FAMICOM BOX!! What is it?!?

[charitycasegreg]

http://www.nesworld.com/pics/gr-m4.jpg The famicombox? Do you like stick 12 games in and it plays each one with a switch or something? It looks really cool I just wanna know what it is

[§ Gideon §]

Yeah, it's pretty much what you described. There was a topic here not too long ago when one of those popped up on eBay, I believe.

[Cmosfm]

It's what was used in stores back in the NES days. It was just hooked up to a tv style kiosk so people could try out the games in the store...I think it has a timer, not 100% sure.

Cool thing to have, I wish I had one.

[pango]

ive seen it on ebay a couple times. hot item.

[portnoyd]

The box is supposedly a hotel system. It came with either 10 or 15 carts. The carts are NES cart shaped, but won't work on NES. Cute!

dave

[pango]

The box is supposedly a hotel system. It came with either 10 or 15 carts. The carts are NES cart shaped, but won't work on NES. Cute!

dave

i thought it was the other way, that the carts did work on a regular nes, but nes carts didn't work on the box

[§ Gideon §]

The box is supposedly a hotel system. It came with either 10 or 15 carts. The carts are NES cart shaped, but won't work on NES. Cute!
Really? I hadn't heard any of this before. I do think it has a timer, though--not sure. Assuming it did, however, why would a hotel put a timer on it?

[SegaAges]

I remember seeing one of these for the genesis awhile back called a jukebox. i thought it was awesome, but i didn't have any money for it, and ever since then, i always figured that all console systems between nes and genesis/snes had 1 made for it at least for promotional purposes. and i am almost completely sure 1 was made for n64 too, since i do remember going into toys r us and being able to choose which 64 game i could play, and i have heard nothing of a demo/multi-game cart, all i have heard of are the super cool mario 64 ones.

[Ed Oscuro]

Hmm...I can't quite see the labels, but I do remember this topic coming up before.

I read before that it was a "hotel system," ("want to finish up a game of Dragon Warrior 4 overnight?") but it makes more sense for it to be a store system. I wonder if Metroid or any other game I'd be very interested in was released in this format. :o

[sisko]

The thing on the top with the NES controllers is for retail demos.

The Famicom Box underneath it, as portnoyd said, indeed was for hotels.

@pango - The carts have an NES shape to them, but only have the 60 pin Famicom connector.

[Pantechnicon]

A little more info on the hotel Famicom can be seen here. (http://assembler.roarvgm.com/FAMICOMBOX/famicombox.html). And if you've never seen this guy's site before he's got some pretty neat stuff.

[Speedy]

Nice object, but i would do a killing for that M82 on top :-P When i started collecting 2 of those where offerd on eBay.nl for good prices (150 and 200 euro's buy now), but i thought it was an awefull lot off money (silly me :( )

Needless to say that i never saw one of those again for such a price :( (i know one but that one was € 400 unboxed)

[portnoyd]

The timer worked in conjunction with a coinbox that I've never seen on any collector boxes. The only reason I know the coinbox exists is because the listing for the box in the Famicomplete book shows it. For those of you playing our home game, the book released for the 20th anniversary of the Fami... you can probably snag it on eBay for $60 shipped, and, even if you can't read Japanese, it's got tons of great pics. Worth the money.. and if you can read Japanese, even better. :D

dave

[rbudrick]

Now those are rare carts!

DP guide take note. :-)

I can't really make out the title on that pic in thelink that is enlarged.

It looks like the symbols are DA(or TA)- u (maybe WU or VU)- KU-HA-N (or SO)-TO

Bah, my japanese, sucks..

-Rob

[MarioAllStar2600]

My dad had a conversation with a cop he met once about Video Games. Turns out the guy was kicking bums out of a vacant building, and found 2 of those store units. It had the TV and a stand, but he couldnt take them on his own. He just took the cart unit. I have wanted one for a while, but he wont sell. :angry:

[M.M.S]

First of all, sorry for digging up a thread from over a year ago, and secondly, "hello" everyone.

I thought i'd post in this thread instead of making a new one, because i'm such a new member (only really registered to post this), and there's already alot of good info in this thread to refresh people :) Infact i googled and searched the net pretty hard and this is the most info i've found, and even here people are unsure...

So, anyway, i just bought a FamicomBox for what i think is a very good price, the random hardware shop i got it from here in Japan had no idea what it really was. Anyway, now i have a few question, and having read a few people on here have FamicomBoxes i was hoping someone could help ...

I said i bought i FamicomBox, but actually mine says FamicomStation on it...i know they're basically the same thing, because i've seen pictures of both on the net and they look the same, but is there any real difference?

