Friday, January 31, 2014

Why I Have a Passion for Famiclones.

Why do I have such a passion for Famiclones? To say that's simple to explain wouldn't be true, and to say it's complicated wouldn't be true either. But then again I understand perfectly why I have such a passion for Famiclones, so I guess its just easier if I took the time to explain it.

Famiclones were never on my video game hunting radar until about 2010, hell I wasn't even familiar with the Nintendo Famicom until about a decade earlier. I live in the United States, where it seems we selectively import what we want from other cultures and never bother to import anything that doesn't fit our current commercial needs. We already had the NES, so why would we want another system that was essentially the same but looked different? Not to mention the cartridges weren't interchangeable without an adapter.

It's not to say the US didn't have an import market, it was just that I never knew about it for most of my life; and even when I found out it seemed very niche, and must less popular than it is now. As an adult I'm now noticing that Canada seems to have imported Japanese video game culture, on a much broader scale then the US, for decades! Mexico has not only been importing Famicom games and consoles, but also the Chinese pirate versions as well. So why did it seem that the US interest in Japanese video game culture was so niche and underground? Your guess is as good as mine, perhaps even better!

Once I knew, or assumed falsely to be more accurate, Famicom games were expensive and wouldn't work in my NES, I completely removed them from my scope of collecting. About 2010 is when I started to see a large influx of portable Famiclone consoles, the Power Joy and Super Joys, in the thrift stores I frequented. It wasn't until I found an extremely cheap Power Joy that I ever really took interest in the whole Famiclone market.

Just having a non-working Power Joy gave me reason enough to do some research on the whole history of Famiclones, I'm a sucker for researching things I enjoy researching. The results were astounding; Famiclones came in all shapes, sizes, colors and where spread throughout the world, far and wide! Famiclones could take on the shape of penguins, racecars, N64 controllers, alien space ships, pseudo officially licensed consoles and even shaped exactly like a Nintendo Famicom. The more research I did, the more interested I became in the subject, causing even more research.

I found it intriguing how they could fit a fully functional (although not really 100%) Famicom clone into the many various shaped consoles and controller style portables. Not only that but the fact that some consoles, and most every portable Famiclone, had built-in Famicom/NES classics without the need for external cartridges, while still adding a 60 pin connector for just that matter in case the user desired it. All of this really appealed to my OCD for keeping things neat, tidy and confined within small spaces.

Knowing these systems were a potential way to play Famicom games, which was a far cheaper alternative to importing the Famicom console, sparked my interest in importing Famicom games. But before my interest in Famicom games could fully blossom, my interest in the dark, seedy world of piracy and its strange history firmly planted itself within the fertile soil of my brain and grew into a vine that encompassed my cerebrum and short circuited my interest in the real thing.

The story of how Famiclones and pirated games came from the desire to have the nice things every other country had, but most countries couldn't afford, also appealed to me, the sheer ingenuity! Call them demakes, pirated or even cheap junk, but these were all the exposure some countries had to the classics we have so readily available. Faced with a desire for the finer things in life, a choice needed to be made. The birth of that choice was an extremely interesting line of consoles and video games that simulate/emulate something most people take for granted.

I take great interest in the way they take consoles that most gamers already know and modify them in drastic ways, while making the internals as simple, yet functional as possible. Although functionality of Famiclones run the gambit from very good to only lasting a few months, I'm certain a lot of engineering goes into the planning and manufacturing of these systems, and engineering is exactly what makes my heart race when I see a new Famiclone I've never seen before.

Necessity is the mother of invention. The need to fill a market left empty in many countries by financial hardships or trading limitations has created something fascinating, a whole sub-market of video games and video game consoles that gave many people the pleasures they couldn't otherwise have. Whether you hate them or love them, the fact is they always will be a part of video gaming history. Even if nothing more than a footnote.

8 comments:

  1. Hi, how are you? Well, I also like very much the famiclones. Their format divesification were what I really liked. I'm brazilian and here the original NES apeared later, 1992, I think. Then, the famiclones were the only way to play 8-bits game of Nintendo. Some models, like "Turbo Game" or "Phanton System" were legally manunfactured in Brazil. Very nice your blog! Sorry my english.

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  2. Hey! Great to hear from a fellow Famiclone fan! If I understand correctly Brazil is also very big into Sega clone consoles, which isn't as common as the Nintendo clones. Thanks for the comment!

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  3. Hello! Thank you for answering me.
    Here, in Brazil, the Sega consoles were manufactured by Tec Toy Company until 2002. The Master System (Mark III) and Mega-Drive (Genesis) had their glorious moment as Nintendo consoles and the beloved famiclones. However, Sega broke up their partnership with Tec Toy 14 years ago. Then, the Brazilian company decided to produce the "clones", many of them with games inside memory and without the cartridge slot! Of course these new consoles don't have the same quality than the first one; the "new" genesis, for exemple, didn't have the Motorola MC6800.

    Woud you please see the links below of Tec Toy GĂȘnesis III (without MC6800 and slot cartridge)
    1 - http://www.sega-brasil.com.br/fullalbums/Consoles/Mega%20Drive/Mega_Drive_3_ed_81_Jogos_Caixa_Frente.jpg
    2 - http://www.sega-brasil.com.br/fullalbums/Consoles/Mega%20Drive/Mega_Drive_ed_86_Jogos_2.jpg
    3 - http://www.sega-brasil.com.br/fullalbums/Consoles/Mega%20Drive/Mega_Drive_4_Guitar_Idol_2.jpg

    Regards,
    JP

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  4. Even Wal Mart sells famiclones here in Mexico! I even bought one last year, its called Videogames 2 by Gameinis. Cheers!

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    1. Believe it or not, most of my current collection has come from Mexico. There is so much more variety in Mexico than there are here in the states. Especially the consoles that look like a real Famicom.

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  5. I recently purchased the FC3 Plus console in the hopes of playing SNES, NES etc. on it. However, the games cartridges we have in South Africa turns out to be SFC (Super Famicom) and now the SFC cartridge has less pins than the SNES slot. Any ideas how I can play the SFC games on the SNES console? Does it matter that the cartridge has less pins?

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  6. I found what looks like the complete set to the xbox 360 controller-famiclone on amazon, and apparently its called the "POWER BLASTER 2012 NEW VERSION!!!"
    here's the link - http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004KUW0O0/ref=pd_lpo_sbs_dp_ss_1?pf_rd_p=1535523722&pf_rd_s=lpo-top-stripe-1&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_i=B00DMYWWUM&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_r=187ZDWH7SPAN221CK50W

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