NoaC pirate boxes still for sale at a mall near you!

[+FujiSkunk]

At least, they are at a mall near me.

 

Word was that Nintendo was finally cracking down hard on these things, and sure enough, the mall kiosks seemed to dry up a couple of years back. But now, one has returned, selling these "12000-in-1" gizmos at the mall close to where I work. I haven't looked at them too closely, but then, when you've seen one pirate box...

 

I wonder how long this new operation will last.

[Uzumaki]

Nintendo was cracking down a few years ago si these pirates must be a new batch. If the game(s) included are from actual game cart produced by other companies, Nintendo might get nasty when they find out.

 

The last famiclone I found was at a Big Lots store, had 2 carts (30-in-1 and 60-in-1) and all were original games that looks like they were designed by kindergarteners. IOW pure useless crap.

[+FujiSkunk]

This new batch will definitely have Nintendo seeing red, once somebody tells them. Super Mario Brothers was one of the games being displayed prominently on the kiosk's widescreen HDTV's (obviously the perfect way to show off old NES games).

[Uzumaki]

Then better snap up those pirates before they are banned. Pirated multicart often are better than cheesy originals that makes Cheetahmen2 look good.

 

I have one of the early Power Joy 80-in-1 that do contain near that many original games and I have not ID'ed all of them yet.

[n8littlefield]

A kiosk just opened recently at my mall too. They have two of the clones - one is shaped like an N64 controller, the other is the red eyed penguin one. They usually have the first running SMB, the other running Adventure Island. I actually am really tempted to notify the mall management to see what they would do.

[Uzumaki]

Any of you remember how Nintendo dealt with this a few years ago? Threaten the malls? If so, and those malls selling the games have been warned before, Nintendo could be collecting some money.

 

:shudder: I'm glad I don't work for the malls, I'd hate to see how Nintendo deals with repeat offenders.

[Flojomojo]

Given that Virtual Console NES games sell for $5 apiece on the $250 Wii, the pir8 famicom machines are a terrific deal!

[Bruce Tomlin]

I don't want them unless the games are on a separate cartridge.

 

A few years back right before the previous crackdown, at one mall they had extra game "cartridges" which were a bare circuit board with a couple of glop-tops on it. I'm still kicking myself for not getting one of those boards right then and there.

 

In any case, of the few pirate famicarts I have, the best is probably the Power Joy PJ-008, which has both Mappy and Elevator Action.

[n8littlefield]

I'd love to call Nintendo on the one near me. In fact during my next break I just might do so and see what they say. I have the mall phone # and the name of the store so it might be fun to do.

[+FujiSkunk]

Then better snap up those pirates before they are banned.

 

Eh, I'd rather not support piracy on this grand of a scale, especially since I don't know (and probably don't want to know) who's pocketing the profits.

 

Don't get me wrong, I get a kick out of looking at all the different ways they try to package these things, but, I'll wait 'til I see them at thrift stores.

[+remowilliams]

I haven't seen any of those cheapo NOAC kiosks (i.e. Super Joy III 1000in1) in a long time around here. There were probably about three or four before.

[madhatter667]

Hmm... I might have to roll to a couple of the larger malls and see what is out there. Pirate stuff has no real collectible value, but some of it is fun to collect, just out of pure cheese factor.

[rockman_x_2002]

I haven't seen any of these this year at my local mall. Last year there were two models: The Playstation-lookalikes and the Penguin Famiclone. The year before that (when I picked one up) it was the N64-shaped Super Joy III things. The SJ3 isn't that bad, far as the parts and stuff go. I had a time trying to find one that worked properly (sound issues in most of them), but the one I have now I've had for two years and have had no issues with it.

 

Too bad though. I was looking forward to see what this year's pirate NES models would look that. That, and schooling SMB again in the middle of the mall.

[Paranoid]

Given that Virtual Console NES games sell for $5 apiece on the $250 Wii, the pir8 famicom machines are a terrific deal!

 

This is where the companies go wrong. They get greedy about this old shit. If they would bundle a dozen games together for a $5 download fee, that would be a reasonable value ad. But $5 for Super Mario Bros. (again)... is just too much.

[Cheese007]

Must. Have. Penguin. Famiclone.

[Sweater Fish Deluxe]

I see thiese things every year around Christmas time, I don't think Nintendo has ever been successful in "shutting them down," if only because there's no clear "them" to shut down. The malls? Not gonna shut them down. The individual vendors? Sure, you can shut them down, but there's dozens of other people who'll take their place next year or next month. The import/export companies that handle these sorts of things (and most consumer exports from China as far as I can tell) are not involved in production and probably have no legal liability for the products they handle and they're as numerous the the guys who set up the kiosks anyway, so there's no way to stop the things coming into the country. And after the the level of the iimport/export company the trail runs cold because you're just dealing with a Chinese front company that doesn't even exist.

 

The Famiclones I was seeing last year looked pretty cool. They were joystick units instead of joypads like most of the other ones I see and they had a retro arcade styling similar to the Jakks Namco joysticks. Unfortunately, they were total garbage as far as quality. The N64 pad ones are actualy pretty good quality in my opinion, but these joystick ones werepretty much unusable. Too bad since they looked cool otherwise. My favorite of these Famiclone systems is still the ones I have that's built into a Dreamcast look-alike controller. It has 128 actual games built in (pretty much every mapper 0 game, I think) and has a cartridge slot on the top that's actually usable unlike the ones on the N64 pad clones. Having a while system with games built into a controller is just cool.

 

Of course now there's things like the OneStation which are full portables with screens and everything as well as having TV out. I wonder if any mall kiosks have those this year? If I was an enterprising capitalist, I'd open up my own kiosk in some mall and sell them. You'd easily out-compete someone still selling the Power Player systems even if they had the ones that look like penguins.

 

 

...word is bondage...

[Jimmy Yakapucci]

My favorite of these Famiclone systems is still the ones I have that's built into a Dreamcast look-alike controller. It has 128 actual games built in (pretty much every mapper 0 game, I think) and has a cartridge slot on the top that's actually usable unlike the ones on the N64 pad clones. Having a while system with games built into a controller is just cool.

 

I have one of the N64 pad clones, (Super Joy III, 12000-in-1), and the cart slot works fine. At least for the 1 Famicom game that I have. That was the main reason that I got one, it's a cheap Famicom player. Also, it was only a quarter.

 

JY