The Mystery of the Media Mega Drive | Nostalgia Nerd

[@Nostalgianerd]

Slight oversight by me and an update on the serial number front courtesy of Patron Donald Perkins: The standard for most date codes is (year)(dayoftheyear) so 92081 would be the 81st day of 1992 and this would be device 176 that was produced that day. It's possible they didn't use this system, but it's likely and means they could produce several hundred per day. That could mean the serial numbers written on the machines possibly applied to an allocated batch from each day. Additional (some are getting upset): the Mega Drive may have spread FROM Japan in 1989 but it was first released in 1988.

[@nneeerrrd]

Nostalgia Nerd did you misspelled "its" for "it's" in the description (twice)? Otherwise great video and narration, as always!

[@HappyBeezerStudios]

I also see build weeks instead of build days. SO it could be the 81st week of 92?? Well, that doesn't work here, but is used quite often.

[@doq]

-If the machine is 176 then 920816 could be a date equating to 16 August 1992.- Oh. Note to self. Finish video before commenting.

[@DonaldPerkins]

Awesome video! Thank you for the mention! :)

[@dotcotton6783]

i thought it was the day, month and year. 1(st) of the 08 92. Just like the other one was 1(st) 07 95

[@paulgascoigne5343]

The bottom reset button resets the console. The top reset button resets the universe. That's why you don't notice it doing anything because you are relative to the console.

[@Nostalgianerd]

*BLOWN*

[@RiasatSalminSami]

Paul Gascoigne wow

[@thegreathadoken6808]

You were a fantastic footballer, Paul.

[@KuraIthys]

LMAO. Reset buttons can be pretty weird. I have a super famicom and something like 31 games, as well as a PAL SNES with two. The PAL games all reset if you push the reset button. The Majority of the Super Famicom games do... Absolutely nothing whatsoever if you push the reset button. (The game just keeps running as if nothing at all happened.) It's not like it doesn't work, because there are a handful of games that do indeed reset. But for whatever reason, most don't. Not only does this make you wonder why they bothered with a reset button, it also has the rather bizarre implication that responding to the reset signal is optional, and is under the control of the game developers. Makes you wonder what kind of twisted nonsense you could pull on players by messing with whatever game code dictates what happens when the reset button is pressed...

[@buhshmuh]

You were a tough second boss in bloodborne

[@nikhildabas]

Excellent investigation! These were really popular in India back in the 90s and spawned a small cottage industry of selling those clone "200 in 1" style carts. Most people in India did not know that these consoles (and the carts) were knock-offs. An interesting feature that I saw was that some of these came with RF antennas that you could plug into the RF output, and therefore play games without plugging anything into your TV. A weird side-effect was that your neighbors several houses away could also watch you play... kind of like a localized Twitch from the 90s. Also interesting was that the manufacturer actually advertised these consoles in magazines -- maybe they knew that Nintendo did not have a presence in India and even if they did, the Indian legal system is so slow that they could easily get away with selling these for several years if Nintendo decided to sue them.

[@Clos93]

Nikhil Dabas, wtf dude.... That's fucking crazy man! I remember seeing clone consoles at local mexican fleamarkets here in Texas that had roms loaded on them, as a kid even then I knew this shit was bootleg, but fuck it I thought, they were only like 20 bucks or something. Of course being here in the states, they crackdown on that kind of stuff fast, so they're no longer found at the fleamarkets anymore.

[@Blackadder75]

They have a legal system in India? The things you learn on the interwebs.....

[@melodyofailingheart9400]

Blackadder75 that's kinda racist..... Remember it's an Indian who fucked net neutrality in the US.

[@melodyofailingheart9400]

Hirrei well how about stereotypia, does that work 🙄🙄

[@melodyofailingheart9400]

Blackadder75 so is this : Law doesn't exist in India.

[@KasbashPlays]

If any of you thought that these consoles were sold via clandestine methods, how wrong you were. They straight up advertised these on Cartoon Network during the 90s as "The Best Games Console In India". Unfortunately neither Sega nor Nintendo officially sold consoles in India (the latter did so only from the Wii onwards), so this is what most kids got for their birthdays. I had an actual Sega Mega Drive 2 so when one of my neighbours' kids came home, he thought we had the same thing and got pissed when I booted up Sonic 3 & Knuckles, since his "Mega Drive" didn't have it. Good times.

[@achowdhury47]

Nintendo is still not present in the Indian market. What're you talking about?

[@bitelaserkhalif]

In Indonesia, same situation from what I can tell. Only Sony had localized ps+ here. eShop must be set to either Australian, Japan, or USA. The most common famiclone is polystation, looks like PlayStation. And some info: Atari was distributed back then here by multipolar (lippo company) selling 2600

[@jameskosusnik1102]

Just shows how bad india's government is.

[@IndianVideoGameCollector]

Well... Nintendo did land officially in India with NES under partnership of Samurai kzbin.info/www/bejne/jZWzpZebmJ2smNU kzbin.info/www/bejne/jpOzlXWCe6Zshrc As for Sega, they came here in 1996 I guess with MD2 under partnership with Shaw wallace kzbin.info/www/bejne/moqTmmumpKt2r9k

[@Astolfo2001]

Has anybody ever uploaded a commercial for this thing on the internet yet?

[@ChaitanyaShukla2503]

I had one of the NES clones made by this company back in 95-94. They were quite common in India back in 90s.

[@Ghativega]

I also had NES clone in 2010's! :D I am also from India too! It is very common in India even today!

