NES, Game Boy (via Super Game Boy), and SNES in one package!

Nintendo Life-Retro has recently reviewed the Retro Duo console, with the results sounding pretty good. It’s a compact system that will play NES (North American and European carts only, no Famicom games because of a different pin-out) and SNES cartridges (North American, European and Japanese carts will fit). Supposedly compatibility is improved over previous “Fami-Clones”, but details about which games still have trouble is unfortunately missing.

The Retro Duo provides composite video output for both NES and SNES, with the ability to output S-Video for SNES only. The included SNES-style controllers are removable, if you prefer to use your own SNES controllers. All in all, sounds pretty decent for $40.

The Retro Duo isn’t 100% perfect by any means and according to reports there are some games which still stubbornly refuse to run, but for the most part the compatibility is excellent. It even accepts the Super Game Boy device (for playing handheld Game Boy titles) and the Game Genie cheat cartridge – two items which have confounded previous FamiClones.

Japanese game commercials are awesome.