Monday, December 5, 2011

Nintendo Entertainment System accessory & peripheral FLASHBACK II : 1988 NES Power Pad

My FLASHBACK I

NES (Nintendo Entertainment System) is the American version of the Japanese Famicom (Nintendo Family Computer). It has many accessories and peripherals, both made by Nintendo or a third party developer. I don't have many of them but i have a few. One of them is,

A NES Power Pad . a 1988 release of retro gaming goodness.


If you can click HERE and look back on my post regarding the Nintendo Family computer Family Trainer, this is the American release.

It was first released as the "Family fun fitness" in US by Bandai before Nintendo bought the rights and then released it as "Power pad" in 1988. This move made the now famous and very rare game "Stadium Events" sell up to $ 40,000. WHOOOOP! and now someone sells one for $ 500,000 -> here



WHY? The "Stadium Events" game was released in a small number to go with the initial "Family fun fitness" by Bandai. When Nintendo bought the rights for the "family fun fitness", They immediately recalled all "stadium events" game and destroyed them to give way to the repackaged version "World class track meet" that went along with the "Power pad" the former "Family fun fitness". That's just days of marketing and actual selling of the Stadium Events , so, very little number of them actually made it to buyers hands.

It has two useable sides.

SIDE A


Looks to have allot of fold marks. It sure was folded in allot of different ways. But, it doesn't have any cracks or dents so id say its in a great shape.

SIDE B


The appearance of the buttons are pretty much the same with the Famicom's Family trainer. It really is comfortable to use. Soft and tight feeling .


Some safety precaution over there . You don't want to have Van's shoe marks over this retro gaming stuff of course!


You have the standard NES controller cable that plugs into the 2nd player of the NES console. Decent cable length , you can have a good distance between the console and the pad itself.


You can easily compare it to the dance revolution pads. But i can tell, the sensor pads are not as responsive.


This is a kind of thing that are bought but not really used for a long time. Its that kind of stuff that kids easily get bored with. Its hard to use and play a game with this thing, so i don't know how rare or hard to find one like it. All i can say is i am happy to have one.

2 comments:

  1. Nice! There are so many awesome third party products for the NES. What games were actually fully compatible with this mat?

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  2. Yes. very much. Id like to have more of those for sure!

    According to wiki:
    Bomberman II
    Danny Sullivan's Indy Heat2
    Gauntlet II
    Greg Norman's Golf Power
    Harlem Globetrotters
    Kings of the Beach
    Magic Johnson's Fast Break
    Monster Truck Rally
    M.U.L.E.
    NES Play Action Football
    A Nightmare on Elm Street
    Nintendo World Cup
    R.C. Pro-Am II
    Rackets & Rivals
    Roundball: 2 on 2 Challenge
    Spot
    Smash TV
    Super Off Road
    Super Jeopardy
    Super Spike V'Ball
    Swords and Serpents
    Top Players' Tennis

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