[@ratulxy]

Did you have that 'media gameboy' console?

[@slyfrailzz]

India’s game scene is tough, they want your pockets turned inside out and cut off

[@nogidoki3325]

I just had the super megason 4 when i was little... i thought it was original console lol

[@salvatronprime9882]

I wonder if they had fanboy wars. "Super Megason awesome technology, Media Megadrive is for kiddies!!!11"

[@soulagent79]

Bought a similar clone console at a flea market in Germany in the mid-90s. Every time I switched it on, the cartridge showed a different number of games.

[@Redhotsmasher]

soulagent79 A sign of quality. "How many games does it have? However many it feels like having." :p

[@3rdalbum]

That's why the box says "200 x 1, 100 x 1, 52 x 1 etc"; because you never know how many you'll get when you insert the cart.

[@noop9k]

soulagent79 this probably means it had several multicarts in one, switched via reset.

[@interlace84]

When your parents didn't love you enough to buy an actual genesis but cared enough to notice you wanted one..

[@majmunx9703]

Or they didn't had the money. :(

[@seganutt]

lol great comment

[@Dargonhuman]

Not gonna lie, even as a 35 year old adult who could afford a genuine game console, part of me is still tempted to get some of these clone consoles, if only for the convenience of being able to play so many great classic games without having to switch carts or spend hundreds or thousands of dollars and literal years finding and collecting all the games. Pretty much the only two factors that keep me from buying them are (primarily) I don't like the idea of supporting criminal activity, and there's no doubt in my mind that the kinds of people who would go this far to simply pirate retro games wouldn't hesitate to delve into other more criminal activities and (secondly) most of these clone consoles are so cheap and poorly made that they still feel like a massive ripoff.

[@jackiehopson8334]

Dargonhuman goto Dollar General or Family Dollar they have NES and Seag Genisis consoles with hundreds of games loaded on them. Original games too not knock offs. 40 bucks

[@KillingDeadThings]

I had a mate that was expecting a Megadrive and got a Gameboy. He was devastated. Still, that Gameboy got played a lot. Tetris and Castlevania becoming quick favourites.

[@saeklin]

This is like tracking the origin of knock-off toys. Oh look its a pink Batman action figure with a picture of Buzz from Toy Story on the box and named Luke Skybot Prime, with a few Megablock pieces thrown in for good measure. Its a rabbit hole that always leads to India or China.

[@refractionpcsx2]

"Your Media Mega Drive could drive you to ecstasy" Confirmed, the MMD is a gateway drug.

[@andymadden8183]

It means happiness.

[@JohnyG29]

@@andymadden8183 whoosh

[@davidjames579]

Have you ever used Mega Drive Media Attachment?

[@skaldlouiscyphre2453]

@@davidjames579 Ah yes, the Sega Molly.

[@ZILtoid1991]

Most of my friends owned the fake Megadrive clone consoles, and when I showed them actual Megadrive games in an emulator they didn't want to believe me. Fake Megadrives were so popular that I'm having hard time telling my younger brother that Sega didn't manufacture bootleg consoles, and on the actual hardware you couldn't play Mario (unless it was made by fans or bootleggers), it had pretty decent graphics, etc, despite what some really shitty Hungarian KZbinrs say.

I wanted to write pretty much the same. We didn't really had consoles in Hungary before the 90's so we thought thats a completely legit "sega"

[@krcsirke]

As Hungarian, I can say similar, it was really good and cheap gaming experience. Still popular here, some people still buying and selling clones and cartridges. My first clone was called like Sega Megadrive 2, with built in games, with 99999999 in cartridge and some others. My family had about 4 or 5 of these, not all worked after 2-3 years of playing. My mother repaired lot of gamepads too. At about 1999, I get one of modern clone, keyboard version, maybe called like GLK-2016 with print option, about 2004 or 5 was last time I see these clones at local market. Now, you can still find some clones, but with xbox or playstation design at markets here. My mom bought these at markets and local shops. I still have new one for enjoying my childhood games, with my family. We called these clones as sárgakazis or nintendo. Ps: All of these had scart connection, so graphics and sound was good.

[@slyfrailzz]

I have never played on Scart, I imagine I’d feel spoiled after that.

[@markpenrice6253]

I've had trouble recently trying to sell UK and South African friends on the idea that the Genesis wasn't Sega's first console... stopped just short of pulling up their company timeline as it wasn't worth the bad feeling, but it is funny how these ideas become embedded. I mean, it wasn't even bleedin' well CALLED that in either country.

[@greenaum]

SCART can carry RGB, so it means they wouldn't have to deal with all the weird variants of PAL throughout Europe, Russia, and the Soviet Bloc. Just one version of the console for the whole continent! And in fact anywhere else where people owned SCART TVs.

[@Larry]

CEX in the late '80s used to sell a Famiclone called the "Good Boy", they also wanted £150 for it!

[@RetroGUY77]

Larry Bundy Jr CEX was around in the late 80s?

[@RWL2012]

+Mini Mort 2 nah, the first CeX opened in London in 1992 (Tottenham Court Road). I think it's still trading, along with the second CeX on Rathbone place that opened in 1993. I still need to go to them!

[@jpviegas]

I remember the good boy, it was the first famiclone I ever came across :D

[@RWL2012]

igx.4sqi.net/img/general/200x200/11098277_SfYzCCkEnL9NcGtedpI26F5MsMSyTTdQPjgtZQzCiQ4.jpg Rathbone Place

[@RWL2012]

+Azusa Nakano yeah, they probably wouldn't allow it nowadays with the chain and the franchises.

