Has anybody heard about or seen any of the RCA plug-in controller games of the 8-Bit NES?
If you see them, snatch 'em up before they're all pulled down off the shelves! (though it may be too late)
Hahaha, I'll cut and paste a post I made about these things on another forum:
Electronics Boutique and I had a little falling out maybe a year ago, and I refuse to shop at their store now. I pick up the majority of my games at Walmart now and often pay quite a bit less. Anyway, in typical Walmart fashion, they apparently weren't carrying Silent Hill 4 for XBox, so I had to go to the mall for my backup video game store: Target.
I hate the mall. I avoid it at all costs. But desperate times call for desperate measures. Sure, Walmart employees are completely video game illiterate ("I'm sorry, we don't have Silent Night") and you run into some real characters (I was parked next to a brand new SUV that had the following stickers: 'Calvin' pissing on the word 'EX-HUSBAND', 'Honk if you Honkey Tonk', 'Harley Davidson Motorcycles', and 'Support our Troops') but at least they're interesting. The mall is loaded with shaggy-haired Zumiez posers and pasty 14-year-old Hot Topic groupies with enormous pants with straps and zippers all over the place. I also noticed on my way in that they built a new 'Pac Sun' because what my town really needs is another trendy clothing store.
Well as I'm walking past one of the bookstores, I overhear classic
Bomberman music. I look to my left and there's a small kiosk with 4 27" inch TVs set up and boxes and boxes full of what looks like N64 controllers. There are huge banners on each side that read "SUPER JOY". Nobody is looking at anything, so the guy running it is playing NES
Bomberman with this 64 controller. I head to one of the open stations where the
Super Mario Bros. title screen is looping. I play for a little bit and the operator notices I'm interested and he says "How you are doing today!" as if it was a statement, and I go "Not bad...". I hit the reset button and it brings up a menu with a HUGE list of games. I'm scrolling through them, noticing classics like "Arkonid", "Circus Chamblie", and "Comtrar". I check each one out real quick to make sure they are indeed complete, COPYRIGHTED Nintendo Entertainment System games. I also notice one called "Tekken". As soon as I boot it, I recognize it as "Karateka", which was a side scroller by Jordan Mechner, the creator of Prince of Persia. No idea how they got "Tekken" out of that. I smile and turn to the operator and say "Uhh...isn't this illegal?" He pauses his game and stands to walk over to me.
Now imagine, in your best middle-eastern salesman voice (what, you don't have a middle-eastern salesman voice? Just wing it): "Is not illegal! Is Super Joy!" He grabs a box and hands it to me. Inside is what looks likes a modified N64 controller with Select/Start where A/B should be, and two sets of A/B buttons where the camera buttons would be. The 64's Start button says Reset and the analog stick has been glued in place and is useless. There is also a generic-looking SNES controller that is apparently the Player 2 control, and a pistol, obviously used for Zapper games. Back to the voice: "Everything, everything, everything is built inside to it. Electronics are inside to it, all the games are inside to it, everything." While he's going through his whole pitch, I'm inspecting the box. There are no gameplay images on it at all. Just photos of different exciting things that might be in a game: A car driving really fast, a jet plane...there are lots of misspellings and awkward translations in huge obnoxious, colorful fonts. Not surprisingly, there is no Nintendo logo anywhere on the box. In fact, there is absolutely NO mention on the box ANYWHERE of what exactly this
Contraption does. If it wasn't for the "76,000 in 1!!!" on the front, I would have assumed it was a third party N64 controller collection.
I ask "So...HOW many games are on this? I know for a fact there aren't 76,000
NES Games." and he answers "120 games! 76,000 ways to play!" I'm confused, and I pick up the controller and go to the menu again. After a couple pages, the game titles begin to repeat, but there are random letters placed after the names like "Super Mario Bro YRQ" and "
Duckhunt RPK." I ask "Okay...so what are the differences in all these?" He didn't explain very well, but I'm assuming there are 120 original games, then each game is duplicated,hacked, and trained to come up with 76,000 variations. I'm sure the "different ways to play" are more like "This version has no score!" or "This version has glitchy sprites and resets to title screen after 15 seconds of play!" He explains to me that if I get sick of those games, there is a slot on the bottom of the controller to plug actual cartridges into, but he adds that it "Doesn't always work." Hahaha.
