With Nintendo not creating any more NES Classic Minis, it was only a matter of time before we saw some knock-offs hit the market. It’s literally impossible to buy one at a retail now and it’s clear that there’s still quite a lot of demand.
NeoGAF has spotted listings for a Chinese-made knock-off on AliBaba and AliExpress. It wasn’t long before the AliBaba listing was removed, but you can now find the items on eBay.
It’s actually incredible just how good the knock-off looks. Not only is the box identical, the actual unit looks very close to the final retail unit too. The only difference appears to be the lower quality materials used as well as the Nintendo logo which appears to look a little dodgy.
The unit also includes the same micro-USB ports and also the Wii Classic Controller connectors. On-screen, things are very similar too. You’d be hard pressed to tell the actual menu from the original.
There’s a few little differences between them:
- Game title font size is smaller
- Different spacing above the icons at the top
- 1P/2P boxes use a different pixel-font
- Font on Select and Start button icons is different
- Five full game boxes are visible at once instead of only four with two cut-off on the sides
