The Illegal World of Chinese Bootleg Games | Xplay

Xplay dives into the bootleg bonanza that was the 1980s in China. Nintendo was out of reach for Chinese families, so knock-off game consoles exploded leading to unauthorized Tekken 3 in 8-bit, a Pikachu platformer, Final Fantasy 7 for the NES, Pokemon Jade and Pearl, and a new Sonic The Hedgehog game featuring Super Mario?? Jackie Chan was even the face of a giant keyboard that played Nintendo games! This video is an absolute multiverse of madness of games that should not exist.

#bootleg #adamsessler #g4tv #knockoff #pokemon
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[xplay]

What game mash-up is your dream bootleg abomination?

[cnnabun]

As an 80s child who often visited my parents' native country of Vietnam, I saw TONS of these Storytime: my mind was blown as a SNES kid. On my Asia travels, they had a SNES add-on that was fed 3.5" floppys. I always wanted to bring these back to the US with me but was told customs wouldn't allow it. Now I know I should've brought ALL OF THE ADDONS with me.

[robertpabalan]

As a filipino kid during the 90s to 00s I laughed at the sight of the Polystation and immediately remembered when my aunt gave me one for Christmas! 🤣🤣🤣

[jeevesdfector]

Just stumbled on this.. dude I can't believe Adam is still making content. I used to watch Extended Play and X-Play on TV when I was like 11-12 years old to figure out which PS2 games I wanted to buy w my allowance lol. This is nostalgic af for me rite now just to see him still doing game commentary

[phoenixnoire]

That Minions game you were unable to tell if it was an existing game, it's Adventure Island. I'm surprised you didn't know that, considering that it was way more popular and mainstream than some of the games you did know.

[friedrce]

As a Southeast Asian, it is quite common to come across bootleg consoles and modded games. Additionally, it is frequent for us to purchase a single game that contains an entire library collection of games from specific video game titles or even old consoles.

[btbesquire]

Shoutout to Jefferson's awesomeness in this episode. This is oddly fascinating, i was not aware of how wild of a rabbit hole Bootlegs Games was and still is.

[PDR_Dini]

as a brazilian kid growing up at the early 2000s, this video is oddly nostalgic to me lol

[anthnyislive]

I've been learning about Video Game history for 10+ years and I never knew the history of bootleg games! Great video guys!

[andrewharvey]

This was so good. Deserves a feature-length extended edition. There are multiple stories to tell within this video. Each can be explored more in depth.

[haydenvassar]

Love the deep dives on history that Xplay does, and Jefferson’s personal stories really took it over the top. Also I would definitely play Kart Fighter.

[DubbRubiHeart]

Loved Jefferson’s Filipino Auntie impression! 😆👌

EDIT: And if this is truly the end of Jefferson, take care brotha! From one Filipino to another! 🤙

[deanf]

Glad to see Jefferson back. As a Filipino, I am happy to see some Asian Filipino representation! And of course, what an awesome topic. Well done X Play👏

[l_unaSy]

When the NES Classic and other mini consoles started popping up, Famiclones also saw a bit of a resurgence. For some parts of the world, those truly were the face of retro gaming.

[dominict]

Damn this was an amazing history lesson to bootleg games of the past. Hell even there’s hella representation of Asian and even Filipino experience especially to video games. Also bravo to jeff being on camera once again, can’t believe he’s no longer there.

MAN i just realized how much bootleg playstation games i would get from the philippines only to realize my parents or relatives going "hey why won't these games work" and then going through the whole modding my playstation. oh man how much further can you explore this topic lol

[stephanietremblay]

I collect chinese emulator (handheld) and there's some AMAZING handhelds now for under 40$ US. I have 3 that play Playstation 1, GBA, 32X, Arcade and every sega and nintendo product that are less than 64 bits.
To play Tekken 2 or Final Fantasy 7 flawlessly on a 40$ handheld is crazy impressive to me.

[Armertank]

It is sad that these countries make our systems but couldn’t afford ones themselves! So good on them for making bootleg games!

[CRT_sRGB]

You guys hit the nail right on the head! For youngsters living in poorer countries, these bootlegs were often the only viable and/or available option for gaming. While things have since improved, console (and PC) gaming is still a pricey hobby. That's why I won't knock mobile gaming too hard; poor people need to have fun like everyone else.

[JaxRetroGamer]

Here is a story I learnt that no one talks about:
So back in like in the mid 90s or so samsung a popular electronic company from south korea produced some bootleg copies of snes games but they did not do bootleg they officially released sega consoles in south korea due to a boycott that prevented japanese products from coming from south korea but this boycott ended around in uh 1998 or 2002 but nintendo sued them for piracy violation but samsung learned their lesson and destroyed all of the bit of bootleg snes game copies they had in their stock so nintendo teamed up with samsung to stop bootlegged games from coming in areas like eastern europe, south amercia and across asia and this is one of the extremely instances where a company is sued from making bootlegs but learnt their lesson and destroyed their bootlegged copies/games and helped with the company that sued them to stop other bootlegs sorry for that repeating I'm commenting this late at night.

[solreavir]

After Jefferson bears his heart "Lets talk about Pokemon!"