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Post by KGRAMR on May 21, 2018 18:54:23 GMT -5
Disclaimer: I posted this on the General Game Chat Thread but i reconsidered it and i'm now moving that into its own thread.
So, if some of you still are wondering what the heck i'm talking about, well here's some screenshots of the 3 NES models Nintendo of Venezuela distributed in my homeland:
- NES Control Deck Model Asia-001: Looks like a normal front-loader until you look at the bottom... 
     
- NES Junior Control Deck: Something that i forgot to mention is that every single Venezuelan NES unit came with a 72 to 60 cart converter, expect one model... 
- NES Asia Version: Basically, a almost-exact copy of the Famicom, expect on 3-4 aesthetic designs changes...I still own this one BTW! Every unit of this variation comes with a 60 to 72 cart converter packed in as well.  
Although not every Asian Venezuelan NES came in the same red color, as they also came in grey.
But the question is, did we get some of the games with their own box variation? The answer is yes, yes, yes, yes, yes and more yes.
      
Some even came with these goodies inside! 
The back of every Venezuelan NES box is this... 
We also got our own AC Adapter, which is even compatible with both the Sega Genesis AND the Sega CD! (No joke, i've done this multiple times!)  
This is one of the multiple control variations that came for the NES in Venezuela. This one is has the 7-pin entry and there's also one for the Asian version that only works on that particular model. Sadly, i couldn't find a picture of it but imagine the original 3-button Sega Genesis pad but upside down. There's also the one that came bundled with the Junior Deck unit.  
We also got two versions of the Zapper: One with the 7-pin that came with its one box and another that looked nothing like any other version of the Zapper out there (i didn't managed to find a picture of that one sadly...) BTW yeah, that's another variation of the controllers that came here. 
Oh! and we also got cable extensions for the controllers! That's the RF box that came with the Venezuelan NES units.. 
The images belong to their respective authors. I managed to pinpoint the exact location of the Nintendo CA Venezuela building so, i hope to get pictures of that so i can show it for everybody here. BTW, look foward to the first article i'll be submitting for the site and the end of the month hopefully! 
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Post by ReyVGM on May 21, 2018 21:14:58 GMT -5
I can't believe it. Nintendo had to license that to some other company that did whatever they wanted without Nintendo's knowledge or something. There's no way Nintendo would release the same NES model, controllers and launch games for every country outside of Japan, but for Venezuela (at a time when it was one of the richest Latin American countries) they would radically release something different (specially those controllers). Nintendo would never release a multi cart like that either, specially including 3rd party games.
I'm Dominican, and I remember seeing those multi carts here, but they were always Chinese pirates.
I think that maybe some company took all those chinese pirate systems/games and released them as "official" products in Venezuela? Nintendo barely cared about Europe during the 80s, much less about Latin America. So this Venezuelan company could have easily gotten away with it without Nintendo knowing.
And they misspelled "Cazeria" in the Duck Hunt game. The correct word is Cacería. There's no way this was an official Nintendo subsidiary, it can't be.
