A game that lets players love game consoles. Pico Pico, a naughty title from erotic game maker AGE SOFT's sub-brand Phi-age, features controller controlled characters cosplaying as game consoles. As website Hobby Blog points out, there have been loads of amateur drawings of humanised video game consoles, but Pico Pico appears to be the first professional made adult title for the PC to run with this motif. Pico Pico features characters like Famicom-esque Miko, "PLAYSTALLION7" Nana and DS-style Pipi. There's even a "Dreamcost" character! Game's out August 29th in Japan. Screenshots below.

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The Nintendo Famicom, picture above in happier times, was sadly gutted by Benj Edwards for PC World, giving us a disturbing, yet educational look at the NES precursor. Even as we look at the grisly insides of the Famicom, its game cartridges, controllers and Japan-only disk system, we learn quite a few things. For instance, I didn't know the Famicom had microphones built into the controllers and that one could shout into them, killing enemies in the Japanese version of The Legend of Zelda.

That makes this lovely little feature information and fun, a sort of "edutainment", if you will. Do check it out, as it's gorgeously photographed and loaded with easily digestible NES era minutiae.

Inside Nintendo's Classic Game Console [PC World]

In China, a guy known only by his surname "Yang" faked his abduction because his skinflint parents wouldn't buy him "a Nintendo computer", according to the China Daily. The scheme crowbarred about 10,000 yuan ($US 1,400) off the 'rents, but the kid and his two captors were snagged trying to get the dough out of an ATM.

I'm not a kidnapper, but if I wanted any amount of money in trade for the life of someone's son, even if I was that son, I'd probably ask Dad to like, withdraw it himself, bring the cash, alone, no cops or you'll never see me again, etc. etc. I'd use one of those creepy voice modulators too, because that's rad. And I would use it to buy a Coleco Adam.

Anyway, Yang is in trouble with the cops. And his folks, I assume. No word on whether he got his Nintendo Computer.

Computer Crazy Youth Fakes Self Abduction [China Daily via Destructoid]

Games are art, games aren't art, yo mama so fat, yada yada yada, blah blah blah. Enough of that tired old, stuck-in-a-loop argument! It's time to move on and focus on game carts as art. These are from the recent Famicase exhibition in Japan, where artists were tasked with coming up with their own imaginary games, then designing the imaginary cart for their imaginary game. Some highlights are below, while you can see the entire collection here.

Nintendo's Famicom, that was a great console. A great console with some crazy peripherals! While our presence was graced with the badass of the Power Glove reached foreign shores, some of the truly nutty ones (like the Coconuts Japan pachinko controller or the JoyBall thing) never did. Just think if we had a shot at the one-handed Ascii Stick controller, developed especially for RPGs, or any of the Hori-produced Famicon controllers! Click the gallery below and imagine.

Pirates have brought gaming some good things. Make that, some interesting things. Take this unlicensed Famicom Harry Potter... shmup? Yep! Young Harry rides about on his broom, shooting floating dog heads and bats. According to game site Siliconera:

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Want to play? Get out those coins. Here's a coin-operated Famicom that was hooked up to standard TVs in Japanese hotels and inns. One hundred yen coin got players 10~15 minutes of playtime. There's a Zapper and everything! Hit the jump for the pricier Super Famicom, which only doled out 5 minutes of playtime for a hundred yen. Well, it was "Super." Super expensive!

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Take all the random crap you can stuff into your DS's GBA slot. Nintendo-related or otherwise. Now pile them all into a hill. Because this King needs a hill to be King of. This is the CYBER Familator Lite. You plug it into your GBA slot, you plug in a Famicom cartridge, and you can play Famicom games on it. No need for wires, no need for Ben Heck, it all just works. Thing's even got a TV-out port, so your whole family can watch you stumble through Japanese Famicom games with little/no idea of what the hell's going on.
CYBER・ファミレータLite（DS Lite専用 [CyberGadget, via DS Fanboy]

SEGA isn't the only company disowning vintage consoles. Starting October this Halloween, Nintendo Co., Ltd. will no longer provide hardware support for the Famicom. The console was originally launched in Japan back in 1983, and Nintendo continued to service the machine all these years. With the rise of the Virtual Console and original Famicom parts becoming harder and harder to locate, Nintendo had decided cease repairs. What's more, Nintendo Co., Ltd. will no longer repair the Super Famicom, the Nintendo 64, the Gameboy and the Gameboy Pocket. Virtual Console or not, this strikes me as sad.
No more support [IT Media via Arcade Renaissance]

Today marked the day I had been looking forward to since I found out I was going to Tokyo, a trip to the nerd mecca, Akihabara. Accompanied by some friends and the ever stalwart friend of Kotaku, Witzbold, we navigated the massive Tokyo subway system and arrived safely in Akihabara after long journey that seemed to never end.

First stop: Super Potato. You've heard about it, you've read about it, you may have even seen pictures of it, but nothing can prepare you for actually seeing it in person. The outside is fairly unassuming and seems nearly invisible compared to the surrounding shops with their large neon signs. A dingy hallway with a few handmade signs mark the way to a tiny elevator that barely contained our four person party. When the doors opened again onto the third floor, we all gasped in amazement. Here we stood, on the border of vintage game paradise. Famicoms and other ancient systems lined the walls with shelves upon shelves of games of every size and shape imaginable dotted here and there with toys and other gaming memorabilia.

The next floor was just as crowded with every available space taken up by a immense collection of more toys, game soundtracks and various knick knacks. One last trip up the stairs brought us to a dimly lit and smoky arcade filled with various otaku and their girlfriends (yeah, they had them!) who lined the back wall texting on their phones, waiting for their geeky knights to finish conquering the video game world.

Obviously, hearing me describe it is nothing compared to seeing what it was like in photos. I took a ton of pictures despite the various signs indicating that photos weren't allowed that I pretended to ignore, all for you, our precious readers. So, click below and enjoy the thirty six photo gallery of the possibly greatest vintage game store in the world.

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