[@ShinZeLoz]

This is probably the most intense look into a Famiclone's origins I've ever seen. So much interesting history behind the "pirates" producing these things!

[@Johanniscool]

Better investigative journalism than most news outlets. Good job!

[@willynebula6193]

Johann Cerecke completely agree

[@M4rtyMcFly21]

Yup.

[@jojivlogs_4255]

You think journalists nowadays are concerned with thorough investigation?

[@steliokontos8364]

Johann Cerecke good point. And all he used was the internet.

[@hardeep1singh]

I had this console as a kid. My mother bought it for me for Rs 1000 used. It came with 3rd party controllers that looked like NES. Have great memories of playing games on this for many years.

[@hardeep1singh]

Media Little Master is featured here. kzbin.info/www/bejne/d4msc6Z8jdKbadU

[@AniGaAG]

Randomly found your channel via suggested videos. Watched a few videos - and I love it! Always glad to find someone who just banks on being sympathetic and informative instead of yelling like a hyperactive headless chicken that must scream despite not having a mouth... beak... mouthbeak. Subscribed~

[@googleminus3230]

I have one of these but it's back home with my parents in India-it's still in the box etc if I recall correctly-that I got in the early 1990s. I will check in December when I visit and post an update here. I got countless hours of pleasure out of mine, so I was glad to have it at a time when both the Sega MegaDrive and the NES/Famicom were unavailable in India. One small detail is that I had a NES cartridge adapter, although I am not sure if I bought it separately or if it came in the box. By the mid-1990s, it was a bit easier to get NES cartridges, so I could use those. Still, original NES games were incredibly expensive so I only ever played on borrowed ones. It was hard to justify the purchase when literally every electronics store had one of these 521x1 cartridges for the same price or even lower. Of course it was impossible to save on the "Mega Drive" cartridges, so between that and the sped-up Mario, I never completed the game on that console and had to wait for virtual console on the Wii U to do that. Most of my gaming now is on the N3DS, since I (still!!) can't afford a Switch. I have the WiiU, but I think I have more or less exhausted its library. There is, of course, no question of ever buying a PS or XBox-Nintendo for life, clones and all!

[@googleminus3230]

PS: great sleuthing! I especially enjoy it because I am actually a professional historian.

[@millbill2160]

Ur missing out on real games. There teck sucks now adays

[@millbill2160]

Uh how much do u make a month again bruh

[@rm4492]

Hi! Please let me know if you are interested in selling your famiclone game system

[@Mortico88]

I had a similar clone I bought in 2000 while visiting Costa Rica. It could take Famicom and NES cartridges, and had "250" games built in. Though it was the same 50 games, each listed 5 times, sometimes with pallet swaps, sometimes not. The wires for all the controllers were only 2 ft long, so it was terrible to actually play. The kicker was it was called a "Polystation" and was made to look like a Playstation 1. It even had a lid that looked like the disc compartment, but when you lifted it up, it just had the two cartridge slots for the games. I didn't pay much for it, mostly bought it for the novelty. I think I got rid of it years ago, which I now regret.

[@KuraIthys]

Must have been modelled off of Japanese hardware. For whatever reason those always have absurdly short controller cables. My Super Famicom controllers have 37 inch cables. Not kidding. And that's not knockoff hardware, those are the official controllers. I can only assume Japanese console players were in the habit of sitting right next to the console. This behaviour might also explain why the NES classic was designed to need to reach over to the console itself to get back to the menu... That's absurd if you're 6-10 feet away from it, but makes perfect sense if it's sitting next to you. (By the way, anyone that owns a NES or SNES classic - it should be obvious from the controller connections, but these are literally wii classic controllers. You can use them as such with a Wii or Wii U, but conversely a Wii Classic or Classic Pro controller works with the NES and SNES classic. One interesting thing I noticed here is that on the SNES classic, all the main buttons do what you expect, but the extra buttons (and analogue sticks) a snes controller would not have do nothing... Except for the home button. Yes, the home button on a Wii classic controller does exactly what you think it would if you use this on a SNES classic... of course, the cables on these are even shorter, but with an extension cable, but at least you wouldn't need to go right up to the console to reset it...)

[@KOTYAR0]

Steve Gais there is a nice Poly Station video on Stuart Ashens channel, if I recall correctly

[@greenaum]

Japanese living rooms are often tiny, so maybe there's no room for more than 2 foot of cable. Still it's a shame they're not longer. In the 1980s you could get joystick extension cables, relying on the fact that most home computers and consoles used the Atari standard 9-pin D connector. The pinout didn't matter, they were just 9 pins wired straight through. Handy for the Atari ST which had it's joystick / mouse connectors underneath the computer for some stupid reason. You could perhaps make your own extension cables, except where do you get the connector plugs from? You could 3D print them with some work. Do they make extensions for the Wii Classic? Shame as well that the Switch doesn't use those controllers.

[@orlandopelletier5036]

cheapest and easiest way would be to cut cable a few inches from controller and plug, find another cord with same ammount of conductors and then cut desired length...then splice into the pigtails you left at the end of original plug and controller....sodder, throw some shrink tubing on it and done...

[@moonandroid5290]

The Polystation knock-off was sold in my country as well for a while. Mostly in Indian and Chinese shops.

