Today, in unexpected retro gaming news, we’ve learned about the discovery of the legendary Famicombox – Nintendo’s commercial-use-only console released in 1986 – in a Japanese love hotel.
Automaton reported on the news, but it was “Famicom archivist” Orochi on X that found the lost hardware, photos included. According to them, the full search – described as the “infiltration of a lovel hotel” – revealed every room except one had a working Famicombox installed.
He explained the pistol-like Zapper wouldn’t work with the LCD TVs before adding “it was a dream location where almost all other games worked perfectly” that needs to be protected. Needless to say, the fact a love hotel still has a bunch of operational Famicomboxes lying around possibly confirms business is going well.
Originally intended for use in hotels mainly, the massive Famicombox had 16 cartridge slots, with an internal one running the menu software and the other 15 supporting NES games that could be selected from the menu. While impressive, it also had several limitations, like bugs created by connected cartridges interfering with the active ones and certain compatibility issues.
This fun story also brings back the urban legend of a “Nintendo love hotel” that’s been floating around since the 1960s. As explained by Automaton, rumours spread that during its early days “Nintendo experimented with many different businesses – including love hotels”. Back in 2022, Orochi did some research and explained how the legend likely wasn’t true, though one of the company’s first few presidents, Hiroshi Yamauchi, or his family could’ve been loosely linked to some sort of hotel business at the time.
If you’re wondering what Japanese “love hotels” are, the answer is quite simple and what you’d expect: They’re short-stay places where guests can have some privacy for sex and, in the case of this specific hotel, beating high scores on ancient gaming hardware.
