Monday, December 28, 2020

The EverDrive GB X7 - The Ultimate 8-bit Game Boy/Color Flash Cart?

EverDrive GB vs. EverDrive GB X7

For too long, the Game Boy and Game Boy Color had been rather neglected by the flash cart builders.  The old cartridges by companies like Bung faded out of existence as Nintendo sued Bung out of existence.  There were a few more recent cartridges like the 64MB EMS Smart Card, but it was really klunky to use and had poor game compatibility.  A few cartridges were more focused on music production than game playing.  In 2014 Krikzz released the EverDrive GB, a flash-based device with an FPGA with enough resources to handle basic games.  I bought one then and was satisfied with it, as I indicated in my review.  Three years later he released the SRAM-based EverDrive GB X-series.  Having finally acquired an EverDrive GB X7, let me share my thoughts and views of the device and try to answer the question, "Is it the Ultimate GB/GBC Flash Cart?"

Sunday, December 13, 2020

Life After Death - The Unlicensed Market for NES and Famicom Games after their Lifespan

When Nintendo and its authorized third parties stopped releasing new games for the NES and Famicom in 1993 and 1994, respectively, the established pattern would have dictated a period where no new games would be available until the eventual birth of the homebrew scene.  However, this really did not happen for the Nintendo 8-bit platform, games have been development continuously from the birth of the Famicom in 1983 to the present day.  In previous articles I have taken a look into Unlicensed Western and Taiwanese developers active during the active lifespan of the NES and Famicom.  In this article I will give a brief overview the afterlife of this iconic hardware.