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Warning: Legit-looking NES Classic Mini console knock-offs appearing

P

pCeSlAyEr

Member
I believe alibaba and aliexpress are a different part of the same company so I'd say its fine.

alibaba is more for suppliers/wholesale, but certain businesses will take single orders instead of just bulk.

Someone correct me if I have it wrong..
 
L

Lettuce

Member
Thanks for the links.

Whats the difference between the EU and NA versions just the power plug that comes with it?

So with Alibaba you have to contact the seller to buy the item then?, never used them before
 
M

mr jones

Ethnicity is not a race!
Lupercal said:
Just buy the Pi shell, get a raspberry pi with Retropi and finished.

Costs less than this fake one aswell.
Click to expand...

False.

It's going to cost you at least 60 dollars just for the Raspberry Pi, power supply, HDMI cable and case. You still need the SD card, and controllers.

That's if you don't want anything that is appealing to buyers, like an attractive retro case, lighting, or even a power button.

There's a reason why those NES classics sold like crazy. The price point was perfect for what you got. Had the supply not been so crappy, I would have gotten one as well, and I say that as a raspberry pi user who set up retropi in a Sega Genesis USB hub case.

1481483156770-hub-open-need-to-move-wires.jpg


il_570xN.1135754346_1twf.jpg
 
N

Naked Snake

Member
mr jones said:
False.

It's going to cost you at least 60 dollars just for the Raspberry Pi, power supply, HDMI cable and case. You still need the SD card, and controllers.

That's if you don't want anything that is appealing to buyers, like an attractive retro case, lighting, or even a power button.

There's a reason why those NES classics sold like crazy. The price point was perfect for what you got. Had the supply not been so crappy, I would have gotten one as well, and I say that as a raspberry pi user who set up retropi in a Sega Genesis USB hub case.

1481483156770-hub-open-need-to-move-wires.jpg


il_570xN.1135754346_1twf.jpg
Click to expand...

I wish the "just get a raspberry pi" meme would die.
 
M

mr jones

Ethnicity is not a race!
Naked Snake said:
I wish the "just get a raspberry pi" meme would die.
Click to expand...

It's right there with "just get a computer." Folks miss the point about why these things have an appeal. Why get an SNES mini, or even an actual SNES, when you can run a PC that will emulate 99 percent of the games flawlessly, and with more options like speeding through rambling dialog, savestates, and net play?
 
N

NewGame

Banned
Spukc said:
Please do share what it is called.
As far as i know all the gba sp fakes emulate.
And are extremely poor.

The only good one is the ks101 but that one doesnt look like a gba sp

And the gbboy colour backlit gbc (resolution of screen is slightly off)
Click to expand...

sixteen-bit said:
I find this hard to believe, but impressive if true
Click to expand...

I just tried looking through my Ebay history, it looks like the seller has been closed down.

I'm not kidding though, it was 100% Chinese reverse engineered genius, everything was better. I know this for fact because I had a single original SP (silver + tribal) and had to buy a bunch more just to play Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles. This was back in 2012.

The screen was perfectly bright with amazing colour, the sound was far louder and crisper. The battery lasted far far longer (Probably because it was newer but still). Tested a bunch of games including Warioware: Twisted, Mario Kart and Advanced Wars.

It was an indigo colour reproduction. Everything was identical EXCEPT the screws, they weren't tri-wing but were normal sensible phillips head screws.

I'll try to look through some of the other sellers but from what I can see Nintendo must of cracked down on Ebay bootlegs.
 
P

PaulExcellent

Member
NewGame said:
I bought a Chinese rip off GBA SP and it is better build quality than Nintendo's original and works perfectly even with Gamecube adaption and eReaders
Click to expand...
Send me link if you ever find it, m8. I need another GBA I can keep in my pocket.

I think I'm curious enough to try one of these, since I missed out on the original.
Still, I guess a Pi3 might be a better purchase overall.
 
C

cartman414

Member
hirokazu said:
You don't have to feed a scalper $400 for a NES Classic. If you don't like the offer, don't buy it. They can only sell it at that price because people are shelling out for it.

Bootleggers sell their product by imitating the real thing. You can say "I know this is fake, I don't care." But there'll be people entirely unaware that they're buying a fake, low quality product. They might have bought it directly from the Chinese manufacturers on Aliexpress, or they might have bought them on ebay from a savvy person who snapped up them up to resell as the real thing.

