Solar-Powered Nintendo-Emulating MP4 Player (Go China!)
This knock-of "MP4 Player" not only plays music and video, it can emulate the NES and Game Boy Color. But even better, it can be recharged with built-in solar panels. That's right: you can play Faxanadu until the sun explodes.
It comes with 2GB of memory built in, which is plenty for NES and GB ROMs, although perhaps not music and movies, and can be expanded up to another 2GB with an SD card. Oh, and it's got a USB out to which other gadgets can be connected—not for data, but to be recharged from the solar panel.
It's $123.32 from China Vision, plus shipping. And despite very need for yet another device that can play emulated NES or GBA GBC games, I'm having a hard time talking myself out of buying one. If it played SNES games I'd probably take the plunge.
Catalog Page [ChinaVision.com via Albotas]
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Ah, Faxanadu. If I remember right (and there's a good chance I don't) that game was bugged so that your projectiles didn't stop when the game was paused. Killing the bosses was so easy once you figured that out.
Just think of it as a product of the best slave labour money can buy and it might be easier to talk yourself out of buying one.
I've bought some really cheap Chinese gear myself up to a few years ago, but when you sit down and ask, "How do they make this stuff so cheaply?" it becomes a lot easier to contemplate doing without.
you said "game boy color" and "gba"?
i bet it's gbc only.
Oops, I sure did. Fixed!
As cool as that looks I've learned over time that simply having a device with the games on them doesn't make me magically want to play them again.
I ran through my NES,GB, and GBC games so many times that I don't really find myself wanting to do it again, although they do stay with me in spirit.
(I have the ROM images)
Maybe after a few more years or if the price drops significantly or something...
Yeah, I have my old-school Amiga 1000 and a ton of the awesome games for it, but I end up actually playing the games on my laptop with WinUAE (Amiga emulator). Why is that? Because it's faster loading, more convenient (I'm typically already using it) and the exact same experience.
I guess this guy has the advantage of being handheld, but beyond that the games would be just as fun on a laptop.
@dculberson: Excellent point!
I forgot that there is a GB/GBC emulator that will run as a portable application under WinXP.
I've had it and my games on my 4GB flash drive for so long I completely forgot about them!
(So you see my point)
Just in time for the second season of Jericho!
Comparative advantage. China is full of people who were at best in an economic standstill since Mao championed communism in 1949. Now it's like traveling back in time and being the first to "invent" technology/capital that modern nations have long since taken for granted. because not buying their stuff is going to help the workers earn money and make a better living for themselves? That's like saying by not paying for hospital care you will somehow cure all diseases.Perhaps we could focus our critical actions on subverting the rampant corruption of a vastly authoritarian socialist state?
Meh, not that interested. Now if it'll play my Atari 2600 games that's a different story!
Looks like a good platform for a Maker to build on, just add keyboard from a label printer or other cheap device and you have a solar powered micro palm top.
There's a solar power attatchement for the PSP, which can emulate everything up to and including the Nintendo 64. A 16 GB memory stick is coming out in March, as is DivX playback. This thing is rather primitive, really.
@#9 Freddie Freelance: If you're looking for a handheld that plays 2600 cartridges, you may have to pay a little more, but Beck Heckendorn has you covered, as well as portables of a good many other systems, and tutorials and a book on modding classic videogame platforms into handheld, if you're up to such a task.
I do like the solar panels; other major manufacturers might take a cue and make those standard, as they were in the Game N' Watch days.
Cripes, I said "Beck Heckendorn." That should be BEN. I must have Xenu on the brain.
i may be dumb, but how would it play NES and GBC games? do you have to put them on an SD card?
GP2X anyone? not much more expensive and much more capable.
http://www.engadget.com/2007/10/29/gameparks-gp2x-f-200-handheld-ships/
If your heart desires a Chinese product capable of SNES emulation, the Ainol V2000 MP4 Player can apparently do that, NES, Sega Genesis, and, mysteriously, Neo Geo. Unfortunately, it is neither sinister-looking nor solar-powered, and requires that you buy a separate gamepad accessory to actually play the games.
I'm not sure where you can actually get one right now - MP4Nation.net had them, but seem only to be stocking the V2000SE right now, and that one doesn't have the emulation functionality.
I'm not sure but I think Chinavasion make that product... not China Vision. ;-)