[@NotCerius]

I owned a little master 2 back when I could barely make sentences. That Media logo brought tears to my eyes. It was the first videogame experience we had as kids honestly. Thank you so much for making this. You truly are a "Nostalgia Nerd".

[@rm4492]

Hi! Do you still have little master 2

[@not_riley]

I feel a little bit clickbaited. I genuinely thought this was a rare unheard Sega console...

[@SRBAnimate]

Same

[@martpr2012]

well that's kind of to be expected on a video about product intentionally designed for people to confuse it with genuine saga megadrive products.

[@Koozomec]

It proves the marketing depatment of "Media" was really effective.

[@XeonProductions]

It's chinese hardware bait... take a NES clone, shove it in a familiar plastic shell, include 100-in-1 multi card, and voilà!

[@dss7239]

i thought it was an add-on for playing music and videos!

[@MrRaizada]

These were pretty common in India in 1990s. I used to own one. There were quite a few names and these were manufactured locally in India (mostly in delhi and chennai) and were marketed under names like "Samurai" and "Media". Media used to be a popular name. They had a few interesting ads featuring CGI back in 90s. They even had a Mega-Drive clone too. So did Samurai.

[@kgrfirdjy]

There are videos on youtube about the Samurai system that was available in India. The Sega Genesis // Megadrive system had an incredibly long life and was supposedly quite popular in South America in Brazil.

[@22hannit]

Another great video. I remember seeing similar clones in the local junk stores and at the weekend market where I'd get told no I can't get one. Never understood why until I was older that my parents knew they were cheap junk.

[@GM-db9qh]

Very informative video. Thank you so much. I am from India, and I practically grew up playing the 64 in 1 cartridge on one of those famiclones manufactured by Media. Many famiclones from Media were extremely popular in the 90's. Cartridges like 64 in 1, 999 in 1, 5000 in 1 and even 99999 were common that came free with these abominations. I owned one of these famiclone models which was named "Game Boy". It was one of the most compact famiclone models seen during those days. "Little Master" was another model my friend had but they were all same with a few differences such as controller shape. I was curious how all those famiclones ended up in the Indian subcontinent. Which led me to this video. Back in those days, we had all sorts of cartridges l think they are still sold in some old markets in Delhi and small towns across India. Cartridges use to be like 3 in 1, 7 in 1 , 8 in 1 and so on and had better and latest titles whereas 999999 in 1 would have only a few games repeated over and over with a variety of hacks. We used to hear it all the time from sellers that the cartridges came from Hong Kong. I think they were all manufactured in Taiwan. Although, a lot of assembly of the famiclones themselves took place in Delhi. Those were the fun days in a wierd way 😂

[@justanotheryoutubechannel]

That’s so fascinating to hear, that’s so cool that you remember the other Media products. I’d love to track all of these down for myself someday. I’m glad you were able to get access to gaming even if it was via bootlegs since there were few legal options at the time. It’s interesting to hear your wisdom about the cartridge sizes, these days people mostly talk about the 99999-in-1 style carts but it’s cool to know there were smaller quantities of good games on one cart.

[@dead99ish]

I played too much of my Media Mega Drive and I now have an ecstasy addiction.

[@SegaDream131]

Extasy is MDMA.

[@Unnamed1990]

For those curious this was a famiclone made in taiwanmade by Seniton in the late 80s, it was a upgraded version of the System-3 famiclone they made. The only other brand variant i know from this clone is the "Konami" one wich is quite more rare, you can actually find a picture of this clone without branding shown in a electronic expo in Taiwan back in the day, showed with other famiclones.

[@TudenJamir]

My cousin had this back in 93 if my memory serves me right. The funny thing is I knew about this even before i learned about the real Megadrive lol.

[@wildbilltexas]

Great detective work. The earliest I remember seeing NES clones being sold in the USA was at a BX air force base store in the late 80's.

[@djpeterabreu]

"what in the name of Atari lynx's mother is this thing?!?!?" best thing I learned watching this video

[@Ryno2094]

best thing you learnt? what? what did it teach you exactly lmao

[@djpeterabreu]

@@Ryno2094 the expression itself, I used it quite often now

[@ericcookson168]

😂

[@erfanesaie1757]

Let’s not miss on the fact that a few decades later the company’s marketing strategy at the time still works today . A mysterious looking machine that looks like everything else , simply make you want to own one and figure it out for yourself 🙂

[@secondgoodoldgreg2807]

Interesting video, I remember an school mate had a game boy clone that had cartridges with dozens of games on them. I was incredibly jealous.

[@JamiePiller]

Recently discovered your channel and am loving it. I was raised on the old Texas instruments TI whatsit and then the zx80, zx81, 48k speccy, 128k+2 and then the Amiga a500. Your videos are awesome and bring back memories. My big brother passed away 2.5 years ago and we spent many hours playing games together. Kids today don't know they're born. 👍

[@RWL2012]

The Japanese Mega Drive came out in 1988, the Genesis came out in 1989 and the UK & Europe Mega Drive came out in 1990.

[@StarFury2]

Cheap game console review turned into the best detective story I've seen in a while. Love the mystic music during investigation scenes. Great video!

[@nobuyukinyuu]

Hey, I live right by that Goodwill! Always had decent luck finding good stuff there, including the occasional weird import. Too bad they started getting wise to the value of retro games, though. Pretty hard to score those affordably nowadays...

