A few months ago, Video Game Trader readers had the opportunity to read my review of the FC Mobile system. The review had just hit the presses and sure enough the FC Mobile II was already on the market. Now here I am back to work (if you call playing video games work) reviewing the newer version. I expressed some criticism in the first review, so I was anxious to see if they corrected or improved this model.
The concept of a portable system that plays original Nintendo games is not a new one. There have been various portable NES/Famicom systems made over the years. One of the more widely available systems was Game Axe that came out in the late 90‟s. The Game Axe was made for Famicom Japanese) games, but could play US games with an adaptor that was included. This portable system went through multiple revisions with varying degrees of crappiness. They are very hard to get and expensive to buy if you can even locate one.
Shortly thereafter the Pokefami was released (the FC Mobile v1.0 unit is loosely based off of this unit). It was also a 60 pin unit that was designed to play Japanese Famicom games. The Pokefami is the unit that started the whole famiclone craze. Nintendo sued the makers of the Pokefami and instead of folding, as most any other pirate clone maker would do, they actually stood their ground in court and argued that the NES‟ patents had expired. They easily beat Nintendo in court, and the exact details of that trial set the base for all famiclones. It‟s the judge‟s oddball ruling that says anyone can make NES compatible systems but not replicate their chipset. Because no manufacturer can legally use Nintendo‟s original chipset this lead to varying degress of incompatibility on clone systems.
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