PocketFami

The Pocket Fami, also known as Pocket Famicom (although this name was never used by the manufacturers as Famicom is a trademark of Nintendo) and Pokefami (ポケファミ) is an unlicensed handheld hardware clone of the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES, known in Japan as the Nintendo Family Computer, or Famicom) produced by GameTech and released in 2004.

The PocketFami features a standard D-pad and six buttons: the four standard NES buttons (A, B, select, and start), plus two additional "turbo" buttons. It features a 2.5 inch backlit LCD screen capable of displaying both NTSC and PAL video. It has one headphone jack, an RCA composite output jack, and can be powered either through 3 AA batteries or AC adaptor. Because of the different cartridge pin design of the Japanese Famicom (60 pins) and the international NES (72 pins), international (North American, Australian, European) cartridges cannot be played without an additional converter.

Nintendo sued GameTech over production of the PocketFami, claiming that the device violated their patents on the Famicom's hardware. The courts found in favor of GameTech however, and allowed the device to be sold in Japan. In any case, the original Famicom was first sold in 1983, and most of Nintendo's essential patents on the Famicom have expired.

External links

* [http://web.archive.org/web/20060427041025/http://www.gamesindustry.biz/news.php?aid=7581 Press release from UK distributor]