The bootleg culture all around the region is something newer generations will never get to experience. In retrospect I get amused that while I was born in 2001. And also while not a Polystation, as I don’t think it was ever sold here In Argentina (even though other Famicon type systems (shortened to just “La Family )were around) my first game console was a bootleg megadrive and that every game store sold bootleg megadrive cartridges all way up to I think 2013(?).
@@xlicernot quite in the same way but there are arcades now that have bootleg Japanese arcade games cause they aren't available outside of Japan and there are tons of bootleg emulators that people buy for their kids still cause they have tons of games and are cheap so it doesn't really matter if they destroy is
Oh a Polystation, that's a classic, how many Christmas Dreams did that thing ruin when their parents thought they bought the console their kids asked for. lol Nice video, nice piece of history, famiclones were the first contact of a lot of people with videogames
just imagining that is so sad. You're a parent who's been saving up money to buy your children gifts for christmas to make them happy. then at some random store you see that game thing they keep talking about, that polystation thing. christmas day comes, you expect them to jump across the living room from joy, but instead just disappointment. shit like this must have ruined quite a few happy holidays
@@Furko08 i might add, bootlegs tend to cost like a fractions of the real one, take original ps1 is $299 and at most bootlegs only cost around $20-50, which is a steal for parents who are clueless about it.
I love that Wade has like an infinite amount of “stinky names” that scroll and James has a handful. It seems more grass roots over here on this channel. I LOVE IT HERE.
Funny enough, as a chilean guy, i have fond memories of the Polystation. My dad gave me one as a birthday gift when i was like 8 years old. At the time, he knew i liked videogames (mostly because i played them with my cousins at their home) but didnt have enough money to give me an original console and games, but i love it anyway. I remember my Polystation looked a lot like the second model of the PS1.
I have a GameCube racing wheel and a Famiclone that are identical with the only real difference being that the Famiclone is obviously way shittier feeling
love this style of video James! lot's of folks take a look at bootlegs and just come to the obvious conclusions "yeah it's a curiosity, but it's junk. don't buy it" love that you actually went the distance to not only look at it's ugly guts but also attempt to diagnose and fix it
@@davidphillips5677 I'll take polystation too but the playstation is pretty underrepresented in modding/repair videos, a lot of the popular creators seem to make more about nintendo systems when there's a good deal of playstation mods out there and an interesting history
These types of systems were my childhood. After the breakup of Yugoslavia, us kids had to have the latest toys to play, so this is what we had... In 2000s... It still did great job diverting attention from the real world
Excellent video James, you strike a really good balance of being informative, funny, having good pacing, AND you've got a cute cat. Truly a Renaissance man.
The polystation was all over bootleg grey markets down here in Brazil (and around the rest of south america If I where to guess), they usually had the shittiest lightgun ever, and would break in a matter of weeks. Seeing it branded as "namco" is hilarious tho
Man, I've always heard of the Polystation... and also saw the kinda design in a video on the "Polystation 2" Shocked to finally see a real Polystation, thanks James!
My dad actually bought me one of these back in the day when I asked for a psone (he didn't really know what a play station was but he saw this at the local flea market and bought it lol). I was disappointed initially but it did grow on me soon enough. For like 20 bucks it cost at the time the gaming experience was solid. It ran decently enough and was something the entire family enjoyed playing. Lasted us for like two years and it probably would have lasted longer if it werent for a thunderstorm power surge that took it out. It amazes me there are still examples of this thing surviving in the wild.
Apparently the Polystation's main market was in Brazil. I've heard a lot of people from the 90s have nostalgia for NES games not because of the NES, but the Polystation. Kinda wish to have one, one day, love me some terrible NES clone I'll play once and never touch again
Heard this as well and honestly in that sense I'm glad these things exist. It's not exactly like Nintendo lost out on that lucrative South-American market at the time; they weren't selling there to begin with!
Brazil had high tariffs on imported electronics. It's why TecToy's licenced Master System clone lived as long as it did (when they stopped being able to find Master System games, they just 'converted' Game Gear games).
@@KeezaweaNot just Latin America but also South East Asia countries like Indonesia and Philippines, and probably Mainland China too. I am Indonesian and saw PolyStation was being sold in Summarecon Mall Kelapa Gading in North Jakarta in 2000-2001.
