Hasta La Gadget!

While looking at the Star Soldius t-shirt, I stumbled upon another homage to classic video games, and from a Japanese artist as well. It’s a collection of Famicom cartridge pin badges.

Ketchuparts’ collection will consist of 15 pin badges. I’m not entirely certain, but I think they’re based on Famicom launch games.

Each pin badge costs ¥800 (~$8 USD). Press your browser firmly into your computer and head to Ketchuparts’ online shop, Meteor or Frog Port to get the pins. It seems like Ketchuparts has yet to release all the pin badges so keep checking back on those stores if you want to get them all.

A few years ago we featured a harmonica crammed into a NES cartridge. YouTuber basami sentaku’s harmonica not only has a Famicom cartridge case, it produces 8-bit sound with the help of a sound chip from a NES. It also has a mode that plays the coin sound effect from Super Mario Bros. when you blow into it.

Watch basami sentaku and his friends play some chiptunes on the harmonica:

I’d love to hear non-video game music played on that. Basami sentaku-san, I’m sure you’d make a lot of chiptune fans happy if you started selling 8bit harmonicas.

[via Viral Viral Videos]

Without Nintendo’s Famicom there would be no NES. And without the NES, chances are, the video game industry as we know it would never have existed. It’s hard to appreciate history while you’re living it, but thirty years ago today on July 15, 1983, Nintendo’s Japan-only Family Computer debuted and set off a domino effect that would make video games a global, billion-dollar industry and rank Nintendo as synonymous with gaming itself. Rather than look back with the rosy tint we have for the NES’ early days, Ars Technica‘s gone the informed route to celebrate the system’s anniversary. From a condensed account of the console’s origins (i.e., failed Atari distribution deal, revised prototypes, soft US launch in 1985) to a walkthrough of the silicon circuitry and hardware add-ons (like the Famicom Disk System and Modem) that only saw the light of day in Japan, the retrospective covers all the bases of gaming’s golden era. There’s a whole lot more Nintendo trivia packed into the retrospective (did you know the original Famicom’s controllers had inbuilt mics?), so be sure to check it out and pour one out for that famous grey box.

Lead Image: iFixit

Filed under: Gaming, Nintendo

Comments

Source: Ars Technica

Hyperkin has developed a reputation for modern takes on legendary game consoles that are often better than the real thing. If true, its just-unveiled Retron 5 is a nostalgia singularity. The hardware emulator can use its namesake five cartridge slots to play original games from no less than nine vintage consoles, including the Genesis (Megadrive), NES (Famicom), SNES (Super Famicom) and GameBoys from the original through to the GameBoy Advance. It keeps going: there’s a custom Bluetooth controller that can handle every system, mix-and-match original controller support, save states and upscaling for both video (to 720p, through HDMI) as well as audio. While we’ll have to see just how well the Retron 5 works whenever it exists as more than a conceptual graphic, that opportunity may come quickly when Hyperkin is tentatively shooting for a July release at less than $100. About all that’s left for a follow-up Retron are Jaguar and Turbografx 16 slots — pretty please?

Filed under: Gaming, Nintendo

Comments

Via: Slashdot

Source: Hyperkin

Looking forward to the Wii U’s incoming Virtual Console update? No need to wait — despite the service’s post-spring update launch announcement, Nintendo is already rolling out fully functional (and Wii U enhanced) Virtual Console games to the eShop. It’s part of the Famicom’s 30th anniversary celebration, and gives gamers a chance to sample a handful of Nintendo’s best at a hefty discount — only 30 cents a pop. We tossed a few dimes toward a copy of Balloon Fight to give the upcoming service a quick look.

Like all Wii U downloadables, Virtual Console games take up residence on the system menu, flaunting a thumbnail of the game’s title screen underlined with a Virtual Console banner. While loading, players are treated to a preview of the game’s vitals — year released, originating console and number of players supported. Easy enough for Balloon Fight: 1984, the Nintendo Entertainment System and two. Within 15 seconds (we’re looking forward to that speed update, Nintendo) the game’s title screen is mirrored across the gamepad and TV. This is the basic, pure experience — press start, twiddle the thumbsticks and play the game.

Tapping the gamepad’s screen or pressing the ZR button brings up the Virtual Console menu, laying bare the Wii U enhanced features Iwata told us about: restore points and controller settings. 3DS owners should be familiar with the former — restore points allow you to save your game at any moment and restore it without penalty. Little has changed in the feature’s jump to the home console, and usage is straightforward — just tap the onscreen buttons to save or restore. The Controller settings menu, on the other hand, is new, allowing users to remap the game’s controls to their liking. The menu’s capabilities are limited, however — analog sticks and the d-pads won’t tolerate reassignment. As promised, playing on the Wii U gamepad is an option, but it isn’t necessary. Traditional Wii remotes work just fine (for both single and multiplayer), and the tablet-controller’s screen can be disabled through the regular Wii U menu. Miiverse is supported too, of course, dropping users into a Balloon Fight community when launched from the game.

The Wii U Virtual Console’s official launch may still be a few months off, but based on the first game in the Famicom 30th Anniversary Virtual Console trial campaign, it’s shaping up to be a strong evolution of its predecessor. Controller mapping allows users to manually sidestep control issues — something select games suffered from on the Wii VC when paired with a Gamecube controller. Save states have been a boon to 3DS owners not accustomed to the challenges of classic Nintendo games, and is a welcome addition to the full-sized Virtual Console setup — after all, how else are we supposed to get a decent score in Balloon Trip mode?

Filed under: Gaming, Nintendo

Comments