[@stevew8513]

I love it. A Famicom clone, branded with the Mega Drive logo, and given a Nintendo Zapper and Amstrad GX-4000 controllers. It's the Frankenstein's monster of video games. It doesn't surprise me that your friend's PAL machine was found in America. I've randomly found import consoles and games over the years in thrift stores around Texas, it was always a good day when I'd find something so unusual.

[@KerbalRocketry]

"Power Consumption: About 11Watts" is just mindblowingly great, it's beyond chinglish and into just plain sillyness

[@markpenrice6253]

No, it's pretty normal. They've just used "about" instead of "approx", and that's arguably better English than the actual normal UK/US/etc construct of throwing in an abbreviated quasi-latin term instead. The power consumption of the console through its unregulated (or poorly regulated), most likely AC/AC adaptor, will vary according to what load its various chips are under, the ambient temperature, exact supply voltage, etc. It's likely that 11 watts is the maximum they measured it at, but they can't be 100% sure it won't go slightly higher in some unexpected corner case. It's not a great hill of beans anyway; 12 watts means about 0.05 amps drawn from a typical UK plug (or 1/260th of the rated maximum), and - on my own electricity tariff - take almost a month of continual use to consume £1.00 of metered power. So even if it means the power might vary between 1w and 21w, it's not super careless to say that the average consumption is roughly 11.

[@dub2536]

I wish I could have bought one of these in the early 1990s, as the games o your screen looked pretty good IMO. Also to have over 50 games on one cartridge would have been a rare breed of cartridge indeed. I could have enjoyed this thing, especially if in the first half of the 1990s I could get all that functioning for less than $200 US currency then I would have been blessed. So long as it functioned 100%. Fascinating video you made here. I enjoyed every second of it. I hope you are well. Hats off to you, from Washington DC.

[@СимбирцевСтанислав]

I have one of this clone. But it's named LT-1000 and painted in different colors (beige for console it self and browny-violet for buttons) and all that i can understand that LT-1000 produced is for Korean market. Also, my version is SECAM clone (this is TV standard for USSR, Korea and France in 60s by 90s) and it have RGB modding option! Also, some photos may be found in this thread from assemblergames.com assemblergames.com/threads/some-famiclone-pics.26598/ but there is named JA-004 May be is a some very rare famiclone at all. Any way, it's very interesting found review on youtube for this clone! Thanks Peter as usual! And hello to every one from Kazakhstan! (sorry for my English bytheway)

[@justanotheryoutubechannel]

That’s so fascinating, it’s interesting how varied famiclones could get based off the reason. SECAM is bizarre to see but I guess it makes sense as you need it to be the right format if you want colour.

[@nickwallette6201]

An RF chord wouldn't sound like anything. It's WAY above the threshold of human hearing.

[@markpenrice6253]

Only if you neglect to consider the beat frequencies that would be created with any but the most carefully calculated even-tempered tuning... ;)

[@TheGunmanChannel]

Hey man, great video as always. Just thought I'd let you know there's a way to get rid of the flickering when recording CRT footage, Modern Vintage Gamer has a video on how to do it. You may get something out of it.

[@theobscurestash6537]

What a sexy mystery, and a example of investigative gaming journalism done right! Great job!

[@RMCRetro]

Perfect timing, I was just watching your old MegaDrive documentary this morning!

[@Nostalgianerd]

I hope you don't suffer from "Mega Drive Overload".... Pretty sure that's a condition.

[@enigma776]

It is, goes well with your sonicitus.

[@Dorelaxen]

"With some light blowing, all is well." Truer words, man. Truer words.

[@Nukle0n]

Wasn't until I saw the cartridge that I realized it was some Famiclone.

[@bamsegod]

I really liked this video. bring backs the old memories. me and my brother got one of these one in the summer vacation of 1993. media mega drive it was called however in white version with nes style/colored controllers. it failed within a week, so my dad had to fight a long battle with the store where we got it from. after threats of reporting to the consumer rights commisson we finally got a replacement called samurai console (which was sold by nintendo under different name) after a month and that replacement was still going strong a few years ago. great find indeed.

[@Nostalgianerd]

emulated or real I'm quite impressed this one is still running tbh!

[@SomeonefromArge]

This was so interesting, really well done! Would love to see more videos like this

[@Nostalgianerd]

Many thanks. The Street Fighter 2 video for the Mega Drive is quite similar if you haven't seen that. kzbin.info/www/bejne/gZzEg2uQlrSVhZI

[@UltromanTheTacoman]

11:14 - That sentence... "Action packed games to give you fun filled feeling of fulfillment." Say that 10 times fast.

[@CarbyGuuGuu]

I see a video with "Mega Drive" on the title, I click. Only to find out it's just another bootleg Famiclone. I used to have a plug-n-play controller back in 2001, reminiscent of that of the Nintendo 64's, with a second resembling the actual Mega Drive's for Player 2. Aside from legit Famicom games like Super Mario Bros. and Ice Climber, it had ROM hacks of Bomberman, Dig-Dug, and Mario Bros. As well as some Japan-only gems like Door Door and Ninja-Kun. I had a blast playing them, but the poor quality of these bootlegs meant it didn't last very long. Someday, I'll be able to import a real Famicom to play those games I've longed to get back to.

[@Nostalgianerd]

God damn, you should be the detective here, not me.

[@HappyBeezerStudios]

I have that weak feeling somewhere exists a cardrige for the Mega Drive that accepts NES roms and includes an emulator. After all there were SNES emulators for the Dreamcast, so why not NES on the Mega Drive.

