I tried 6 pirate game consoles from AliExpress
3,016,115
Published 2023-07-18
AliExpress is so full of more pirate consoles than you can shake a peg-leg at, but what exactly are they? Are they repurposed Android TV Boxes, or emulation stations running on custom linux, or faithful adaptations of the original consoles with after-market chips? Are the controllers stiff, mush, or somewhere in the sweet zone?
Discuss on the forum: linustechtips.com/topic/1520357-i-tried-6-pirate-g…
Buy a Data Frog MI Pad-80 on AliExpress: lmg.gg/SRJ1H
Buy a Gamestation 5 on AliExpress: lmg.gg/iWXJ8
Buy an Arcade Box on AliExpress: lmg.gg/V7WNA
Buy a Hyper Base FC Retro Game Console on AliExpress: lmg.gg/vtQhQ
Buy a Beelink GT King WiFi6 Smart TV box on AliExpress: lmg.gg/Cia5Z
Buy a Retro Super Console X Pro Plus on AliExpress: lmg.gg/KKJzO
Purchases made through some store links may provide some compensation to Linus Media Group.
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MUSIC CREDIT
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Intro: Laszlo - Supernova
Video Link: • [Electro] - Laszlo - Supernova [Monst...
iTunes Download Link: itunes.apple.com/us/album/supernova/id936805712
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Video Link: • Sugar High - Approaching Nirvana
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Intro animation by MBarek Abdelwassaa www.instagram.com/mbarek_abdel/
Monitor And Keyboard by vadimmihalkevich / CC BY 4.0 geni.us/PgGWp
Mechanical RGB Keyboard by BigBrotherECE / CC BY 4.0 geni.us/mj6pHk4
Mouse Gamer free Model By Oscar Creativo / CC BY 4.0 geni.us/Ps3XfE
CHAPTERS
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0:00 Intro
1:10 Mi Pad80 Famiclone/Flashlight
3:10 GameStation 5
5:35 Arcade Box
8:38 Hyper Base FC
11:21 Super Console X King/Beelink GT King
13:44 Super Console X Pro Plus
15:49 Conclusions from Grandma
All Comments (21)
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Have you used any of these emulation boxes before? What have your experiences been? Let us know below! Buy a Data Frog MI Pad-80 on AliExpress: lmg.gg/SRJ1H Buy a Gamestation 5 on AliExpress: lmg.gg/iWXJ8 Buy an Arcade Box on AliExpress: lmg.gg/V7WNA Buy a Hyper Base FC Retro Game Console on AliExpress: lmg.gg/vtQhQ Buy a Beelink GT King WiFi6 Smart TV box on AliExpress: lmg.gg/Cia5Z Buy a Retro Super Console X Pro Plus on AliExpress: lmg.gg/KKJzO Purchases made through some store links may provide some compensation to Linus Media Group.
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"I wouldn't pilot a submarine with them" is my new favourite phrase to describe the quality of a controller
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At least those knockoff consoles come with actual games, even though they are pirated. When I was a kid, the "Gamestation" equivalent was called a "Polystation," and they always advertised themselves as having 200+ games, but what they often ended up having was 200 different versions of Tetris.
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4:16 I especially like how the manual is in Russian but the diagram is labeled in Spanish.
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A couple of those (specifically the ones that lack HDMI) aren't emulators - they're SoC implementations of actual NES hardware. Even the GameStation 5. The epoxy blob was covering the NOAC (Nintendo-on-a-chip) and the other component was a microcontroller for reading the USB ports and translating them to something that NES hardware can understand (a real NES uses a shift register to capture the controller state at a moment in time and then read it serially)
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My parents almost bought one of these knockoffs for my birthday. Glad I told them that I didn’t need anything else.
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FYi the schmoo at 3:54 is not used for obfuscation, but as an extreme form of cost cutting, as it is cheaper to glue the bare die to the pcb and wire bond out the IOs, as for commodity ICs packaging is more expensive than the die itself (this technique is heavily used in simple mass scale manufactured goods like calculators)
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I think a lot of those "analog" controllers mapped to a D-pad which is why there was such a large dead zone.
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15:50 "i you're comfortable with the piracy and profiting off of other's IP..." Considering Nintendo and Sony's willingness to price jab for retro games these days... yeah, I don't have much sympathy for them. They're the ones raking in all the money while the original developers only see pennies on the dollar from it, anyway.
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Linus, you should use the GS5 shell as a case for a tiny PC build. Would be a cool idea for a future video!
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10:22 damn Linus didn't have to do them like that
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You should test if there is anything malicious on them
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to be honest the lantern is quite useful, imagine trying to connect it behind the tv, with the lights off
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10:20 loving the comparison of controllers to submarine piloting 😂
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We need a list of the best emulators with software loaded for home built arcade cabinets. LETS GO
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Bro got the GAY STATION 5 💀
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Grandma, nowadays, buys Little Timmy the best gaming consoles out or Little Timmy wont visit!😂
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10:23 HAHAHAHA!!! "i would not pilot a submarine with them" Well Played, Linus!!
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Wow, just what I needed, a flashlight built into a game console. I bet it'll sell like hotcakes with that feature alone.
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When I set my Pi library up, I read a lot about N64 being a sticking point for some emulation infrastructures because of the way they were coded rather than a performance issue. It takes separate effort to properly emulate them which a lot of these guys may just decide is not worth it when they can throw thousands of other types of games on there and hit the target number for the page headline.
