The Nintendo Famicom Clone Craze
How “famiclones” spread all over the world
The Nintendo Famicom launched in Japan in 1983 as North America was being racked by the shocks of the video game crash. It, and its NES iteration that launched in the USA in 1985, were the first successful video game consoles after the industry-wide recession. This achievement drew attention. In a world where global reach wasn’t all-encompassing, especially in markets undergoing significant political or economic changes, some saw opportunities to capitalize on the success of the Japanese console.
The Birth of a System
Buying an official Nintendo Famicom in China was an expensive venture (Jou 2014). Noticing this in 1988, the Chinese company Subor shifted its efforts to develop a game console, creating an unlicensed Chinese language version of the Famicom, called the Xiao Ba Wang (‘Little Tyrant”). Three years later it became the most popular console in the Chinese market, thanks to a strong marketing push (including a 400,000 yuan TV commercial budget), leading it to have an 80 percent market share in the ‘90s.