[@meetoo594]

HappyBeezer: I think certain everdrive carts can run nes emulation, not sure how well though.

[@Objectorbit]

Emulation, my friend. It's a world of wonder and merriment.

[@malakaibrown94]

That's a super joy famiclone had one of those as a kid back in the mid 2000s they used to be sold in malls and many 99 cent stores the last one I saw was a pop station being displayed at one Indian 99 cent store in 2013 they are still around but no body buys them unless the kid is a hipster

[@Xilinjsh]

I had one of these clones as my first ever console. It had Mario, tanks and duck hunt on it. And I loved the shit out of it. A bit of background: I spent my childhood in the remnants of a collapsed Soviet union. I remember that in around '98 affording a game boy (the first one) was a big deal. So these knock offs really brought the post-Soviet youth in the gaming era... the next step being internet cafes and CS. And screaming at everyone. Sorry about that.

[@_Piers_]

Sadly, my Media Mega Drive drove me to heroine....

[@jesuswasasausage9262]

Pook365 I think you mean heroin

[@mikedrop4421]

@@jesuswasasausage9262 nope he meant heroine, chicks dig a BBC (big black console).

[@Yoshimitsu420]

@@jesuswasasausage9262 nah heroine bro it's like heroin but stronger

[@MaaZeus]

I like these Dendy style Famiclones of the '90s. Technically they were NTSC machines running NTSC famicom cartridges (or their pirate copies) but the console still ran at PAL speed. NTSC games ran like they were drunk, slowed down. Great and cheap machines for PAL regions though with adapters and compatibility was very good, better than most early NOAC clones that arrived later.

[@user-pi5xz5je4y]

Apparently these type of things were popular in USSR because it was the best that most people there could afford. They were mainly made (cheaply) in Asia.

[@noop9k]

Unsolvable Captcha yes, and they were advertized on one of the biggest tv channels! the guy who imported the first big batch and ran this ad was so clueless, he choose the wrong tv standard and later they had to modify each received console before distributing to retail sellers.

[@markpenrice6253]

Less "the most they could afford", more "all they could get hold of"... either through it being the highest spec (offered by manufacturers in allied communist nations) the Soviet authorities thought The People needed in order to gain sufficient benefit (see also: the many Sinclair ZX80/81/Spectrum, CBM PET and IBM 5150 clones offered for their domestic computer market even when they were drastically out of date), or just what came in through the grey or completely black markets (where the products were unstandably more likely to be bootleg anyway, and of a pile 'em high sell 'em sort-of-cheap nature where a simpler, cheaper model would make more profit more easily)

[@noop9k]

Mark Penrice Nope. What “Soviet authorities” you are talking about? No more USSR after 1991. It took all people’s savings too. monthly wage could be as low as $20. Some still could become rich, but they were a minority. There were food tickets FFS! so only Speccy clones and famiclones for entertainment with much smaller number of more original archs remaining in use. Before that - entirely different story that could take pages to describe and irrelevant anyway. Speccy production was domestic, but Famiclones arrived strictly from Hong Kong and Taiwan first, China later. please tell me where you found the BS about existence of ZX80/ZX81/PET clones. There were no such clones in USSR. Maybe something in Eastern Europe.

[@OpenEmoto]

I've the same cartridge, in cyan plastic. I remember I traded it second hand for three or four single game cartridges plus money. It was an awesome cartridge at that time. I think 1993. We had a lot of fake famicoms in South America. Now you can purchase cartridges with 500 great games, but at that time it was not so common. I remember the cartridge was heavier than the rest.

[@FlyxDK]

Great investigative peice.

[@Nostalgianerd]

Thanks!

[@KOTYAR0]

Kasper Lund Hjorth which, sadly, led to absolutely tucking nothing at all I knew it was my beloved Denby with Sega branding the moment I laid eyes on this thing

[@joeblow8593]

I'm not into gaming and such, but this was great for the investigative aspect of it. I wish there was another 20 or 30 minutes of it.

[@okinawabongrip]

Noooo

[@MarcusTDM]

As this was made at the same time as the Mega Drive, like you say, I bet a few kids were left disappointed on Christmas Day and a few parents ripped off. Absolute scoundrels. Good video mate.

[@mwk1]

14:00 - aaaaaaand Pegasus consoles in Poland aswell!

[@Peteman81]

That is one heck of an in-depth investigation!! I'm impressed, well done - good video!

[@Elkott]

I love videos like this, more mysteries please.

[@rars0n]

The design of the console kind of reminds me of the Power Base Converter, and combined with the box art it made me think that this was some obscure Master System redesign that I hadn't heard of before. It took a minute for me to realize that this was just a knock-off console (the multi-game carts should have been the obvious tip).

[@aflockofseacowsesquire]

neat Panasonic AG-500! I gots one too! Envious of the lid over the knobs. Do you have the screen protector screen and the remote as well?

[@HappyBeezerStudios]

I like me some knobs and early microwave oven asthetics!

[@aflockofseacowsesquire]

I've been meaning to get a VHS of rotating food to play on it.

[@LocoFan09]

Pretty amazing that the pirate cartridge that came with that console has almost the same collection of games than the one that came with our Famiclone. Only ours came with 108 games in 1.

[@spartonberry]

As soon as you pulled out the cart, I was like "why does that look like a Famicom cartridge...?"

[@gmcnewlook]

spartonberry the game titles on the back of the cartridge gave it away for me, all nes/famicom games.....

[@mariannmariann2052]

Me too.... BROS II is familiar.

