Play NES ROMs through official hardware with PowerPak

by Kyle Orland { Jun 14th 2007 at 7:27PM }

You young whippersnappers today have it so easy. Hard drives... downloadable content... power buttons right on your the wireless controller! Back in my day you actually had to get up and put a cartridge in the system when you wanted a new game. Of course, that's not so easy for me anymore, what with the rheumatism and all. And don't get me started on blowing in the dang things ...

What's that? You say there's a new flash cart that lets you store multiple NES games on a single cartridge? You say you can put hundreds of ROMs on a standard CompactFlash card and play them through the standard NES hardware? You say my days of getting up to put in Clu Clu Land are over?

We'll see about that. I'll just adjust the old InterWeb browser and ... $135! Do ya think, I'm made of money? Back in my day $135 would buy you a brand new Cadillac sedan with enough left over for a fancy dinner at Roxy's. Why even today I could use that money to buy 57 27 [update: us old folks make typos too] legally downloaded NES games for my Wii. Stop wasting my time.

[Via insertcredit]

Tags: cart, CompactFlash, download, emulation, flash, NES, nintendo, PowerPak, rom, USB

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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Barry @ Jun 14th 2007 7:35PM

Don't you mean 27 NES games? Hey, I guess they're right. Senior citizens, although slow and dangerous behind the wheel and bad at division, can still serve a purpose.

BPM @ Jun 14th 2007 7:36PM

Pretty cool, especially the fact that it looks to be the same mold as an official NES Game Pak, but very pricey.

My M3 Lite (DS/GBA flash cart) costed less than that...

And I don't have any CF cards already, so that's an additional expense...

teitoku @ Jun 14th 2007 7:36PM

Enjoy Legend of Zelda 2: Link's Adventure, then, on your Wii. It's legal! That means it's good! I'll play the greats on my xbox or my phone, thanks.

2kings @ Jun 14th 2007 7:37PM

nes game files are TINY

this is a really cool piece of hardware

LowerHouseMember @ Jun 14th 2007 7:37PM

$135 and they don't even include a CF? What a freakin' ripoff.

Daniel @ Jun 14th 2007 7:44PM

I'd pay 50 if it could emulate a FDS. But sadly, no.

How long till the DS flash cart companies get into retro flash carts?

King @ Jun 14th 2007 7:45PM

Is this really a big deal? Doesn't an NES look like crap on new TVs ?

funktasticb @ Jun 14th 2007 7:53PM

Have you even seen the board inside there? Its MASSIVE! Far more complex than any flash card for any other system ever made... Compare to $200 for the Cuttle Cart 2 for Atari that doesnt have nearly as much chips

AirIntake @ Jun 14th 2007 7:52PM

Prepare to blow!

Rubang B @ Jun 14th 2007 7:56PM

This is pretty awesome, but I'd prefer to get that FourScore to USB adapter so you can use any NES controllers on your PC for NES games or anything else that only needs 2 buttons, such as all those Japan-only Famicom games we missed.

Capt. Castellanos @ Jun 14th 2007 8:18PM

this'd be really awesome.

if it was less then $40.
and if it came out years ago.

Audie @ Jun 14th 2007 10:16PM

I love the idea. I already own tons of games and always wanted to make a NES arcade machine that was actually hardware based sorta like that jukebox device marketed for genesis. This is one better though. Now you can just put as many games as you can fit on a compact flash card and never have to switch carts again. Sweet. Now if only they would do it with the SNES and genesis. Then that would be the end of all things man.

MDB @ Jun 14th 2007 8:54PM

Hundreds of games on a compactflash card? Try almost every NES game ever. They have CF cards that are 8 GB now. You can easily fit every game EVER. $150 is outrageous. Even if it was half of that, I'd still consider it.

tactics @ Jun 14th 2007 9:04PM

damn... that price just kills me or i'd have bought this in an instant. this company needs to cut that price. i'd have bought it for 79$ i bet, but 135$+shipping is just fuckin stupid.

-"superfan" tactics.

Mick @ Jun 14th 2007 9:05PM

Kyle, Thanks for the great read, very funny.

Ratchet the Lombax @ Jun 14th 2007 9:34PM

@MDB try 16gb I have one for my PSP I use it to store all my video files. I got it from tiger direct for $149 really cool.

I guess this might be nice for those that are into the whole retro thing. I think I will just stick with the 15 other ways to play NES games and save the $135.

MDB @ Jun 14th 2007 10:01PM

@ Ratchet

I thought they made bigger, but lets be honest, a 1GB CF card will probably hold every NES game ever made.

And as you say, if there weren't countless other ways to play ROMs, it would be worth it. I bought a soft-modded Xbox and have a nice burned DVD of every ROM in existence for NES, SNES, Genesis, Turbografx, and Atari. By the way, I happen to own every game ever on those systems, so it's perfectly legal.

jon @ Jun 14th 2007 10:44PM

Holy shnikeys that is cool... What is really nuts is that it looks like you can play any game you want - that is some hard core engineering given the number of cart architectures. Has anyone heard of these retro usb people?

Anonymous @ Jun 15th 2007 1:33AM

There's flash carts available for other systems like the Genesis and Super Nintendo at Tototek:

http://www.tototek.com/

Also, Neoflash has carts for the TG16 and Genesis:

https://www.ic2005.com/shop/home.php?cat=1

I've heard tell of similar carts for the Atari 2600 and Jaguar, but they're quite a bit harder to find.

h8rain @ Jun 15th 2007 9:39AM

IIRC every NES game would add up to less than 200mb. Super Mario 3 was like 225K (most were at or less than 100K, again IIRC). Even if every game was 225K, and they made 2000, that is only 439mb.

I like playing on the Wii, I just wish they had more popular games (SMB2, SMB3, Duck Hunt (with WiiMote support :))