Pre-loaded consoles are a dime a dozen, and it's easy to get caught out by the many "fake" versions of consoles. The Nanica Smitch is one such example — a Switch-looking device with 800 games pre-loaded onto it.
Today, we're looking at a pre-loaded console that will set you back just under $10 — Merkury Inventions Arcade Fun. For just under ten bucks you can get 200 games to play on the go. Sounds too good to be true, doesn't it?
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The lovely Zion over on our YouTube channel is on the case. After spotting the handheld at his local grocery store, it piqued his curiosity and he decided to pick one up, take it home, and give it a test run. It looks like a Game Boy, and — surprisingly — there are more than a handful of titles you might remember playing on your NES back in the day.
If you're curious — and why wouldn't you be? — then check out what Zion thinks about this all-in-one console in the video below. And don't forget to let us know if you've ever seen this or picked this up at your local store in the comments.
Comments 29
Yea but does it have Fortnite?
Can it run Crysis?
Ohh… I thought it was identical on the outside to a Gameboy Color and thought “finally something I can use as a Gameboy Mini!”
Also I love the randomness of these games, it’s so fun to have some beers with a friend and playing whatever abomination we can find
I just want a GBA micro from Nintendo. That will tickle all of my nostalgia.
Plus, maybe we could finally get Golden Sun on a portable that way. Since its MIA on NSO
It didn't pique my curiousity enough to watch the video. Make sure to give us a quick summary next time you make an article about a video.
When I was younger, back in the 90s, my parents bought me a TV Boy. It was just a game pad / controller by itself that connected to the TV with an RF cable. It had 126 built-in games. The product seemed legitimate. There were no TV or movie related IP. They were all Atari games. There was a version of Donkey Kong where the Jump Man sprite was coloured brown below the head. No dungarees.
Edit: I did a google search and found the product https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/TV_Boy
I wonder if Nintendo can sue them for this.
@PersianZSR you bet your ass they can!!
@gb_nes_gamer
OMG you made me feel old, yet valiaded. I knew I remembered something like this I had as a kid and this is the exact one. Probably played it just as much as Nintendo back in the day.
Everyone makes jokes about it running specific games but if it had more friends of mineral town, my firm stance on such thing would start to waver
Made me laugh - thanks for this, watched it all the way through. Some of the names are amazing
I don't wanna say anything but that 'pikachu' is a baby the 'former guy'...
@HotGoomba Haven't heard that one in a while!
@PersianZSR It depends on if any Nintendo-owned games are found on the console.
There's probably a whole lot of these consoles around. A couple years ago I got a Retro-Bit (I think it was) handheld from Target which had like 33 NES games licensed from Capcom and "Data East" (the DE catalog is sufficiently in a legal mess over who actually owns it)... and over 200 "extra" games that may or may not be properly licensed (I hadn't yet sat and loaded up everything and while I'm guessing a lot were homebrew, a couple of the random games I did hit up included one game that is undoubtedly an Arkanoid ROM hack, and another that is a Piko rebrand of the official European Prince Valiant game.)
I bought it at Walmart over a month ago; good for a road trip.
Pure trash, but imagine having something like that in late 80s. Nintendo should just buy Analogue, make some improvements to the design and bezels and produce the pocket for the masses
My fake Gameboy (I call it my phone) has all the GBA, SNES, N64, Ps1, PS2, PSP, DS, 3DS and Switch games on it that I need thank you very much. Oh and it was already going to be in my pocket to begin with!
Didn't watch the video, does it have DOOM yet?
@theModestMouse
Finally, someone else who realizes a game boy should be your phone. Way better than an IPhone.
I saw that thing at Walmart once and I immediately knew it was a bootleg.
Though I guess I shouldn’t be surprised since they sold that one gameboy rip-off from myArcade.
There are some great bootlegs, but you have to be REALLY lucky.
A friend of mine had a bootleg with 200 gb games... It were about 3p to 50 different games just renamed. But it had the Metroidvania Turtles, tennis, xmen+Spiderman, contra, Mario.... It was absolutely amazing!!
Watched the entire video, hilarious! Occasionally I have seen cheap things like this on store shelves. Now I am happy that I did not purchase. Thanks for the video!
@KingMike
Well, Nintendo has sued simulators right?
@dimi there wasn't a handheld like this in the 80s but there was an NES clone in Asia called the Micro Genius that frequently came with carts that had 150 games in one that were all Nintendo clones
@PersianZSR probably not. Also probably not worthwhile
@PersianZSR Funny that I watched a streamer play all the games from some device that had a Data East license for like eight games, and then another 300 games.
Most of those 300 games were usual (if you've seen enough of these) JungleTac garbage. (JungleTac is a company that makes game for modern Famiclones, games that might have graphics better than Action 52 but honestly are maybe even worse in playability). Games that have literally a single gameplay element. I mean, 2600 games often did, but 2600 games usually at least stepped up the difficulty to keep it more interesting. And also at least have a clear goal. These JungleTac games seemed to not have either. They just start and end when they feel like it.
However near the very end of those 300 games, he found some Nintendo ROM hacks. Whoever made that probably lawyers would get bored before even reaching the end of the lineup.
I've actually seen another streamer play one device with a whole bunch of NES ROMs, but with the content accessible within the like first 10 seconds of gameplay of every game changed (graphics, music, etc.).
@Mando44646 They announced it with the service, but knowing Nintendo, the biggest ones will take way longer than they need to release, if only for hyper
@Mando44646 There already is a Game Boy Micro, and it already plays Golden Sun.
@deKay You know exactly what I mean
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