How This Bootleg Console Led to an ARREST

“Why did they model the controller after an N64 controller?” Simple to make money. They never intended to sell this as a famiclone per se , they intended to trick people into thinking they were buying an N64 ( at the time a modern console ).

The Famiclone audio is due to two of the duty cycle modes being reversed.

The light gun that came with this was also used as a third party light gun for the PS1. (sometimes even came in a bundle with Die Hard Trilogy)

LOL I used to have one of these. I believe most companies are getting away with it now because the patent for the NES expired in 2005. I could be wrong though.

Here in Brazil, consoles like this are often bought for the child because the father often doesn't have the money to buy a popular one. It was like that in the 90s and it remains that way to this day. That's why TecToy (which has always been a Sega representative) still sells Master System and Atari Flashback here.

9:02 - So, fun fact, both Tekken (2) and Toy Story have already gotten bootleg NES ports before this system was released. Ouch...

3:08 : I had a Power Player and trust me. They've FORGOT to make sure that the batteries fit inside. I've managed to make them fit, but inserting it into the machine was a nightmare. And that nightmare was even worst when you realize that the whole thing is too big to fit inside the socket. (I had to use some tools to pop it out.)

3:00 the reason the batteries dont fit is pretty simple and is the case for lots of late-90s technology: it needs R6P batteries, these batteries are carbon zinc based and are just a tad but smaller than alkaline batteries. if you're having trouble telling if a battery is an R6P (somehow... they say the kind on the battery itself most of the time), try seeing if you can squish the battery a little with your hands or compare it to an alkaline to see if its noticably lighter than an alkaline or not

Famiclones only contain early Famicom titles not just because they use less ROM space but especially because they don't use mappers that were introduced later. So they just rely on basic hardware. Even bootleg cartridges that run on original NES hardware never contain games like Castlevania 3 because of the mappers.

They're not doing anything to stay out of trouble. They simply exist through obscurity. In the 2000s I remember there was a different kiosk every couple of months at the local mall who was selling a completely different, similar thing. I doubt any of them got in trouble, and this particular guy was probably just extremely unlucky. The reality is that these companies don't really "care" or have time to deal with this, because it's not an actual problem they can do much about if they were even inclined. Hell, when I was a kid (over 20 years ago) I used to sell burnt CDs filled with every NES, Genesis, and SNES game on it for like $5, I would even organize them, put recommended lists, and put the emulators with custom configs and a little splash screen with artwork I drew. People would ask me "Isn't this illegal? Aren't you worried about getting in trouble?" And I'd say "I dunno, probably, but no, I'm not," and I wasn't.

I went to California many years ago and bought one at the "Great Mall" for my godson. I never saw something like that in Puerto Rico on those days. Now we have similar units everywhere.

I had a Power Joy! Got it for Christmas in the late 90’s. I was in my mid-teens and didn’t ask for it or any other video game stuff that I can recall (I had a PlayStation at the time and still regularly played my SNES), but I think my grandma just got it as like a stocking stuffer kinda thing. I remember it being kinda fun as I hadn’t played my NES in years and this was a neat way to recapture the 8-bit days of my youth (even though like half the games didn’t work and the ones that did weren’t all that great).

I was a 13 year old kid when the shit hit the fan on these consoles. I remember a dude trying to sell one of these to my local mall. So my narc-ass self went and called Nintendo (something I did a lot as a kid, god help me) and I reported it to them. I remember some time later hearing about some dude who sold these things getting arrested and I always wondered if I was responsible. I am no longer a narc.

Recently, there were these cheap handheld that were being sold at Walmart and Five Below that were Famiclones with obviously pirated games. When the word got spread, the handhelds were re-released with several of those games taken off, but there were still a lot of obvious games on it

Its weird how after being infamous for decades now, the ROM still hasn't been dumped. Like, most famiclones and multicarts have been dumped but this one hasn't.

These Bootleg Multicarts were Awesome as a Kid. You can fail to understand 75+ games while not knowing what game you were actually playing

I think the reason clones are thriving today is beacause there are simply too many clones, back then the early 2000 is was all new so easier to target (espacially if you sell them directly from the US), now those companies are located in China and most of them are short lived so by the time any legal action could be taken, the company is gone / recreated under another name. Also trying to protect the IP of retro games is a losing battle IMO it's too late for that, internet connections / storage are so good you can basically get every games of a system in minutes, maybe why Nintendo are focusing hard on protecting the Switch right now and offering older games as a service (Switch Online).

My dad bought one of these in 2004 at a mall just because it looked cool. He knew it was a bootleg, and that we kiddos would enjoy it. And by golly we did enjoy it. This system was my introduction to the game Binary Land. So I have this system to thank

Not EVERYONE thought these consoles were bootleg and bad quality. In fact, my own parents, many years ago bought one of these pieces of crap and ruined Christmas for me and my brother one year by basing the entire round of family gifts around it as if this was some kind of main event big time surprise gift we were all supposed to love and be excited for. Me and my brother instantly knew this was a pile of crap, but our parents got this thing, expecting it to be as big for us back then as a Playstation 5 would be for people today. To the point that our parents even got mad that we didn't appreciate it the way were supposed to.

Oh god does this take me back to the early into late 2000s when I begged my parents to buy me one of those Super Joy III/Power Player bootleg consoles when we stumbled upon it at a kiosk at our local mall. I remember even buying one from a flea market during a family vacation trip in Orlando, Florida. Learning about the history of this thing and how it ultimately led to an arrest was just wild to discover when I got older. It was even crazier to find out that the Super Joy III literally took the same menu SFXs from Action 52 as well.