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Latest Handheld System Plays Famicom Games

Posted by Hemos on from the going-truly-retro dept.

roadies writes "Early adopters are sure to import the latest handheld system from overseas. We're not talking about the Sony PSP here fanboys. We are referring to the Pocket Famicom. The pocket famicom has a 2.5" screen. Plug it into a TV and you can play your classics without having dig out your old Nintendo console. It supports standard 60-pin Famicom games, but with a $10 adapter it will play your 72-pin NES games."

35 comments

  1. Nice slashvertisment. by bartyboy · · Score: 1

    Seeing as I can use a NES emulator on my Palm, and that the screen size on Palm is over 3", why would I plunk down $90 US (with the NES cartridge adapter) to play games on the road? On top of it, you'd have to bring all those huge cartridges with you.

    The only advantage this toy has over a Palm is a D-pad.

    There's also the issue of weight. How much does this thing weigh when you add an adaptor and a cartridge? Maybe it should be advertised as building arm muscles.

    1. Re:Nice slashvertisment. by witte · · Score: 1

      - Not everybody has a Palm.
      - What is the cost of a Palm that can run the NES emulator ? Over $90 ?

      (I ask, 'cause I don't know. I'm already surprised that slashdot gets thru the corporate netfilter so no "look-it-up-foo" comments plz.)

    2. Re:Nice slashvertisment. by koi88 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      why would I plunk down $90 US (with the NES cartridge adapter) to play games on the road?

      • because it allows you to play legally purchased games ;-)
      • does your palm have TV-out?
      • as you said: controls... (esp. important in jump'n'run games)
      • high nerd-factor to have a dedicated device to play 15-year-old games
      --

      I don't need a signature.
    3. Re:Nice slashvertisment. by mausmalone · · Score: 3, Informative

      The cheapest color screen palm I could find on Pricewatch was a Zire 31 for $131. Also, to rebuke the grandparent, Famicom games are about 1/4 the size of NES games. In asia, this product is probably far more practical. It's also aimed at people who already have a lot of cartridges and people interested in the "cool" factor of it.

      --
      -=-=-=-=-=
      I'd rather be flamed than ignored.
    4. Re:Nice slashvertisment. by Jagasian · · Score: 2, Interesting

      You have got to be kidding me, right? Playing NES games without a D-pad is an absolutely horrible experience! Secondly, the emulators for the Palm don't run every Famicom or NES game accurately and some games do not even run at all! Third, there is a "geek factor" to owning somewhat obscure grey market hardware. There is more. Many people have only played their NES emulator within the past 5 or so years, so they have forgotten what a real NES is like, but your Palm emulator's sound isn't all that accurate. Other people also claim that the best NES emulator for the Palm, NESem, is still choppy and doesn't already run at full speed.

      Furthermore, in order to have a Palm that has a resolution high enough to properly display the NES graphics, you are looking at spending $200, and the best NES emulator for the Palm isn't free and costs $20. So if you still own allot of NES and/or Famicom games, the PocketFami looks like a far more practical option.

      The D-pad and the support for Famicom and NES carts is enough difference for most. All the other crap mentioned above just cements the deal.

    5. Re:Nice slashvertisment. by Jagasian · · Score: 1

      Oh, I left out one thing. The NES and highend Palms have different resolutions, so on the Palm you are either wasting part of the screen or you are scaling up to the Palm's native resolution which will look really crappy because of aliasing. So you should measure the size of the image displayed on your Palm when emulating the NES, not the size of the entire LCD.

    6. Re:Nice slashvertisment. by Jagasian · · Score: 1

      The Zire 31 (160x160) can not even handle the resolution that the Famicom and NES put out (256x240), so if you do emulate on it, you would have to either crop the screen (bad) or somehow down scale the resolution by throwing away rows and columns of pixels in order to fit the Zire 31's screen (also bad). Of course, the Pocket NES or the Gameboy Advance (with resolution 240x160) does this, but only for horizontal rows of pixels... which still looks terrible compared to a real NES.

      So the fact that the PocketFami is built with the Famicom/NES's resolution in mind is another reason to go with the PocketFami.

    7. Re:Nice slashvertisment. by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      You can play rom images of legally purchased games in emulators.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    8. Re:Nice slashvertisment. by tepples · · Score: 1

      You can play rom images of legally purchased games in emulators.

      Only if you build your own dumper. You can't just download a ROM even if you own a Game Pak.