It's bad enough these things seem to be going for the price of the real thing but you then get enterprising folk who flog them off by undercutting genuine scalpers but are actually selling bootlegged fakes.

If you feel this is justified regardless, let me ask you this: do you also feel good about the flood of fake SD cards and other memory cards on ebay? Do you feel good about the fact that you have to run tools like F3X to be sure that the card you bought is what was advertised?

If your answer is no, then why do you feel good about these bootlegs?

People who steal IP for profit to scam people are scum. It's not just the IP owners who lose out, customers lose out buying fakes they think are real.
Click to expand...

Sorry, but scalpers aren't anymore ethical at all in this one. They're profiting off of another company's product more than the company that produced the goods itself.

P. S. Not to mention the knockoffs in this case are apparently damn near the actual thing in quality.
 
L

Lupercal

Banned
mr jones said:
False.

It's going to cost you at least 60 dollars just for the Raspberry Pi, power supply, HDMI cable and case. You still need the SD card, and controllers.

That's if you don't want anything that is appealing to buyers, like an attractive retro case, lighting, or even a power button.

There's a reason why those NES classics sold like crazy. The price point was perfect for what you got. Had the supply not been so crappy, I would have gotten one as well, and I say that as a raspberry pi user who set up retropi in a Sega Genesis USB hub case.

1481483156770-hub-open-need-to-move-wires.jpg


il_570xN.1135754346_1twf.jpg
Click to expand...

I think I got everything (shell, pi, sd, power, heatsink) for 60€ incl shipping.
Use my Dualshock 4 as a controller.

Compare that to 120-150 € on Ebay.
 
S

SeeNoWeevil

Member
Infernal Monkey said:
lmao, it absolutely is piracy. This thread is fucking incredible.
Click to expand...

Gamers are always looking for a convenient excuse to justify piracy. "These games are old/Nintendo won't sell it to me" etc. etc

Most people here seem to consider piracy acceptable if games are older than say, NES era. The NES classic threads were full of people loading their systems up with pirated ROMs and no one bats an eyelid.
 
F

Foxy the Fox

Member
SeeNoWeevil said:
Gamers are always looking for a convenient excuse to justify piracy. "These games are old/Nintendo won't sell it to me" etc. etc

Most people here seem to consider piracy acceptable if games are older than say, NES era. The NES classic threads were full of people loading their systems up with pirated ROMs and no one bats an eyelid.
Click to expand...

How do you know they were pirate roms?
 
N

Naked Snake

Member
SeeNoWeevil said:
Gamers are always looking for a convenient excuse to justify piracy. "These games are old/Nintendo won't sell it to me" etc. etc

Most people here seem to consider piracy acceptable if games are older than say, NES era. The NES classic threads were full of people loading their systems up with pirated ROMs and no one bats an eyelid.
Click to expand...

SeeNoWeevil said:
Oh come on now.
Click to expand...

Accusations of piracy are a big no-no on this forum. You'll get this thread locked and/or your account banned.
 
S

Shao Kahn Brewing a Stew

Banned
Lupercal said:
I think I got everything (shell, pi, sd, power, heatsink) for 60€ incl shipping.
Use my Dualshock 4 as a controller.

Compare that to 120-150 € on Ebay.
Click to expand...

Not 120-150 when buying it while it was available.


It's sad that Nintendo killed this and are essentially giving other venues a way to make money off their property.
 
P

pCeSlAyEr

Member
Shao Kahn Brewing a Stew said:
Is this the knockoff? Did you buy it?
Click to expand...

Yes this is an image of the knockoff. I did order it with expensive DHL express shipping. Now I just have to wait...

I own a Famicom mini already so this is just a curiosity for me. I'm sure someone online will have beaten me to disassembly and comparisons by the time I receive mine.
 
L

Lupin the Third

Member
Shao Kahn Brewing a Stew said:
Is this the knockoff? Did you buy it?
Click to expand...

PCESlayer already replied, but yes, if you look really closely, you can tell the Nintendo logo on the controller looks a little wonky. So it's definitely the copycat.

EDIT: There's a slightly longer video forwarded from the seller in China up on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eV04tc0MAQg
They don't actually do anything in the menu, though. They just let it run a bit longer. You can see the tiny blue arrow cursor over the little box-arts only has two frames of animation. I'm fairly sure the original was more animated?
 
