A savvy modder has crafted a handheld Famicom complete with a side-loading cartridge slot ala Sony’s Walkman cassette player.
The creator, Japanese modder Limone, revealed their latest project on Twitter earlier today.
To bring the portable handheld Famicon walkman to life, Limone modified a 12-volt 3.5″ LCD screen from AliExpress to accept the composite video output from the Famicom.
Limone has taken design inspiration from the Game Boy with the shell of their handheld Famicon mimicking the iconic design of Nintendo’s classic handheld, down to the button layout and the angled front-facing speaker cut outs.
The bottom of the 3D-printed case houses an earphone jack and a USB C charging port, with a volume wheel on the right-hand side and the power switch located on top.
The most striking aspect of Limone’s portable Famicon, however, is the Walkman-style cartridge loading bay on the rear of the device. The plastic cover opens with a confident pull on the incorporated tab and shuts with a satisfyingly clunky snap.
Hard Off To Handheld
Limone purchased the Famicom from Hard Off, a Japanese reuse company specialising in recycling pre-loved products for 500 yen ($3.29/£2.61).
In the spirit of recycling, Limone also reused the original Famicon controller D-pad and buttons from two controllers to create the new turbo inputs that sit above the original A and B buttons.
Limone initially didn’t know what form factor their handheld Famicon would take so enlisted their audience to guide them with the help of a questionnaire. “Many people wanted high-level modifications’, Limone said via the translated captions on their YouTube video. “We investigated what kind of modifications we could make that had never been done before”.
The result, as seen here, is a Walkman-style games machine that wouldn’t look out of place in any coming-of-age comedies from the late 80s.
Limone has also shared an in-depth video guide of how they produced the handheld Famicom on YouTube, which will undoubtedly become a great resource for other wannabe Famicon modders in the future.
