Tag: mario

Nintendo Mach Rider – 1972 was a good year

We all know of Nintendo video games, and of course we all know of Mario, but what about the days before Mario hit the scene, or even before Nintendo had anything connected to a television? That’s where the Nintendo Mach Rider comes in. 😀

nintendo-mach-rider-vintage-toy-car

The Nintendo Mach Rider must have been one of those toys that every kid wanted. I can just imagine the line-up of kids with long scruffy hair, flared pants, and huge sunglasses waiting to get their grubby little hands on this thing. It really is a cool toy.

nintendo-mach-rider-vintage-toy-car-3

nintendo-mach-rider-vintage-toy-car-5

Made in 1972, the Nintendo Mach Rider is a battery operated toy car that basically shoots off in toe breaking fashion. You place the car on the ramp, then adjust the gear shifter to go through the gears (with each gear increasing the speed of the drive wheel), then once you hit the fourth gear the thing shoots off the ramp.

Cats must have hated this thing! 😀

The instructions printed on the inside of the box in the following picture give some insight of how the thing works, but I will also link you to HairballNick’s youtube video which shows this actual car in action. Nick bought this one off me, and I am sure he won’t mind me linking to his vid.

nintendo-mach-rider-vintage-toy-car-2

I would have loved to keep this car in all honesty, but I have to draw the line somewhere – I just don’t have the space!

nintendo-mach-rider-vintage-toy-car-6

If you want to read about this particular toy in more detail, or read about any of the other toys before Mario, then definitely follow the link on the right to the ‘before-mario’ site. His collection of Nintendo is amazing to say the least. 🙂

Nintendo Disk System Card Cleaner

The Nintendo Disk System was an attachment that you would sit your Famicom on top of to play floppy disk based games.

Nintendo actually had game kiosks (vending machines) that would allow you to put in some money, put in an old Disk System game, and then have a new game copied on top of the disk – ahhh, the good ol’ days when piracy was not an issue at all.

But what happens when those disks get covered in grime? Well, you throw it in Nintendo Disk System Card Cleaner for a few spins.

nintendo-disk-system-disk-cleaner

These little units have a tape like substance that you can wind until you found a clean spot, then once your game was placed, you would rotate the disk to clean. Quite simple and it does the trick quite well.

Click to enlarge:
nintendo-disk-system-disk-cleaner-1 nintendo-disk-system-disk-cleaner-2

Unfortunately, the tape like material doesn’t really stand the test of time too well at all, and honestly speaking I probably wouldn’t trust it to clean my Super Mario 2, or my Kid Icarus.

It is a nice little unit to add to any hoard though. 🙂

Retro Gaming Store in Japan

There is the quaint little retro gaming store in Japan that sells the odd Famicom cart, the occasional Saturn disk, or even a few systems or two, then there are super-ultra stores like the one I am going to show you today.

This particular shop is about 20 minutes from my house, and it’s one of the biggest places I’ve ever seen here for retro gaming gear. There are others that are similar in size, but this shop actually has prices you want to pay. It is almost set up like a supermarket with isles, a little basket to carry around, and even a taster section with four or five systems setup for people to play.

Before I put any photos up, it has to be said that people managing stores in Japan are very reluctant to have photos taken. I took as many photos as I could, but it was impossible to get photos of everything. I missed not only the hardware section, but also the PS2, Gameboy, Megadrive (Genesis), MegaCD, Saturn (the list goes on actually) and most of the boxed games sections.

Anyway, now onto the photos….

I would love to get my hands on this giant Mario – Hmmm that sounds slightly odd now that I think about it. 😀

japanese-game-shop-mario

One of the loose Famicom cart Isles (pictured bellow). Yes I say ‘one of’, as there are a few. You can see at the end of the isle there part of the boxed games section for Famicom too.

japanese-game-shop-famicom

Another really great thing about this place is there is a GameCenterCX section if you want to play the games that are featured on the show. If you are wondering what GameCenterCX is, then I suggest taking a look on Youtube. It is one of the coolest retro game shows anywhere! Unfortunately I couldn’t get any photos of the GameCenterCX section.

Mind boggling range of Super Famicom carts. Again, this is only one of the Super Famicom Isles.

japanese-game-shop-sfc

Again I couldn’t get great pictures of everything, but what you see here is just a part of the cased PCE games they have on offer. You can pretty much find everything here.

japanese-game-shop-pc-engine

japanese-game-shop-6

Bellow is just a part of the DreamCast section. If you’re wondering, that whole top row is for NeoGeoCD, and you may notice that there are some big empty spaces in the NeoGeo section – this is mainly because I bought 20 odd on this particular day. 🙂

japanese-game-shop

This terrible photo (bellow) is trying to show you one of the toy racks dedicated to game related merchandise. They have all sorts of gear here, from recent Mario themed board games, through to figures of Ken in Street Fighter.

japanese-game-shop-toys

A closer look at the boxed Famicom and Super Famciom section (bellow).

japanese-game-shop-boxed-fc

I really wish I could have shown you everything. Just looking through the pictures there is so much I missed. This place has so much stuff that I know it will bring a tear to any retro gamer’s eye – specially the guys I know back home who feel great joy just finding a dozen or so carts in the wild.

And just before I go. This place doesn’t only sell games too! There are huge sections for toys, clothing, electronics, and pretty much any other type of used goods you can think of. Not bad considering I actually live in rural Japan! 😮

Super Mario Land – Board Game?

Not often I get the time to dig until blood oozes from my fingernails in this particular junk shop, but seeing as time was on my side I decided to wear my hands down to nubs digging through the abundance of useless crap that junk shops seem to accumulate. And what did I find? Well, this:

Can’t say I have ever seen this before, nor have can I find anything on the web about it, but using my powerful observational skills, it seems to be a board game based on the Gameboy game ‘Super Mario Land’. I could think of better video games to base a board game on – who am I to question Nintendo and/or Bandai though.

This board game was released in 1989 by Bandai, which I believe is the exact same year for the release of ‘Super Mario Land’ for the Gameboy – correct me if I’m wrong there.

Nintendo baord game 1989

Always good to find something Mario released pre-90s.

The only thing left to do now is actually play the thing – don’t think that will be happening any time soon though – way too many other things that actually make sound and induce seizures to worry about playing a board game! 😀