It's not "legit" in that its licensed by Nintendo or anything, but since most of Nintendo's patents relating to the NES lapsed between 2003-2005, it is guaranteed to be lawsuit-free. This is the FC Mobile, a handheld gaming system selling for $40 which plays real NES carts. Like, the ones you have in that dusty box under your old bed at your parent's house. No modding, no dodgy imports (console excepted), no hassle. Oh, except it runs on AA batteries. Guess that's a slight hassle.
FC Mobile Portable NES, Because One Screen Was Once Enough [Gizmodo]
This Portable NES Is Legit, Works
2:00 AM on Tue Apr 29 2008
By Luke Plunkett
6,897 views
43 comments






Comments
Cool, that beats the PSP and DS hands down as far as portability is concerned.
Do you have to blow in it to get it to work? ^^;
blow the cartridge, and don't freeze the game.
is it wrong to love a piece of electronics?
No way! That might be worth buying if you have old nes carts. I wish it had L and R outputs to play on a TV.
I'm not sure the angle of those A and B buttons would be very comfortable to use. It would probably be OK for most games, but holding down B to run in Mario while trying to jump might be hard.
this will be the 1st system to have media storage the same size as the machine itself! funny looking though...
Mmmhhh... with $40 it is cheap enough to at least consider buying it.
Hellz yeah! This makes the usefulness and worth of the "Game Axe" drop tenfold!
Hmm, it doesn't look very comfortable to hold..
just use a real NES on a TV and emulate games on the PSP for portability. people are seriously considering this?
Ooh.. for those like me who still hold onto their carts, this would be a funny thing to bring into public.
Come on Nintendo announce downloadable VC-games for the DS!!!
@nolifedopestar (PSN: noliferuin):
that's what I'm talking about!!
@nolifedopestar (PSN: noliferuin): $40 is a lot less than the cost of a PSP and a decent memory stick, not to mention the hassle (and possible additional cost) of installing custom firmware to it. Plus even then, you're playing ROMs instead of actual cartridges. So yeah, this method has some advantages. I do enjoy a touch of emulation on my PSP, but I don't expect everyone to do so.
@photoboy: May take a bit of getting used to but damn it it is worth it isn't it?
Will be region free?
If yes, will it play all regions at the same speed?
I recall US games playing slower on my PAL NES.
That button layout will render the entire thing unusable to begin with. Not too exciting when you can get a new cartridge connector for your old NES for under $10. Dead simple to install as well. Plus that doesn't have any of the accuracy issues that these clones do.
can I play duck hunt on it? :)
@Orionsaint:
From the description on eBay:
TV Output Connector (Play on your TV and FC Mobile System as a Controller)
[cgi.ebay.com]
:)
I miss double-As to power game systems. This way you didn't really have to worry about battery life dying out after a couple of years and having to find a specialized battery that would probably be pretty expensive.
Does anyone know if this thing supports an AC Adapter? The battery thing wouldn't be any good for at-home play.
@eastx: Rechargeable batteries would be an ideal solution.
It's got A and B the wrong way round like that car... And a Playstation D-Pad...
i say it's great that it has AA batteries, you can play forever if you go camping, or on a long trip... just take a bunch of batteries with you.
my question is why? I mean since the entire nes and snes library can pretty much fit on a 1-2 gig flash drive why not just do that.
Anyone have one of these? I want to know if its a worthy buy. The article says the controls arent spot on but I sort of need a hands on review or what or why lol. Coming up with the nes I will be super critical so if the controls are the littlest bit off ill probably hate it.
Eventhough im buying one friday....
@clintonskneecap: Exactly.
@ThatsMrOffDutyNinja:Rechargeable batteries would be an ideal solution.
My words exactly. Before NiMH I hated rechargeable but I swear by them now.
This looks like an interesting idea and sure makes Ben Heck-like projects less worth the time (his are, of course far superior.)
Now where's the Chinese made Atari 2600 portable? ;)
if you enjoy showing things off, then this is probably a good buy, otherwise do it on your PSP.
@battra92: Of course I use rechargeables, you guys. I just want to mod the thing to be a dedicated console instead of a portable... AC adapter support would make that a lot easier than having to hack some kind of permanent power solution.
It looks like button posistion is the onlything holding me down from making a purchase.. DAMN I have like 40+ carts.. - the 20 my X stole that #$@
Ooh, very tempting. I do have a few carts lying around that I never tried.
It looks like they crammed a whole oldschool NES into it!
I'd rather stick with custom firmware on a PSP slim myself...
No thanks. Not with the A buton and B button positioned like that. Probably making a big deal out of this but i want to have fun with it not have a hard time with it. Fix'd and you got yourself a purchase.
These have been around a long time....probably almost 10 years or so. Earlier ones were called Game Axe or something, and then Japanese ones called PocketFami came out about 4 or 5 years ago.
This one, however, looks a bit more compact that prior models, which I guess is moot, since the cart makes it gigantic.
I need one. How well do the pin-connectors hold up?
Man, if it were snes, I'd be sold. Nothing beats a cartridge, certainly not some corruptible rom. This piece is clearly marked for its nostalgia, something you can't get with bits of binary.
I don't like the button layout one bit.
How do I play Duck Hunt on this?
I have the japanese version of this. pretty good for playing nes games (i have the converter for us game too..which is pretty nifty).
I wonder what the compatibility is on it. Some of the knock-off NES units have differing compatibility. For example, my friend's Family Boy console can't play Dragon Warrior 2.
Meh. Those A/B buttons are placed without care.
Here's the real deal:
[www.gamespy.com]
I just don't know where to find one anymore.
...or I could just homebrew, I suppose.
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