That's a great example of how far miniaturization progressed between when that thing was built and the original NES though, that's about all it really shows.
I'm a software engineer and do a bit of reverse engineering from time to time, but I know basically nothing about electronics. I love how easy and similar (on some level) to what I do you make it look.
I remembered that my parents would buy this one for us. This might be one of my first exposures to gaming. Good times (even the bootleg feel of this "console")
This poly thing is so old I remember seeing one when I was going to school back in the early 2000s with my childhood girlfriend. They've been around for a really long time, I never expected to see one again. 😃😄
used to have a weird obsession with this when i was like 6 cuz it was hilarious to me when i saw the cartridge port under the cd lid. thanks for the epic videos !!
when i was a kid my dad meaning to buy me a playstation 3 got me a polystation 3 instead and i still remember how funny and sad it felt as he so happily pulled the box out of the bag and in big ugly spiderman font it screamed Polystation 3. it literally played the exact same games as this one. truly a humbling experience thank you james
2:36 oh dang I recognize that "some weird guy in an Armenian hat" Mario; that's the version of the game Russian kids got on their sketchy unlabeled Dendy cartridges back in the early 90s. that is one old-ass bootleg.
Famiclones were super popular here in Brazil back in the day and a remember a friend of mine had the Polystation, really cool seeing somene talk about it in a video.
Oh I had one. The moon Mario had the physics tweaked so you could do hilariously high jumps if you don't run if I remember correctly. You could pass almost all the levels just jumping and staying outside the screen for some seconds. For the time, it was fun. The fancy one if it's the same, had a bug that made some of the previous/next blocks to draw again on a "fancy" way, they were fake and silverish.
This is actually kind of interesting - I can remember seeing the "PolyStation" in Hong Kong, but it was significantly different from this. The most obvious difference was that it had a 60 pin Famicom cartridge connector. It also had a 50/60Hz switch and was doing the same sort of dubious trickery that the HK version Famicom did to allow 60Hz games to display on a 50Hz TV when set to 50Hz mode. The built in games were different - I think the one I saw was "22 in 1" - but amazingly they were all actually different games.
Nice video James. This was my first ever console when i was a kid. Mine was shaped like the smaller, slim version of the PlayStation. It had only 10 actual games, a white background with some trees and a short music loop on the menu. At that time my family coudn't afford the real console, but a few years later i got my PlayStation 2. For some reason (i can't remember why) i also got a version of the Sega Master System made by a brand called TecToy - it had around 130 classic games from the console, and was a licensed product by Sega. Even though i already had my ps2 i still enjoyed playing on it a lot too xD Aerial Assault, Gain Ground, the original Sonic and a few other games where my favourites on it.
My aunt got me this for Christmas when I was small, box had all kinds of characters on it including pikachu lmao came with a cart that had thousands of games and had even more when it was booted without a cart. Good times lol
In the US they used to distribute such things in shady mall kiosks, in a million different form factors like joysticks and knockoff consoles, but always the same NES crap. Yours actually has a cart slot though!
I remember getting a bootleg system from a mall with a bunch of NES game it was shaped like a N64 controller with a analog stick that didn't move and most buttons were for show lol
The Polystation played a big role in Brazil by spreading the word of NES for us that had to skip it straight into the SNES due to import issues Sure, it broke the hearts of many kids that just wanted a PS1, but it had its fun moments Oh, and I love the humming sound it exhales, I believe it's color interference (?), because I'd notice it while playing Mario, at black screens, the humming would be more noticeable
Very famous in Romania around 2000's. The polystation is still close to a nes console. We had a console called Terminator 2 and besides the nes games, nothing was compatible with NES console. Still,we had a lot of fun with it
Love seeing these bootleg systems in action! Obviously they tried to target people who heard of a system but don’t know anything about it. They get it home and wrap it up for little Billie, but when it gets opened they get confused why little Billie is upset!
Like, sure some of that was the case but honestly I do think the majority of the sales market for these was in places with less access. Like for example Brazil wasn't really a consideration as a market for Nintendo (to begin with at least) with the NES getting 1993 release there; much less the rest of South-America.