I say, "Are you SURE this isn't illegal? These games are copyrighted." He says, "Nononono, Fun Times is company that brings the classics to your living room with Super Joy!" I decide to stop asking such complicated questions, because I'm just going to get scripted responses in broken English. I feel like I'm in an open air market in downtown Ankara, Turkey where I can buy copies of Dobly Photostore and Microshift Window XR for 10 american dollars each. I am more excited than you can imagine to own a blatantly illegal de
Vice to play
NES Games on. I ask how much this thing costs. He says proudly, "$69.99." I look at him like he's nuts. "I dunno man, this is kinda a cool concept but I don't know if I can swing 70 bucks for a handful of 20 year old games." I start another game of
Mario Brothers and start a sick speed run through it. He watches til I'm at level 8 and he says "I have no idea there are so many levels to this game! You are good! You are one of the best! I tell you this: We had back to school special last week. Is 20% off. My boss is at lunch. I give you back to school special now, you get Super Joy for $49.99." I'll just go ahead and mention that that is quite a bit more than 20% off. I go "Ooo, 50 bucks is still kinda pricey for this. It's a cool concept, but I don't know...I can play all these games on my computer." He says "Ahhh come on! This is not major decision! Do you own a car? THAT is major decision. This is game! The best kind of money is the money you spend on yourself! Is cheaper than XBox game!" Of course I then realized that he was also a mind-reader, because that is exactly why I was there. He blew his cover. I turned this to my advantage though, and started thinking of a 20-30 dollar price range for this thing. Finally he goes "Which is your favorite color?" I point to a box and say "The black one, of course." He starts to put it in a bag and says "Ok, I give to you for $45. Enjoy" and starts to ring it up. I go "Whoa whoa whoa....I don't know man, I have LOTS of things to play
NES Games on. I'm not sure I want to spend that kinda money on this." He says "Well my boss will kill me if I go lower, but I see you enjoy this. You will be back. You may as well buy now. If not, that is your choice, but I know you will be back." I thank him for his generosity and finish my trek to Target to pick up Silent Hill 4, and I can hear him in the background saying "You will be back! I know! You will be back!"
Funny thing is, I'm SERIOUSLY considering picking one up, not because I need ANOTHER de
Vice to play
NES Games on (I have emulators on my PC, I've BUILT a dedicated PC JUST to play
NES Games on, I have PocketNES on my GBA flash cartridge, AND an NES disc for my Dreamcast) but because once this kiosk is busted by the feds, I may not have another opportunity to pick up a Super Joy III. I played
Mario Brothers til level 8-3. The emulation and control are spot-on. I even tried some Zapper games, and the gun works really, really well, if not better than the original Zapper. I DID manage to talk him down to $45, which isn't bad for a serious piece of pirate hardware. I just thought the story was awesome. I was laughing the whole time.
A while afterwards, I posted this followup:
Me and a friend went up to the mall to buy a phone recorder, and Super Joy has moved their kiosk deep into the mall's bowels to avoid detection. NOW, all the products in the boxes were labelled Super Joy III, but the systems they had on DISPLAY said "Super Games", and were basically the same thing, only the plastic was smooth, and the DPAD was glued in place, and the ANALOG stick worked. This is opposite of how the Super Joy functions. A loophole? Doubtful. Out of curiosity, I feigned interest in the system again. The conversation was even better this time.
(Different salesman, but still of middle-eastern descent. He's wearing ultra-hip clothes, has a perfect tan, and perfectly sculpted hair.)
Salesman: Want to play?
Me: Uhhh (Fumbling through menu) Yeah....
Salesman: (Presses start) There you go.
Me: (Plays about 3 seconds of
Bomberman) So....isn't this illegal?
Salesman: Illegal? Whaaaaat? How is illegal?
Me: Well, these are all copyrighted Nintendo ga....
*Salesman walks off!!!!*
Me: ...and you're gone. Okay. (Friend and I start laughing)
*Leaves kiosk. Salesman is helping younger, dumber kids that don't know any better*
That's right! When I brought it up, he just LEFT. Mid-sentence, just completely shut me out. Hahahaha
So anyway, hypocrite or not, I'm reporting him to Nintendo's anti-piracy hotline tomorrow. Because he's an ass.
I DID report them to Nintendo, and the kiosk was removed partway through the holiday shopping season.
Hehehe... now that's funny stuff! I didn't realize they were so bootleg they were just changing things on it then changing the name! Good stuff, dude! Although it would be cool to have something like that, the way the Atari games have been released. Only time will tell...
those controller things with built in games have been around for years, I'm not a big fan of them personally, they're VERY poor quality. the only real advantage/reason I would buy one would be to steal the NES-on-a-chip from it and make a portable NES.