A

Azure Dream

Member
mr jones said:
I would have gotten one as well, and I say that as a raspberry pi user who set up retropi in a Sega Genesis USB hub case.

1481483156770-hub-open-need-to-move-wires.jpg


il_570xN.1135754346_1twf.jpg
Click to expand...

Damn, I had the same idea for my Genesis USB hub. I meant to get another one to mess with, but the price went up. Awesome to see you pulled it off, though. Nice work.
 
G

Gojeran

Member
A friend of mine really wanted a nes classic but due to Nintendo and scalpers it wasn't meant to be. This could just be a viable alternative, pirate knock off be damned. Will follow this thread for user feedback on build quality and emulation.
 
L

Lupin the Third

Member
pCeSlAyEr said:
obirux over on famicomworld forum posted some pics of the internals. It doesn't look to be 1:1... :(

famicomworld thread

dream is dead... lol
Click to expand...

Yeah, definitely check out this link, everyone. It even has a detailed test video by the poster:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x9iqjHwKU8U

It has a weird latency in the menu that persists for about half the audio loop, then comes back to normal. It also is missing the crazy CRT filter and replaced it with a different scaling/AR option. Great link, I'd been meaning to catch up on that thread. Thanks, PCESlayer.

Also, the user, obirux, tested games for about 5 minutes each and found these quirks:

Mega Man 2 (Missing Sounds/SFX)
Super Mario Bros 2 (Faster Speed)
Super Mario Bros 3 (Faster Speed)

Hooking it up to USB shows an unusable drive/device, and hakchi doesn't work. Who knows how hackable the device will be discovered to be in time.
 
C

cartman414

Member
I am at least assuming the emu package could be emulated on a Pi? I'm sure some people at least would be inspired to use that + a Mini mockup shell + a couple controllers as an unofficial grey solution without benefiting any bootleggers.
 
oo7

oo7

Member
Why is it still considered piracy if there is no official way to obtain the software? Legit question.
 
L

Lupin the Third

Member
oo7 said:
Why is it still considered piracy if there is no official way to obtain the software? Legit question.
Click to expand...

I'm going to subvert your question and note that the software on NES Classic Mini is like 95% available on Wii Virtual Console, and many of those on Wii U and 3DS. I think only maybe Bubble Bobble isn't available?
 
M

Moofers

Member
Lupin the Third said:
Yeah, definitely check out this link, everyone. It even has a detailed test video by the poster:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x9iqjHwKU8U

It has a weird latency in the menu that persists for about half the audio loop, then comes back to normal. It also is missing the crazy CRT filter and replaced it with a different scaling/AR option. Great link, I'd been meaning to catch up on that thread. Thanks, PCESlayer.

Also, the user, obirux, tested games for about 5 minutes each and found these quirks:

Mega Man 2 (Missing Sounds/SFX)
Super Mario Bros 2 (Faster Speed)
Super Mario Bros 3 (Faster Speed)

Hooking it up to USB shows an unusable drive/device, and hakchi doesn't work. Who knows how hackable the device will be discovered to be in time.
Click to expand...

Wow, thanks for the video link. That looks janky as shit. After he browses the games for a bit, the background music gets all wonky and slows way down. Very weird.

Seeing how these don't work with Hakchi, I'd say its a definite no-go. I lucked out and got a legit unit but was thinking it'd be fun to own the knock-off too. Definitely not interested now.
 
I

imjust1n

Banned
If it looks completely like the original even the box then....sure why not buy it? Not looking to resell them just add to collection : )
 
L

Lupin the Third

Member
Harlock said:
Sorry, now I see that was the clone of the clone.
Click to expand...

It's all good! :)

Moofers said:
Wow, thanks for the video link. That looks janky as shit. After he browses the games for a bit, the background music gets all wonky and slows way down. Very weird.
Click to expand...

If you watch carefully, he also experiences input lag during that time.
It's probably a software issue, or so I'm hoping. I'd be curious to see if anyone figures a way to load a different OS/software configuration on it, or even the flavor of Linux Nintendo used on the Mini proper, which you can download at least a portion of on their site.

cartman414 said:
Form factor/frontend are also part of the appeal.
Click to expand...

The person I was replying to was asking why it was piracy if the software is not available.

But the NES Classic Mini's game selection IS available commercially.

I was not in any way saying "NES Classic Mini has no point, just buy it all on Wii VC." The context was important, which is why I quoted that poster.
 
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