@@Tebbylous actually not a bad point. I could only imagine if this sort of thing was my only option. Still kind of underhanded to claim that many games when their isn’t nearly that many! I have a Korean multi cart with more choices
I think the James method of "take it apart, laugh at it, and fix it" is a perfect complement to Wade's "plug it in, yell at it, and break it"
Who is Wade?
@@TheWaterMinersdankpods
you can just tell why they're friends
This thing was such a classic in Latin America that Polystation is the word we use to call all NES clone console, it's great, love it
same in greece!!!
The bootleg culture all around the region is something newer generations will never get to experience. In retrospect I get amused that while I was born in 2001. And also while not a Polystation, as I don’t think it was ever sold here In Argentina (even though other Famicon type systems (shortened to just “La Family )were around) my first game console was a bootleg megadrive and that every game store sold bootleg megadrive cartridges all way up to I think 2013(?).
true, here in Chile was massive
@@xlicernot quite in the same way but there are arcades now that have bootleg Japanese arcade games cause they aren't available outside of Japan and there are tons of bootleg emulators that people buy for their kids still cause they have tons of games and are cheap so it doesn't really matter if they destroy is
in Brazil they were a hit, one of my first experience with consoles was playing in my cousin’s Polystation in the early 2000’s
James is the best, he actually fixes the junk random silly things most youtubers would only laugh at.
Geee, I wonder who that could be *cough* WADE *cough*
@@patrickcrabb6212 dang you beat me to it 😂
even fixed the number of games written
*cough cough* maybe *cough* one of his *cough* friends?? *cough cough*
A true nuggeteer
It's so weird seeing such a huge company like Sony make a famiclone in the shape of Namco's wonderful Polystation.
Yeah, anything for money I guess
lmfao 😂
Yeah very weird indeed, and Sony even got all the credit. Almost no one knows about the Polystation 🤷♀
Direct IP theft from a small Chinese startup company by Sony.
Hate to see it 😭
It's the way of the world I suppose
Yeah, it's crazy
Oh a Polystation, that's a classic, how many Christmas Dreams did that thing ruin when their parents thought they bought the console their kids asked for. lol
Nice video, nice piece of history, famiclones were the first contact of a lot of people with videogames
Let me guess: Brazil
@@vcprado I'm sure it's also the rest of the world outside of us, jp, and eur region
just imagining that is so sad.
You're a parent who's been saving up money to buy your children gifts for christmas to make them happy. then at some random store you see that game thing they keep talking about, that polystation thing. christmas day comes, you expect them to jump across the living room from joy, but instead just disappointment. shit like this must have ruined quite a few happy holidays
@@Furko08 i might add, bootlegs tend to cost like a fractions of the real one, take original ps1 is $299 and at most bootlegs only cost around $20-50, which is a steal for parents who are clueless about it.
@erzajumeidi still man. The expectation vs the reality alone had to be bad enough
Opening the disc tray lid and seeing a cartridge slot instead is so funny to me
I love that Wade has like an infinite amount of “stinky names” that scroll and James has a handful. It seems more grass roots over here on this channel. I LOVE IT HERE.
I’m still new!
@@Games_for_James No it's a good thing. I wasn't being sarcastic. Small creators are more fun to watch!
@@VIRACYTV Wade is gonna send a team of elite dropbears after you now.
Keep in mind that the number of Wade's scrolling names has noticeably decreased since Wade cancelled the After Show and made them all free.
oo thats a classic up here in brazil, so glad i never had to suffer with one of those
Brazil mentioned 🎉🎉🎉
Brazil campeao numero uno 🇧🇷🇧🇷🇧🇷🇧🇷🇧🇷🇧🇷🇧🇷🇧🇷
I played a bit on a friend's house and no one knew how to run on mario, it wss great
olá BR'S
This brings me joy to see you fix bootleg junk like this. The PolyStation needed to be preserved so future generations can know true gaming.
I now deeply need to acquire a copy of "RESCUE KUCK". What a title.