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Post by KGRAMR on May 21, 2018 22:06:08 GMT -5
I can't believe it. Nintendo had to license that to some other company that did whatever they wanted without Nintendo's knowledge or something. There's no way Nintendo would release the same NES model, controllers and launch games for every country outside of Japan, but for Venezuela (at a time when it was one of the richest Latin American countries) they would radically release something different (specially those controllers). Nintendo would never release a multi cart like that either, specially including 3rd party games. I'm Dominican, and I remember seeing those multi carts here, but they were always Chinese pirates. I think that maybe some company took all those chinese pirate systems/games and released them as "official" products in Venezuela? Nintendo barely cared about Europe during the 80s, much less about Latin America. So this Venezuelan company could have easily gotten away with it without Nintendo knowing. And they misspelled "Cazeria" in the Duck Hunt game. The correct word is Cacería. There's no way this was an official Nintendo subsidiary, it can't be. That's the point for this thread! Was this licensed? Knowing that there's multiple NES models around the world that were licensed by them and with different looks and names, this could possibly fall into that category but everybody's welcome to debate if this was licensed or not I do think that Nintendo just gave the Nintendo CA Venezuela division the license to distribute the NES and that's it, they did whatever they wanted to do with it. Of course, since everything we got look so weird and totally not like the real deal, this would also fall in the other category... The real question is...Was this real or a self-made division by chinese dudes at the 90s Venezuela just to bank on the name and the NES' popularity? That's up to you but one thing's for certain; These units do hold value for collectors because these are the only units that not only runs NTSC games (NA and JPN) but also PAL games without a volt converter (and no, i'm not making this up! I do know this for certain as one of the friends my dad had showed me years ago a PAL copy of Journey to Sillius running without issues). Yeah, the NES 2 does that but this one has normal video output, instead of the good but not quite-as-good video output of the "Venezuelan" front-loader. |
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Post by ReyVGM on May 22, 2018 0:24:09 GMT -5
I've never heard of a Venezuela Nintendo. Much less during the 80s when Nintendo cared even less about Latin America. I honestly think some company just faked it all. There's no way Nintendo would release or allow to release a NES with those controllers, or with a chinese multicart.
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Post by derboo on May 22, 2018 1:33:38 GMT -5
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Post by ReyVGM on May 22, 2018 3:24:13 GMT -5
It has to be a company (unofficially?) using the Nintendo name. I don't know if Nintendo's name is protected all over the world, or if Venezuela even honors trademarks and copyrights from foreign companies. But if it doesn't, then the company is not doing anything illegal by using that name, even if it's shady as hell.
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Post by dsparil on May 22, 2018 9:14:49 GMT -5
These are such weird curiosities that I don't think I've ever seen mentioned before. Good luck trying to find the place!
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Post by starscream on May 22, 2018 9:19:09 GMT -5
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Post by KGRAMR on May 22, 2018 11:06:30 GMT -5
The second link is a good find! The sealed 2600 games that are still out there on Venezuela are 100% legit. I got many of the harder to find titles on the system here easily such as Road Runner, Ikari Warriors and Xenophobe. |
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Post by Snake on May 22, 2018 11:07:03 GMT -5
Official or full shite?
I think it's full AWESOME. Quite impressive.
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Post by KGRAMR on May 22, 2018 11:10:12 GMT -5
These are such weird curiosities that I don't think I've ever seen mentioned before. Good luck trying to find the place! I've pinpointed the place but since starscream revealed two more buildings, i guess that this has become a serious homework for me XD |
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Post by KGRAMR on May 22, 2018 11:26:54 GMT -5
It has to be a company (unofficially?) using the Nintendo name. I don't know if Nintendo's name is protected all over the world, or if Venezuela even honors trademarks and copyrights from foreign companies. But if it doesn't, then the company is not doing anything illegal by using that name, even if it's shady as hell. While we are the country that have produced "wonders" such as Crazybus and Super Bolívar (seriously, what the fuck they were thinking?)...
We also also the country who spawned VA-11 HALL-A
There's acutally a old PC game that was made in my homeland as well! I need to search photos of it though...
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Post by kingmike on May 24, 2018 12:06:16 GMT -5
From what I have heard of the NES in Hong Kong, it was originally released as a variation of the PAL NES. But only a handful of games were released (including Mahjong, which is considered the rarest licensed first-party retail NES game. Yes, basically the box/manual. From scans of the manual I've seen, it's probably the same ROM as the common Famicom version.) and eventually they gave in to the Famicom-importing market (I guess they were outraged at PAL long before Europe?) and released a Hong Kong Version Famicom console. (I thought it was actually labeled a Family Computer and not a Nintendo Entertainment System like above. I guess this one is less certain, at least to those of us outside HK.)
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Post by kingmike on May 26, 2018 13:04:57 GMT -5
Then again, as for Nintendo caring to stomp out any bootleg "subsidiaries". I heard about NTDEC, which apparently stood for "NinTenDo Electric Company". As I understand the Myriad/Caltron rarity is because when, whichever was the first (Caltron?) opened and NoA was aware they were a branch of the bootleg Taiwanese? company, they sued the crap out of them.
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