  2. EU PAL VERSION by Shadow_139 · · Score: 1

    Anybody know if there is a Pal Version of this unit..,?
    Or can the US version be hacked to play PAL games..?

    Still think this unit is much cooler and Nerd-y
    http://www.classicgaming.com/nestable/actual_proto type.shtml/
    http://www.classicgaming.com/nestable/insideout.sh tml/


    ---------
    "Clutch my testes, bloody squirrel humpers!!" -Happy Noodle Boy

  3. Not new, but good nonetheless by cgenman · · Score: 3, Informative

    I feel compelled to point out that unlicensed portable (and non-portable) systems come out of Hong Kong all of the time. Offhand I can think of Portable NES, SNES, Genesis (before the Nomad), and Dreamcast. There are also unlicensed consoles, usually limited to 8-bit and 16-bit systems. Arguably the 3rd party NES systems were better than the original Nintendo versions: They've lasted a lot longer.

    Good stuff, though. Does anyone know of a listing of unofficial systems manufacturers. Is anyone keeping track of this little piece of gaming history?

    --
    The ______ Agenda
    1. Re:Not new, but good nonetheless by Jagasian · · Score: 1

      How have 3rd party NES systems lasted longer? Because they are still manufactured? I own 3 NES systems and one A/V Famicom, all of which still work great! The cheap Hong Kong clones are fun and all, but most don't accurately clone the picture processing and sound processing units inside an official Famicom/NES. So most are subpar compared to the official real thing.

    2. Re:Not new, but good nonetheless by cgenman · · Score: 1

      Are the three original NES systems that you have all the oldschool tray-loading kind, and not the rare cartridge loading top-down units they released after the SNES? The problems associated with the tray-loading NES systems are legendary. People have all sorts of contortions involving blowing into cartridges, slamming cartridges into their systems, putting cartridges in as little as possible before pushing them down, etc. It's all very reminiscent of the early generation PS1's, which you now see people standing at weird angles to get the lazer to read just right. I've had better luck with the cheap Hong Kong clones, but perhaps it's just a question of which cheap Hong Kong clones I've gotten and which you have gotten.

      Which is one of the reasons I asked if anyone out there had actually catalogued and ranked these clones.

      --
      The ______ Agenda
    3. Re:Not new, but good nonetheless by Jagasian · · Score: 1

      The top loading NES and Famicom are not rare at all. The A/V Famicom could be purchased new, mint in box off of Ebay up until a couple years ago. The tray loading NES systems must occassionally be opened and have a connecting pin component cleaned and the pins must be bent slightly to restore the pressure they exert on the cartridges. So as would be expected from a component that has manual force applied to it every time a cartridge is inserted or removed from the system, it must be maintenanced every half decade or so. It is pretty simple work... my car requires more work than that every half decade.

      Also, sometimes the carts themselves need to be cleaned. Blowing will actually worsen the problem in the long run.

      The clones are far younger than the tray loading NES. Furthermore, all Famicoms were top loading, which requires a far simpler ping slot component that doesn't need as much maintenance. So there is a chance that you could play an original 1983 Famicom without any cleaning or bending of pins.

  4. Nothing really new.. by Firehawke · · Score: 2, Informative

    There have been handheld Famicom clones for years. For instance the GameAxe and TopGuy. According to the same source, this system was announced a year ago but only finally made it to the retail shelves. In any case, it's nothing really *new*.

    1. Re:Nothing really new.. by Jagasian · · Score: 2, Informative

      Well, the difference between the PocketFami and the other two systems that you mention is that there is a really good chance that the PocketFami does not suck. All of the previous portable Famicom/Nintendo Entertainment Systems sucked in some major way. But rumor has it that the PocketFami is finally a portable worth owning. So in a way, it could be something new.

    2. Re:Nothing really new.. by Firehawke · · Score: 1

      Okay, now THAT I'll give you. I've been using a GBA flash cart to satisfy any NES cravings I have-- PocketNES is pretty damn good-- but an actually decent PocketFami would be an interesting change. I'll have to see what the reviews say when it comes in..

  5. Expensive? by AtariAmarok · · Score: 0, Redundant

    At $80, isn't it double the price of the other retro-game units? Yes, it has that nice screen, but at this high price it gets close to the price of a PDA for which you can get emulators for a variety of game systems.

    --
    Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
    1. Re:Expensive? by gl4ss · · Score: 1

      what it is, is just another clever hk unofficial(pirate) clone.