Rescue Kuck: He's a rescuer by day and a cuck by night? Or is he the hero who saves cucks from harm's way? I wonder 🤔
As a collector of bootleg stuff, I’m so happy that you repaired the dingus instead of just yelling at it and then throwing it away! :)
Funny enough, as a chilean guy, i have fond memories of the Polystation. My dad gave me one as a birthday gift when i was like 8 years old. At the time, he knew i liked videogames (mostly because i played them with my cousins at their home) but didnt have enough money to give me an original console and games, but i love it anyway. I remember my Polystation looked a lot like the second model of the PS1.
James is truly becoming the new Ashens, I love him so much
I'm glad I'm not the only one who likes bootleg stuff. I'm often laugh uncontrollably in a Sunday market!
You're Not alone, I like Manky bootleg junk like this!
I have a GameCube racing wheel and a Famiclone that are identical with the only real difference being that the Famiclone is obviously way shittier feeling
I love how I can come here for laughs (which you provide very much of), but also incidentally learn how old consoles worked.
Seems wrong seeing one of these not on a brown sofa
Those vids bring me back. Can't believe that series started well over a decade ago now
Exactly what I was thinking. Brown sofa did it first
we have to send this guy on a wild goose chase for Chanticleer Hegemony
Always a joy to see you rip into electronics, thanks for the entertaining vids man
Thanks for watching!
love this style of video James! lot's of folks take a look at bootlegs and just come to the obvious conclusions "yeah it's a curiosity, but it's junk. don't buy it" love that you actually went the distance to not only look at it's ugly guts but also attempt to diagnose and fix it
I'd love to see more playstation repair/modding videos, like a CD drive replacement etc
don't you mean polystation
@@davidphillips5677 I'll take polystation too but the playstation is pretty underrepresented in modding/repair videos, a lot of the popular creators seem to make more about nintendo systems when there's a good deal of playstation mods out there and an interesting history
@@JoshWyatt-ku3yl i was just joking lol
2 minutes in and I’ve learned like 5 new things, great video!
These are my favourite comments
These types of systems were my childhood. After the breakup of Yugoslavia, us kids had to have the latest toys to play, so this is what we had... In 2000s... It still did great job diverting attention from the real world
Excellent video James, you strike a really good balance of being informative, funny, having good pacing, AND you've got a cute cat. Truly a Renaissance man.
The Namco Polystation really is one of the consoles of all time.
Yea.
The graphics were present and the audio was made.
"It's Namcoing time!"
I agree, it’s definitely one of the things to happen in the history of gaming.
@@MangUcokProductions and just Namcoed all over the place
PolyStation is what they called my dorm room
i dont get it explain pls
The polystation was all over bootleg grey markets down here in Brazil (and around the rest of south america If I where to guess), they usually had the shittiest lightgun ever, and would break in a matter of weeks.
Seeing it branded as "namco" is hilarious tho
I've been going through a rough time on my way to getting an electrical engineering degree. Your channel has given those sparks to keep me going
Man, I've always heard of the Polystation... and also saw the kinda design in a video on the "Polystation 2"
Shocked to finally see a real Polystation, thanks James!
I adore that you actually bothered putting in a better voltage regulator and fixing the controller
James be like "come on kitty meow, daddy needs an outro"
Accurate!
Your method of determining polarity is genius!
James channel is great. Can't wait to see what the secret message his cat has been to telling us all along, turns out to be.
My dad actually bought me one of these back in the day when I asked for a psone (he didn't really know what a play station was but he saw this at the local flea market and bought it lol). I was disappointed initially but it did grow on me soon enough. For like 20 bucks it cost at the time the gaming experience was solid. It ran decently enough and was something the entire family enjoyed playing. Lasted us for like two years and it probably would have lasted longer if it werent for a thunderstorm power surge that took it out. It amazes me there are still examples of this thing surviving in the wild.
Apparently the Polystation's main market was in Brazil. I've heard a lot of people from the 90s have nostalgia for NES games not because of the NES, but the Polystation. Kinda wish to have one, one day, love me some terrible NES clone I'll play once and never touch again
Heard this as well and honestly in that sense I'm glad these things exist. It's not exactly like Nintendo lost out on that lucrative South-American market at the time; they weren't selling there to begin with!
mostly south america, because it was a cheaper option than buying an original console plus games.
Brazil had high tariffs on imported electronics. It's why TecToy's licenced Master System clone lived as long as it did (when they stopped being able to find Master System games, they just 'converted' Game Gear games).
