysticks of the NES age had both buttons accessible and you could play games with one hand. Unfortunally, directional controls are a PAIN with joysticks in most games.

Game Handler: I've never seen one of these before, but it obviously seems custom-made for the purpose of one-handed gameplay. Interesting design.

ASCII Stick L5: Scroll down a bit and you'll see it. It's held in your hand sort of like a hand-fan.

One Handed: Scroll down about half way and to the controller with the caption: "Looks like a freaking droid from Star Wars". This is the controller I originally posted the picture about. It's held sort of like a stopwatch.

Cool, no?

There are actually a few NES one-handed controllers to display.
Quickshot XII: The Joysticks of the NES age had both buttons accessible and you could play games with one hand. Unfortunally, directional controls are a PAIN with joysticks in most games.

Game Handler: I've never seen one of these before, but it obviously seems custom-made for the purpose of one-handed gameplay. Interesting design.

ASCII Stick L5: Scroll down a bit and you'll see it. It's held in your hand sort of like a hand-fan.

One Handed: Scroll down about half way and to the controller with the caption: "Looks like a freaking droid from Star Wars". This is the controller I originally posted the picture about. It's held sort of like a stopwatch.

Cool, no?

i nominated the NES ROB unit. that little guy was very inspirational to me in the fact that it taught me how to pick up things from one location and replace them in another. without ROB i would have never been able to do many things in my life including: going to the bathroom, find matching socks (i'm still working on this), or figure out how to use a mouse pad.

it also taught me how to play gyromite in a way, or rather it kind of just watched me as i played it.

obviously it doesn't have the recognition it deserves having died before being born. i hope the robot hall of fame can bring people to realize what a great robot ROB was.

Who's 5 year old boy? I know some 5 year olds that are outpaced by R.O.B..

You mean aside from the Game Axe (mass produced), or Portendo (someone's personal project), or anything else I probably missed?

Funny, I live near there, and I know just the place. The guy has a TV set and a bunch of Mega Joy 2 systems out. I tried it out once, it worked pretty well. I've seen him selling both the version with the light gun, and also the version without, so if you want to buy, check to see if it comes with a light gun (and dont forget to test it first!).

Incidentally, Multimedia 1 (on St. Marks btwn 2nd and 3rd) has a bunch of all-in-one systems, both legit and pirate (including the one this story is about). As usual, their prices are on the expensive side, but if you want to buy from a reputable place, it might be your only option. They don't list these on the web site for some reason -- if you don't live in NYC, try giving them a call or something.

And finally, here are a few links on NES/Famicom pirate systems: NES Player and Gamer's Graveyard.

Funny, I live near there, and I know just the place. The guy has a TV set and a bunch of Mega Joy 2 systems out. I tried it out once, it worked pretty well. I've seen him selling both the version with the light gun, and also the version without, so if you want to buy, check to see if it comes with a light gun (and dont forget to test it first!).

Incidentally, Multimedia 1 (on St. Marks btwn 2nd and 3rd) has a bunch of all-in-one systems, both legit and pirate (including the one this story is about). As usual, their prices are on the expensive side, but if you want to buy from a reputable place, it might be your only option. They don't list these on the web site for some reason -- if you don't live in NYC, try giving them a call or something.

And finally, here are a few links on NES/Famicom pirate systems: NES Player and Gamer's Graveyard.

Like the U Force and ROB? I don't think there's much you can do with either... :)