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In this post, we put the question of the durability of the Famicom cart to the ultimate test. I have devised a gruelling regimen of ten physical and psychological stress tests to put this copy of Harikiri Stadium through in order to see how far it can be pushed before reaching the breaking point.
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1. Getting Run Over By Me on My Bicycle:
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This didn't appear to phase it, there was no visible damage afterwards.
2. Throwing it into the Ocean:
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This just got the thing wet and full of sand.
Trivia discovery: Famicom carts float.
3. Getting Slammed in the Desk Drawer:
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4. Making it spend 2 minutes in a municipal public restroom without air conditioning on a scorching hot July afternoon:
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6. Forcing it to phone its overbearing mother:
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7. Dropping it off Something High:
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8. Seeing What a Stray Cat Would Do With It:
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9. Giving it to my Dog to see if the Scent of the Cat Would Drive Him Nuts:
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10. The Ultimate Psychological Stress Test.
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I then took out a package of "For You" stickers - the girliest stickers that Daiso has to offer:
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And to my surprise he....doesn't quite work anymore:
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Unfortunately I'm not actually sure which of the stress tests did him in. Probably the ocean, but I'm not too sure.
Lesson learned: To be on the safe side you should probably refrain from putting any Famicom carts you care about through this specific series of tests.
Anyway, there you have it. A Famicom cart driven past the limits of its endurance. Not a pretty sight, I'll admit, but all in the name of scientific inquiry.
Special thanks to Ecto-glow and Nate in the comments section of this post and Bryan and videogamesarerad in this post for the idea.
Related Posts:
-Famicomblog 100th Anniversary Experiment
-Tour D' Excitebike: Fukuoka 2010
Best thing I've read all day.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Brendan!
ReplyDeleteAnd it would probably still work, if you would clean all the dried sea salt from contacts. How you like that, BluRay!
ReplyDeleteSurprised it still works after all the abuse it went under. Well, kinda works anyways. But judging from the first photo, I was getting the impression you were going to lay it on the train tracks to see what a train would do to it (destroy it probably).
ReplyDeleteAnd I love Daiso! I live in Los Angeles, but when I make trips out to San Francisco, I make sure to visit the Daiso up there and hoard on all sorts of necessary and unnecessary things: novelty socks, combs, toothbrushes, stickers, papercraft, cheap belts, cups, et cetera!
Samsa - I might crack it open and give that a try!
ReplyDeleteMark - yeah, putting it on the train tracks, in addition to being illegal and dangerous, wouldn't have really been fair to the cart. These had to be "survivable" feats of strength!
And I love Daiso too, I didn't know they had them in the States. I get tons of stuff there (including my Famicom cart storage racks).
Great article! I like to think it was the psychological torture that permanently damaged that cart, but you're right; it was probably the ocean.
ReplyDeletefurther to the point: i know that Daiso here in Canada, because a Canadian punk rock band form Calgary has a song called "Welcome to the Daiso" all about how great the store is. I have never been there personally, as there are none where I live.
Thanks, videogamesarerad. I'd like to think that the psychological tests at least contributed to the outcome, even if it was the ocean that really screwed it up!
ReplyDeleteAnd I'm amazed to learn that Daiso has opened in my homeland and even had a punk song named after it. Its not a bad shop as everything costs 100 yen, though I wonder how much they charge for stuff in Canada. The "$1.24" shop isn't quite as catchy as the "100 yen shop".
Haha, thanks for making me chuckle most heartily whilst eating my lunch at work :)
ReplyDeleteYou've also reminded me of the little pictures that came in game instruction booklets which showed what you're not supposed to do to the carts. Some of them were just as bizarre as your tests! :P
Thanks Simon! Yes, I remember those "Do not do this to the cartridge" things too. "Do not launch cart from catapult" and stuff like that.
ReplyDeleteHmmmm... catapults....
All right, Even I'm Surprised by it surviving the Ocean!
ReplyDeleteLOL, yeah, me too! I wouldn't recommend throwing any good games you care about in there though:)
ReplyDelete