Have you seen the latest GameStation 5 that went viral on social media?
Uh oh pic.twitter.com/DhIycx0x68
— Daniel Ahmad (@ZhugeEX) December 5, 2021
It looks like a miniature PlayStation 5, comes with 200 preinstalled games, and can be acquired on Aliexpress for only $20. Of course, don’t expect this thing to offer a next-gen gaming experience, not even this gen, the last-gen, or the generation before that. Underneath GameStation 5 is an echo of a bygone era, a Famiclone that runs only 8-bit NES and bootleg NES games.
However, there’s more to the GameStation 5 than a distasteful prank to ruin your nephew’s upcoming Christmas. Customers who bought this console seem to genuinely enjoy it. Comments under the product page are relatively positive, filled with reviews like 'I bought it as a joke but I found it very enjoyable instead, it’s better than I expected.'
GameStation 5 is a “Famiclone”, meaning it’s a bootleg Nintendo NES (or Famicom in Japan and many other regions, hence the name Famiclone) that can run 8 bit NES official or homebrew games. It did not come out of nowhere. Before this, there was the GameStation 4 Pro, a Famiclone version of the PS4 Pro, and GameStation 3 before that, and this is not the only popular brand of modern Famiclones.
40 years after the release of the original NES, these bootleg machines are still going strong. On China’s largest e-commerce platform TaoBao, six out of nine best-selling consoles are Famiclones, with a single vendor selling more than 3000 units a month. While at the same time, on the same platform, the PS5 only sold 800 units a month from the top vendor. Of course, this is not a very accurate comparison considering the price difference and the ongoing semiconductor shortages, but still, these numbers show that Famiclones, the forefathers of modern video game consoles, are still in high demand, even today.
There are several reasons why Famiclones are so big in China, but the most obvious one is that these Famiclones have dominated the console market for quite a few decades, influencing generations of gamers, and creating such a cultural impact that even today, some people would still believe a “video game console” is just a Famiclone that you can play the original Super Mario Bros on.
Back in the 1980s and early 1990s, it was simply impossible for regular Chinese families to afford a legitimate Famicom or NES. At the time, a smuggled Famicom from Hong Kong cost half of the average annual income per capita in China and remained a luxury for only the wealthy and powerful families.
Naturally, when someone figured out how to manufacture bootleg NESs, they began selling them for just a fraction of the price; causing these machines to flood the market. The most successful of these brands is the “Little Tyrant”, made by Subor in Zhongshan, Guangdong. Two very smart marketing decisions made this brand stand out from the rest, and dominate the console market from 1989 to 1995.
One is marketing the “Little Tyrant” machines as “learning computers” instead of as gaming consoles. The console was often packaged with a keyboard, some educational software, and had some programming capabilities. This made it a cheap alternative, not to the real Famicom or NES, but to computers. Despite being much cheaper than a legit NES console, the “Little Tyrant” was still worth a regular worker’s monthly wage. However, if you compared that to a serious 386 or 486 PC of the time, plus the theoretical “educational” value, “Little Tyrant” was not only a serious bargain but also gave parents a reason to justify this big family investment, although they probably want to play Super Mario Bros as much as their kids.
The other trick was to utilize aggressive marketing campaigns. Some of the more famous ones include a “Gaming Competition” similar to the Nintendo World Tournament where the top player wins a prize of 10,000 RMB, and a very long-term sponsorship/collaboration with Jackie Chan, making the “Little Tyrant” a truly household name, overshadowing both “Nintendo” or “Famicom”, to become the representation of “video game consoles” in China. This particular Famiclone was soon found in nearly every Chinese household, conquering the rental shops, and taking up more than 80% of the market share.
Also recommended by National Education Research Center for High Schools and Primary Schools.
There’s no other gaming console that can enjoy the success the “Little Tyrant” had. While the world moved on to next-generation consoles like Nintendo Game Cube or PlayStation, the cheap Famiclones have remained the definitive choice of electronic entertainment for most Chinese families. For a very long time, when the Chinese general public talked about “playing video games”, they were normally referring to the “Little Tyrant”.
The booming bootleg console market also spawned a booming bootleg/homebrew cartridge scene, and developers would mash-up games to create their own. NES enthusiasts might know of Somari, an 8-bit clone of the 16-bit game Sonic the Hedgehog, featuring Mario as the protagonist. It’s a cursed sight, but also a technical marvel, offering a pseudo 16-bit experience on 8-bit consoles. There’s also Kart Fighter, a Street Fighter II clone with Nintendo characters, that was named a “poor man’s Super Smash Bros” by Gamespot.
Kart Fighter, exclusive to Famiclone
In a way, the “Little Tyrant” and bootleg NES games have paved the foundations for the future growth of the gaming industry and created a collective fond memory of Nintendo games among Chinese gamers.
In the early 2000s, PCs became much cheaper in China, and a chain of events lead to the government banning the sale of video game consoles in China altogether, this law remained in place until it was eventually reversed in 2015. Computers became the family entertainment center, and modern gaming consoles became a niche.
However, Famiclones still found a way to survive. Some of them integrated into the trending VCD and DVD players and stayed in the living room. Others just had a field day and disguised themselves as modern consoles to target the so-called “Sinking Market”, hence the existence of the PolyStation, and the Game Station series.
For the Chinese gaming community, bootleg NES and 8-bit Nintendo games will always have a special place. It’s a shared memory across generations of gamers, and a topic that can make gamers and non-gamers all feel included. Famiclones and their preinstalled games have continued to bring joy to Chinese families to this day; sometimes even serving as a tool to connect senior parents and their adult children.
People are also buying the console for their retired parents
So yes, in this day and age, when consoles are legal again in China and mobile games are dominating, bootleg NES is still relevant within the Chinese gaming community and Game Station 5 is certainly not going to be the last one of these we see.!