@@KeezaweaNot just Latin America but also South East Asia countries like Indonesia and Philippines, and probably Mainland China too. I am Indonesian and saw PolyStation was being sold in Summarecon Mall Kelapa Gading in North Jakarta in 2000-2001.
@@Metal_MaxineWhat do you mean HAD? We still do!
That's a great example of how far miniaturization progressed between when that thing was built and the original NES though, that's about all it really shows.
“Why stop at a million games, a billion, infinity! sky’s the limit when you don’t give a shit!” - Jontron
I'm a software engineer and do a bit of reverse engineering from time to time, but I know basically nothing about electronics. I love how easy and similar (on some level) to what I do you make it look.
Thank you for the education . I love this channel
I use to have one of these when I was a kid with a few "100 in 1" cartridges. This bring back some memories alright 😂
I remembered that my parents would buy this one for us. This might be one of my first exposures to gaming. Good times (even the bootleg feel of this "console")
ohhh! i had a polystation when i was a kid, and for a 4 year old kid it was pretty cool
Oh shit, that's how you read the ac-dc converters
Thank you James, I’m going to be a computer engineer one day, and I’m learning a lot with you! I’ll know how to take crap and make it okay.
This poly thing is so old I remember seeing one when I was going to school back in the early 2000s with my childhood girlfriend. They've been around for a really long time, I never expected to see one again. 😃😄
Excellent James content!
I cheer everytime I see a 7805. What a true blue legend that reg is.
I love how James' red desk is like a Yin to Dank's green Yang.
Legitimately one of my favorite channels at the moment.
it's always a gr- awesome day when james uploads.
used to have a weird obsession with this when i was like 6 cuz it was hilarious to me when i saw the cartridge port under the cd lid. thanks for the epic videos !!
Wow this still exists?! I had This exact Polystation Nes back in 1998 when I was 7 years old.
That's the smartest way to find center-negative or positive. Thanks.
Man this channel gets better and better every time love it 😍
I actually reaaaaally enjoyed seeing you fix that trash!
Honestly, seeing you fixing this Famiclone was the best part.
when i was a kid my dad meaning to buy me a playstation 3 got me a polystation 3 instead and i still remember how funny and sad it felt as he so happily pulled the box out of the bag and in big ugly spiderman font it screamed Polystation 3. it literally played the exact same games as this one. truly a humbling experience thank you james
Thanks, James.
Seeing this today made my lunchtime dump scrolling really worthwhile. Thank you !
I am so glad your channel finally got recommended to me. Been binging your videos which has been a blast ❤❤
2:36 oh dang I recognize that "some weird guy in an Armenian hat" Mario; that's the version of the game Russian kids got on their sketchy unlabeled Dendy cartridges back in the early 90s. that is one old-ass bootleg.
easily one of my favourite channels despite everything going over my head
I had this exact model. I'm nostalgic for it, simpler times.
This brings me back to way better times, what a nostalgia trip!
Famiclones were super popular here in Brazil back in the day and a remember a friend of mine had the Polystation, really cool seeing somene talk about it in a video.
Oh I had one.
The moon Mario had the physics tweaked so you could do hilariously high jumps if you don't run if I remember correctly. You could pass almost all the levels just jumping and staying outside the screen for some seconds. For the time, it was fun.
The fancy one if it's the same, had a bug that made some of the previous/next blocks to draw again on a "fancy" way, they were fake and silverish.
"I needed the female end for another project." Sentences you don't want to hear out of context.
The Polystation is a legendary system !
This is actually kind of interesting - I can remember seeing the "PolyStation" in Hong Kong, but it was significantly different from this. The most obvious difference was that it had a 60 pin Famicom cartridge connector. It also had a 50/60Hz switch and was doing the same sort of dubious trickery that the HK version Famicom did to allow 60Hz games to display on a 50Hz TV when set to 50Hz mode. The built in games were different - I think the one I saw was "22 in 1" - but amazingly they were all actually different games.
Oh wow! I learn so much from watching these videos. I really enjoy your content man. Thanks!
James and wade are like the Australian version of beavis and butthead, but also tech wizards
The polystation was the only console I ever owned. Directly to PC gaming after that, since it was "more affordable".