What were the full set of games released for the system? i have the list of: Mario bros, duck hunt, golf, basball, pro wrestling, f1 race, go, shogi, mahjong, ghosts n ghouls, and adventure island. However mine seems to only have 9 inside, and i think i'm missing duck hunt (theres no gun attached to my system either, but space for one) and either adventure island or ghosts and ghouls i cant read the kanji.

theres a few wierd connections on the back...what are they for? one looks like it's for a monitor 15pins, and another is bigger at 25pins, any ideas?

i only knew what this thing was when i saw it because i'd previously been looking into on the net getting a Nintendo Disk system, and then Sharp Twins and then stumbled across a picture of the NintendoStation and thought nothing of it. How much are they likely to sell for, have i got a good deal for £75? mine seems in good condition and i have the yellow manual book with instructions inside for all the games, but as i said, there's no gun attached (but also no duck hunt anyway), and i'm missing atleast 2 other games i think...Also, not that i'm bothered about opening the case because i know no other games will work in the system, but it may need maintainance at some point in the future, and i key to unlock it would have been nice :embarrassed:

any advice or comments (or offers :hmm: ) would be most appreciated, thanks alot!

M.M.S

EDIT: if anyone wants to see pics i could take some, might help figure this thing out :)

[y-bot]

When I was in Japan a few weeks ago I found a recycle store that has 3 of those systems for $140 each and somewhere else I saw one for $200-$250. I considered buying one but I didn't want to haul it around on the train all day and it would be expensive to ship.
y-bot

[The-Bavis]

The top system shown in the first pic is just what I remember playing at a game store in the mall. They had about 5 or 6 of them with just about every NES game they had for sale available. I just wanted to comment that I would think it's the system with the time-limit and not the cartridges. This store had so many carts available, I would find it hard to believe that all of those games would also release a version with a timer. I'm sure the games are interchangeable between that and a home NES. This is all supposition, though.

[Jorpho]

More pics here.
http://assembler.roarvgm.com/FAMICOMBOX/famicombox.html

[jajaja]

Looks like a cool device :)

[M.M.S]

can't say i think it's a very practical machine from a games playing perspective. It's huge, ugly and you can only ever play the special, one-of-a-kind, carts that come inside. I'd much rather have an M82 for games playing, but as for collectability these seem much more rare. I'm still puzzled why some say NintendoBox and others say NintendoStation...

thanks for your comments :)

[Blur2040]

Since theres already two links to Assembler on this page, I feel obligated to point out that Assembler has moved to:

www.assemblergames.com

[yuppicide]

Yep. Famicom Hotel Unit. It won't play normal NES carts or the other way around sadly.

I wish the PlayChoice 10 units would play normal NES games.. then arcades could have always switched out for new games.

[M.M.S]

Well i finally got the cables to power this thing up and connect it to my TV, and i'm glad (and very relieved) to say it all works perfectly (for now, touch wood and all that). The intro screen is ace, and the menu music for selecting games. There's even a rolling demo for the disks inserted which is ace, it made me think the pads were broken at first as i tried to play the damn thing :D

As a said above, i read somewhere that there was only ever 11 games for the system and 4 slots (of a total of 15) left spare for future releases that never came. these being: Mario bros, duck hunt, golf, basball, pro wrestling, f1 race, go, shogi, mahjong, ghosts n ghouls, and adventure island

however, mine has 9 games, being: Mario bros, golf, basball, pro wrestling, f1 race, mahjong, ghosts n ghouls, adventure island, aaaaand "senjyo no ohkami"...

meaning i'm deffo missing duck hunt, go and shogi it seems, and the mystery game "senjyo no ohkami" having appeared in my system from nowhere!

anyone have any ideas what this game is? it's by konami (1986 i think), and plays like Ikari Warriors, pretty hectic. i googled the Japanese name but got nothing, any idea what its english name is?

Thanks again for any insight, this really does seem to be a confusing beast :)

[CRV]

however, mine has 9 games, being: Mario bros, golf, basball, pro wrestling, f1 race, mahjong, ghosts n ghouls, adventure island, aaaaand "senjyo no ohkami"...

meaning i'm deffo missing duck hunt, go and shogi it seems, and the mystery game "senjyo no ohkami" having appeared in my system from nowhere!

anyone have any ideas what this game is? it's by konami (1986 i think), and plays like Ikari Warriors, pretty hectic. i googled the Japanese name but got nothing, any idea what its english name is?

I believe it's spelled "Senjo no Ohkami". It's the Japanese version of Commando by Capcom.

[M.M.S]

yea cheers mate, i was just taking the name from how it was written in the menu system of the machine. When i started searching "ookami" i soon got some results :) And you were 100% right, as proved here:
http://www.klov.com/game_detail.php?letter=S&game_id=9491

the link is for the arcade version, translated "Battle Field Of The Wolf", and indeed it's Western name was "Commando", and made by Capcom, not Konami as i said before :embarrassed: Bit of a weird selection for the FamicomStation though it does play well. Maybe there's even more games out there for the system that we don't know about...

[leonk]

congrats on the system!

Are you planing on bringing it back to the states, or do you live in Japan?

Another system that might be of interest in the future is the N64. I've still hotel versions of it all over the world. Always wondered how that thing works (considering there's only a joystick there in every room!)

[M.M.S]

got some help off the people on my usual boards, and finally found a great article about this thing! here you go:

http://www.tripoint.org/kevtris/mappers/famicombox/index.html

Everything is explained except the overall list of games for the system, i'm still interested in what i'm missing apart from the ones i already know about.

How much do these things go for? and what are the chances of me getting hold of just the carts for the games i'm missing?

shame theres no modding so i cna play normal games :(

thanks all.