North Korea may have a reputation as a pretty grim place to live, but the arrival of a brand new games console should hopefully raise a few smiles (assuming you're rich enough to afford it, of course).
The 'Moranbong' combines tech seen in the Wii and Microsoft Kinect to create an entertainment environment which calls to mind the waggle-and-motion craze which swept the industry following the 2006 launch of Nintendo's massively popular console.
In the images published, players are shown using Wii Remote-style controllers to play table tennis, but a shooting game is also available. Another shot shows how the Moranbong's Kinect-style camera can detect your movement and translate it into in-game motion.
Finally, the Moranbong will ship with a host of education applications so that children can work as well as play using the system.
North Korea getting a home console it can call its own is all well and good, but the machine is, in reality, a Subor G80 (also known as the Cdragon Cassidy G80) from China (thanks, Taizou) which runs on Google's Android OS (the images shown are directly lifted from promotional materials for the G80).
In China, the system comes pre-loaded with a bunch of games, including ROMs for titles like Contra and King of Fighters '97. It is assumed that the software on the Moranbong will be focused on the North Korean market.
Not a system that Nintendo, Sony or Microsoft should be worried about, then, but at least it reminded us of the good old days of the Wii. (They were good days, right? Right?!)
[source twitter.com, via arirangmeari.com]
Comments 46
What is this nonsense! I love the photo of the family playing Contra with their child! 😂
I smell bee ess.
Top right and bottom left aren't even looking at the TV.
Are we supposed to believe that they are looking at some kind of phantom projection?
Boy, I really hope somebody got fired for that blunder.
this is sad, guys...
Why are all the photos of white people and ya know... not Koreans ? Also I want one
@Silly_G
If you look closely at the bottom left picture, the TV screen doesn't even exist on the scene, it exists in a void.
@Abes3
I thought they photoshopped people in a living room into their screenshots and renders of their bootleg system.
As a Belarusian growing up in the post-Soviet 90s, I certainly didn't expect to read the bell-ringing word "Subor" all the way in 2019 - on a British website, no less.
Sounds like something Ashens would mock.
...i mean review
Anybody remember the Chintendo Vii ?
Half of me wants to get one for the lulz the other half thinks that bringing a console that obviously has a camera and probably a microphone into my house from North Korea is a horrendously bad idea. Getting flashbacks of 1984 about now.
@nhSnork What's the meaning of that word, especially in the context of Belarus and Britain? I'm not from Britain or Belarus, so I'm wondering...
I'm going to assume Kim invented the console himself and makes the games in his spare time.
@mazzel from what I understand, it's a Chinese brand name (for the given definition of a "brand" in such contexts). The NES/Famicom clone I had as a kid was branded "Subor", too. And while I had it quite late in regards to the respective console generation it pirated (from 1997 to 2002), it's still surprising to know that the brand exists to this day and even shows up in video game blogposts in the west.
@nhSnork
So a Dendy then.
Yer, that camera is in no way terrifying. But, this at least puts tech in peoples hands, like DVD's entering the country hopefully this rapidly spins out into a blackmarket/hacked machines brining in the outside world.
@KitsuneNight pretty much, but this stuff went by a whole lot of different names back then. Dendy, Subor, Kenga, Simba's (sic)... Dendy was the one Steepler made for the Russian market before striking an official deal with Nintendo, but I'm not sure if they had anything to do with the others. Especially since prior to the aforesaid deal they were also selling Mega Drive clones - but at least those were MEGA DRIVE clones. The consoles we got here in the rest of Eastern Europe could include something that looked like a Mega Drive but played strictly 8-bit NES/Famicom bootlegs. Talk about a time traveler item to troll the console wars participants with.
@nhSnork
Famiclones, now there is a subject for the forums.
I had one that looked like a snes.
The world of Famiclones is pretty ...wacky
But can it run Quake 3?
So those images are actually from promotional materials for the G80? Methinks the Photoshop team for some of those needs their technique refined.
Just imagine that a kid says to his dad, "C'mon dad, lets play some King Of Fighters!"
Too bad no kid besides me has ever heard of King of Fighters
Just what people want in North Korea.... a console with a camera (and presumable a microphone) monitoring them in their homes....