[@Realunmaker]

It was a very interesting dig into this. I had a famiclone that looked just like a super nintendo on the outside. Some friends were very jealous until I turned it on.

[@MickeyD2012]

The only way that thing is driving me to ecstasy is if you put wheels on it.

[@officialclownbusiness7788]

Hello, I'm agent Pimpson from the DEA. Would you two please have a seat right over there...

[@TheNecromechan1cal]

Holy Cow!!! I had one of these when i was in Kingergarden, I had been wondering for YEARS what it actually was. When I saw the menu pop on the screen I knew it was the same one! Great video!!!

[@kirkula]

Nostalgia Nerd - digital detective for hire.

[@Marlyjade]

I kinda wanna make a clone console that doesn't work on purpose. I feel like it would be funny for it to glitch based on the game inserted. Sonic runs too slow. Street fighter doesn't allow button presses that register as a fighting move. Idk I think it'd be funny

[@Koutsie]

Great video, but seeing that Nokia ad was almost eaven better! Also keep up!

[@UltimatePerfection]

You may want to open up the lightgun. I had a famiclone with a "light gun" which also didn't work. I've opened it up only to find it empty on the inside. No board, no sensor, no anything. This was wired one though - so the cable was tied into a knot inside so it wouldn't fall off.

[@Michirin9801]

Imagine asking for a Mega Drive back in the day and your parents come back with one of these... I'd probably be fine with it... I mean, it plays Super Mario Bros...

[@FinalBaton]

I'd be disapointed : (

[@Michirin9801]

Which would be very understandable!

[@dottedindian]

This actually happened to me..i asked for megadrive and got a famiclone..no shit..but I had some good times with it..:)..the price diffrence was like 5 times when the mega drive came out in India..Now I have 2 boxed pal MDs so I guess its all good..

[@AlejandroRodolfoMendez]

i actually asked for the famiclone because the genesis were very expensive and i love the nes games.

[@rm4492]

Hi! Please let me know if you are interested in selling your famiclone game system

[@youzernejm]

I actually owned a "Sega Mega Drive 2" back in the nineties. The box looked absolutely the same as the original, the gamepads looked the same (although, it had mostly dummy buttons), the console looked the same, it even had a Sega CD commercial on the back of the box. Oh, and it had a light gun. Styled to completely match the Sega console... Back in the day, in my poor country, it was extremely common, you could buy it on any grocery open market pretty much. Since I was a kid, I can't really recall the price, but I think it was about 2/3 of the original. The pirated Famicom game cartridges (which were as widely available as the consoles themselves) were way cheaper than the originals, though :) And there were some 1000 in one carts, which had something that resembled e.g. Super Mario with a different cheat enabled (one ran really fast, one jumped above the screen etc).

[@JordiiiPop]

# 35 on the cartridge back was Excite Bike. WHAT THE HECK.

[@TheRamblingG]

Dude!!!! That is one cool console and I've never even seen it before, I bet there's even more consoles just waiting for you to play them :)

[@toughmanrandysavage3077]

Lol I laughed a little more than I should have at that rf chord joke.

[@chrispacheco8590]

Great vid thanks for all your research into this, it is unfortunate that they would use the Mega Drive logo, and I feel for the kids who got these back in the day who thought they were getting a 16 bit machine when that was all the rage only to be stuck with a famicom

[@vuurniacsquarewave5091]

The audio is incorrect in this clone, two of the pulse timbres are swapped. Just listen to the Super Mario Bros. theme at 5:15

[@AceRuiner1979]

I have a Genesis/ Mega Drive clone that has the same issue!

[@AttilaSVK]

Here in Slovakia famiclones were quite popular in the 90s and 00s. They were sold on marketplaces by Asian people, sometimes by their local employees. It's questionable if they were imported legally, but I assume they were, just not as obvious clones. There were many versions, some with a full QWERTY keyboard, some looked a lot like a PlayStation (branded as PolyStation) or a Mega Drive, and they - of course - shared the cartridge format with the Famicom. The cartridge colour was usually yellow, so we kids back then often referred to these systems as "yellow cassette" TV games. I always lusted after one, but I just got a Rambo branded Atari 2600 clone (which looked like an actual 2600), which had a lot of built-in games.

[@HappyBeezerStudios]

I spot 52 × 1 on the manual? *ACTION 52!*

[@nogidoki3325]

not funny

[@kagenlim5271]

Hes going to take you back to the past

[@RoseOfNight]

@@kagenlim5271 To play these shitty games that suck ass

[@adammiddleton2503]

He'd rather have a 🐃 take a diarrhea 💩 in his 👂

[@SRBAnimate]

He’s the angriest gamer you’ve ever heard

[@Coburn64]

That Windows 3.11/95 chord completely caught me off guard - brilliant work and subtle reference.

[@ezydenias8505]

4:54 did you know that you can plug in an EU Plug straigt into a british socket? But you need a screwdriver to push in the PE or otherwise it will lock. I did that when I was in england, worked fine. Still an adapoter just makes it smoother.

[@krisoko]

...and hope that there isn't another connected appliance that is presently grounding to earth, or to make contact between the live pin and the screwdriver, or to plug in a faulty appliance which is not protected by a fused plug.... otherwise you will discover that this isn't the great advice that you think it is.

[@turnip5359]

Worst advice I've ever seen

[@DarthPerkins]

@@turnip5359 Watch this: kzbin.info/www/bejne/f2q3lWirgqeSrLM&app=desktop ...then apologise.