Affordable, meaning easier to pirate for lmao
I love that Super Mario title screen every time I see it.
It's known as "Mary 2" on my 31 in 1 multicart.
That moment he opens up the disc drive, and it showed a cartridge slot, I fricking died.
Nice video James. This was my first ever console when i was a kid. Mine was shaped like the smaller, slim version of the PlayStation. It had only 10 actual games, a white background with some trees and a short music loop on the menu. At that time my family coudn't afford the real console, but a few years later i got my PlayStation 2.
For some reason (i can't remember why) i also got a version of the Sega Master System made by a brand called TecToy - it had around 130 classic games from the console, and was a licensed product by Sega. Even though i already had my ps2 i still enjoyed playing on it a lot too xD Aerial Assault, Gain Ground, the original Sonic and a few other games where my favourites on it.
Are you in Brazil? TecToy made heaps of Brazil exclusive Sega systems
This thing was the bane of many kids in latin america that wanted a Playstation for Christmass.
polystation is probably the most sold bootleg video game in brasil. growing up id see those in every cousins house and friends
love how you fix everything you have a problem with instead of just living with it😭😭
This was a good video, interesting to see inside one of those and glad to see you got it working
When I was at school, everyone had one of these consoles and we used to share cartridges with each other.
Very cute cat of yours!
My aunt got me this for Christmas when I was small, box had all kinds of characters on it including pikachu lmao came with a cart that had thousands of games and had even more when it was booted without a cart. Good times lol
when he said "thats some terrible soldering" i felt that
In the US they used to distribute such things in shady mall kiosks, in a million different form factors like joysticks and knockoff consoles, but always the same NES crap. Yours actually has a cart slot though!
2:35 "oh that's an unusual title screen for Super Mario..."
When you are from Argentina and that's the title screen you've seen your whole life :S
I remember getting a bootleg system from a mall with a bunch of NES game it was shaped like a N64 controller with a analog stick that didn't move and most buttons were for show lol
I remember seeing a boxed PolyStation in a charity shop and having a chuckle. I sort of wish I'd bought it
I first read it as "Ploystation" and I was like cheers mate, relax a wee bit.
The Polystation played a big role in Brazil by spreading the word of NES for us that had to skip it straight into the SNES due to import issues
Sure, it broke the hearts of many kids that just wanted a PS1, but it had its fun moments
Oh, and I love the humming sound it exhales, I believe it's color interference (?), because I'd notice it while playing Mario, at black screens, the humming would be more noticeable
"negative goes to the center of the connector... positive goes to the outside of the connector.... that's what we want🙄"
As much of a treasure as wade is i like this style of content so much more
Both of you are amazing tho
I remember when I was in Madeira in 99, there was a shop in Funchal (I think) that had these stacked floor to ceiling :D
This was great, entertaining ,fun ,informative and fixing stuff just fantastic many thanks for all the effort 🙂
Glad you enjoyed it
Very famous in Romania around 2000's. The polystation is still close to a nes console.
We had a console called Terminator 2 and besides the nes games, nothing was compatible with NES console.
Still,we had a lot of fun with it
Making a barrel jack center negative is such lawful evil energy.
Love seeing these bootleg systems in action! Obviously they tried to target people who heard of a system but don’t know anything about it. They get it home and wrap it up for little Billie, but when it gets opened they get confused why little Billie is upset!
Like, sure some of that was the case but honestly I do think the majority of the sales market for these was in places with less access. Like for example Brazil wasn't really a consideration as a market for Nintendo (to begin with at least) with the NES getting 1993 release there; much less the rest of South-America.
@@Tebbylous actually not a bad point. I could only imagine if this sort of thing was my only option. Still kind of underhanded to claim that many games when their isn’t nearly that many! I have a Korean multi cart with more choices
Polystation takes me back to the ashens polystation videos
James is like a high quality polystation version of dankpods
Electronic hums are for me nostalgic
Idk about you but Rescue Kuck is an all-time classic that shouldn't be joked about
PolyStatIon were sold all over in the Gulf. I’ve seen it in the late 90s and early 00s.
I remember my dad buying a mini PS1 for me when I was 6 or something, I played it all night until I lost it at my friend's house.