      --
      world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
    2. Re:Expensive? by Jagasian · · Score: 1

      How is $80 close to $200? Do those emulators run at full speed and support every game? How accurate are the emulators compared to the PocketFami, etc... there are many things to consider with regards to this kind of thing.

  6. Not Famicom by zr-rifle · · Score: 2, Informative

    actually, it's called Pocket Fami, not Pocket Famicom or Nintendo would sue this handheld and it's creators into oblivion.

    --
    Hack your mind out of its sandbox.
  7. Good for me... by The-Bus · · Score: 1

    I got a Chinese bootleg NES cartridge with 42 games on it (later I saw some with 100 or more games). Combining that with this player would be nice. What would be nicer is if someone found an "adapter" which made this thing run off of, say, a 512MB memory card so you can fit as many damn NES games on it as you want.

    --

    Small potatoes make the steak look bigger.

    1. Re:Good for me... by PedanticSpellingTrol · · Score: 1

      I've been wondering about the possiblity of putting together something like this on a super-miniaturized linux platform for quite a while. I'm envisioning something with a 2-3" screen, Compact Flash, SNES style control pad, TV-out, MAME, SNES, and NES emulators, and a usb port or two for a keyboard add-on. Any EE majors out there looking for a project to impress your advisor, please give this a thought. The biggest problem I've had in trying to spec out the parts is finding a source for the tiny LCD screens.

    2. Re:Good for me... by tepples · · Score: 1

      I got a Chinese bootleg NES cartridge with 42 games on it (later I saw some with 100 or more games). Combining that with this player would be nice.

      If you really want to be a pirate, then get a Game Boy Advance SP, an EFA flash card, the PocketNES emulator, and some NES ROMs.

  8. Re:EU PAL VERSION by carninja · · Score: 0

    No need for a PAL version, if you RTFA you'd notice that it only plays the 60-pin JAP versions, so you'd need to buy that adapter for the 72-pin version of the games, aka NTSC and PAL. (They both work with the adapter.)

  9. Hmm... by Aggrazel · · Score: 1

    IMO it would be better just to get a flash2advance cart and run pocketnes on your GBA.

    1. Re:Hmm... by Jagasian · · Score: 1

      What about the resolution issues on the GBA which require the emulator to either crop the top and bottom off of the image or to remove every other column from the image? The PocketFami looks like it supports the Famicom and NES's native resolution. Also, what about all of the games that do not run on pocketnes? What about all of the games that do not run correctly on the pocketnes? Just look at the compatibility list on the pocketnes site for plenty of reasons (games!) why somebody would prefer the PocketFami.

  10. Neo Fami and other clones by hiroshi912681 · · Score: 1

    If Neo Fami is any indicator on the quality of the Pocket Fami, expect bad sound (way off key) and palettes that are slightly off. I'm not sure if the two are made by the same company, but I would expect ANY nes-on-a-chip clone to not quite reproduce the real thing.

    It looks a little bulky and expensive compared to the Game Theory Admiral. You could probably find one of those for $60, still. If the screen is excellent, then it'd be worth it (if you wanna play your original carts).

    Someone mentioned legal problems on the site... don't worry. this is completely legit. the patent on the NES/Famicom went up years ago. And most of the TV-Games you find in stores are based off the NES-on-a-chip. Just as long as they're not selling pirate carts with it, there's no copyright problems. Plus, the box says it is "FC Compatible", and it's up to your imagination to figure out what that means.

  11. So? by veritron · · Score: 1

    The Gameboy Advance is perfectly capable of playing NES games at full speed, as is the DS.

    1. Re:So? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      yeah but i can't just plug an NES cart into my GBA or DS, now can I?

    2. Re:So? by tepples · · Score: 1

      Build an NES dumper, dump your Game Paks, and then use PocketNES with a GBA flash card.

  12. It appears.... by TechniMyoko · · Score: 1

    No one has heard of GameAxe

  13. This is news? by Guppy06 · · Score: 1

    And some factory in some Chinese country (PRC, ROC, whichever) has been churning out Game Axes for how long now? Another FamiClone; yay.

    Wake me up when someone releases a new Famicom copier, then I'll get excited. With my Super Wild Card I have all my SNES games on a single Zip disk, and I'd really like to be able to do something similar with my NES library so I can put all those carts into storage and clear some shelf space (without copyright violations, so the internet is not an option).

    Besides, what's the point in a portable Famicom when it's half the size of an NES cart? They don't fit in your pocket very well.

    1. Re:This is news? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      There was far too much cart specific hardware to make that practical.

      Of course, Kevin Horton is any thing but a practical human being.