[@electronash]

14:44 You haven't lived until you've played the ever-popular "Nuts and Milk".

[@grumpyoldwizard]

Great detective work! Thanks for the interesting video.

[@Nostalgianerd]

Many thanks!

[@Lemonidas75]

The boldness of the makers of these Nintendo clones machines reached new heights especially after the original Playstation came out. It was then that machines appeared on the market looking like a playstation on the outside, complete with its CD cover, only for underneath it to have NES cartridge port. They can still be found in cheap stores, sometimes being sold for much more than what its their actual worth ( zero ) to unsuspecting people

[@justanotheryoutubechannel]

I remember those models, I’ve never owned one but my first exposure to bootleg consoles was with those PSOne (the little PS1 redesign) looking clones, where under the CD lid you found a Famicom port.

[@arke7248]

Not actually in Russia, but in Taiwan for Russian company Steepler.

[@petirgarda1005]

"Dream of a past, full of clones," -- That is one cyberpunk-ish line mate, love it

[@subtledemisefox]

Just wondering why it was necessary to censor the word "hell" in the thumbnail. Would have been easier just to not write it.

[@CubicleNate]

Great story writing on something so many would just overlook. Thank you for sharing!

[@moistnugget4019]

I realy like the mystery music! great vid

[@cedmanotro]

I absolutly love this kind of video where people investigate a bit instead of just talking about it

[@owenfitzgerald3219]

Another dubious knock off with games of spurious quality.

[@Nostalgianerd]

That should be their tagline.

[@owenfitzgerald3219]

Nostalgia Nerd HAHA, that maybe would have been a bit harsh on sales :P

[@AnarchyDragon6]

Quality actually looks a lot better than most Chinese clones though...

[@PicksterTG]

Clones are so much worse these days. Mostly because of the NOAC. Unless you are looking at the super high end ones like those from Analogue.

[@MegaManNeo]

I have a 64-in-1 gamepad that looks like a silver N64 controller and connects to the TV, also featuring a Famicom slot on the back and a 9pin port for the second controller. They sold it on shopping TV channels back when my mom ordered it for me. The games on this thing weren't too great with exception for Pinball and Battle City, still it's a nice way to get hands on a cheap Famiclone.

[@TerryBollea1]

Thats the NES Punk....hes a freakin legend!!!!

[@GameplayandTalk]

Aw man, so it's a Famiclone? At first glance with the goofy box art rips I figured it would have been at least a SMS knock-off, but those 15 pin ports I suppose were a giveaway since the Famicom has one of them.

[@zuldaftw4534]

Now find the illuminati

[@Nostalgianerd]

What do you mean, now find them? I found them 6 months ago hiding in my back garden.

[@zuldaftw4534]

Nostalgia Nerd nice research by the way

[@jessepoker2008]

"Now lets get set and read on because there's so much to do". If that doesn't get you pumped for this awesome system, I don't know what will.

[@magnum333]

Very funny research

[@calvinjenkins6900]

You do know that you aren’t actually supposed to blow into the cartridge right? The actual fix for it is to just take out the cartridge and put it back in again. The most common reason for these corruption issues was the contacts on the system and the card not lining up correctly, and taking the cartridge out and putting it back in again just reseated the contacts. Blowing in fact does more harm than good to the cartridge, as breath has moisture and moisture and electronics... well...

[@goobon]

Calvin Jenkins lies

[@calvinjenkins6900]

goobon nope, look it up

[@Quinid1]

None of us kids knew that back then. We ALL did it. We would still do it by force of habit if given the chance. it is funny thinking back when you would watch your friend give it all he's got in hopes it would fix it.

[@jesuszamora6949]

Could also be dirt on the connectors. Famicom carts, unlike NES and later systems, are a BITCH to open and clean properly. Cracking shells is not uncommon. I like to use Tarn-X, denatured alcohol and Q-tips to clean the contacts of my games. For the system's contacts, some QD Contact Cleaner from Home Depot usually does the trick.

[@ralphmenta249]

Calvin Jenkins - He was being cheeky... EVERYONE did it back in the day because we had NO idea what else to do! Look up "sarcasm" in the dictionary. There ya go sport.

[@rexxxx1984]

The Story of the origin of you console sounds a bit like an introduction of a creepy paste especially with the background music ;) good job.

[@CaptainXJ]

Holy shit! You censored the word "Hell". The internet is so broken :(

[@6581punk]

There's a few clones around. One even let you put a cart in the bottom to be a "built in" game. Have you ever looked out for that Amstrad PC which had a built in megadrive? I'd love to see a video on one. It was a pretty poor spec upon release though. I think pretty much every clone has a Sony chip in there, they made a common video encoder chip.

[@HeadsetGuy]

And once again, no mention of the messed up audio. It's not that hard to notice!

[@Nostalgianerd]

It's not that I don't notice. More I don't really care enough to mention it.

[@gwynbleidd13]

Headset Guy Your video’s audio is filled with hiss and your glasses are full of screen reflection. No mention of that in your publications either.

[@tails64dsntchannel8]

the UMC chipset actually produces fairly clean audio, is just thet they swapped the duty cycles..

[@HeadsetGuy]

Tails64DS NT Channel Thank you! So far, you're the only one who realizes I'm not talking about the audio in the video, but rather the console itself.

[@OutlawMantis]

God damn, some people sure are defensive here over a harmless observation. (One nearly all of you misunderstood!)