Meanwhile North Korea runs concentration prison camps and executes political dissidents.
But sure, go ahead and advertise their propaganda for them, I'm sure they appreciate it.
I’m sure the supreme leader will have those cameras active at all times so he can keep an eye on his subjects.
A Moron Bong? An idiot can use it to smoke weed.
Also, how many North Koreans have TV? If they do, it's CRT not a flatscreen.
Nobody with kids has a white living room. That’s just asking for trouble.
@Silly_G North Koreans don’t get “fired” in the same way as you might imagine…
Wow....an entertainment device with a microphone and camera in North Korea....who would have guessed. They're learning from the West so quickly...
Shame the only people who will ever even see one of these are the wealthy Party aristocracy. But at least it will train their kids at a young age to understand the government is ALWAYS watching.
The fancy photoshop work ripping Wii ads is poetry though. I didn't know NK was known for it's blondes who live in rooms furnished by Target. Well...not that kind of target anyway.
These are actual stock photos. I'm not making this up. Reverse Google search.
That's kind of cool.
As if most North Korean citizens will ever even see this in their lifetime.
Can confirm, the wii was the good old days. 2005 was the first year I was allowed to work, so in the wii generation I just bought every game that looked good. So thankful now, cause all the good games from then can get crazy expensive
No wait I told a lie.
It was the Ken Sing ton.
A rip off of the Vii.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wed_bW8iiEw
Least its not a bloody Popstation.
If this console ever comes out can you please do a follow up with a video review. Hoping someone is able to get footage of this console if its ever released
North Koreans can rejoice as they play classics like:
"Shine the Supreme Leaders Shoes or Die in a Labor Camp"
"Sell Your Soul for a Measly Bag of Rice"
"The Supreme Leader Conquers All," a game in which you play as Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un, riding on a Unicorn, which is riding on an ICBM, which blows up America!
Good times for North Korea, indeed!
@Silly_G well let me ask you a question: why would someone whose username is "silly g" spend all their time analysing matters of political and commercial interest?
I wonder if they have any contraband of normal game consoles and games. Or torrents.
The article is pretty sad. Imagine if you lived in a country where your most favorite hobby is unheard of and the best thing you have is some weird "Wii Sports clone" with just one game.
Soviet Union had the same thing with, well, everything. For example, an entire generation of talented, creative Ukrainian writers and people of art were sentenced to death, sent to prison (not the "easy" type of prison, mind you), etc. Look it up - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executed_Renaissance
And if some books, movies were to be translated or published in USSR - they had to be carefully reviewed in case if there's anything that contradicts the party. Needless to say, the majority of "art" produced within that regime is complete junk. Kojima and some other "artsy", as they say, people tend to glorify some of USSR art but that's only because these people can (!) choose what to watch and what to play. Of course it feels different and unique but if you watch/read the same proletarian induced stupidity, it won't be fun.
By the way, to all of you who are being surprised - this kind of thing can happen in other countries, too. Russia is currently teaming up with China to isolate their Internet - that's not a joke and they've been working on that for some time. There was an incident when Russian government accidentally blocked Playstation Network because they wanted to block Telegram messenger. A ton of other websites (including Playstation) were unavailable for a long time. Then there's China - games need to be manually approved. Just a day ago they approved... Mario U, yeah. You'd think there isn't anything bad in Mario U but for China it took some time to approve.
Lastly, even if something is technically available, most of the countries around the world can't afford gaming, legal gaming - for sure. Even illegal isn't so easy since it usually is tied down to the exchange rate of US dollar...
Hopefully, Nintendo and the rest will team up to make games more accessible all across the globe. North Korea - well, nothing good will come from that land... there's no way in the world anyone will want to live there when they see the "outside world". And eventually they will.
By the way, Trump would have totally turned into a pro-censorship guy if he could. Remember that video they posted on their YouTube account? "Games are evil, look it's so violent!". Violence in games is a difficult topic but it goes for all art, not just games... regardless, what I'm saying is that if someone like Trump gets to sit in a President chair and bully, harass people, artists and news channels, any "wrong-thinking" - then we're not moving in the right direction. Not even mentioning the countless nationalistic parties in Europe which get away with saying same stuff Nazis were known for... Just yesterday I've read an article where some foolish journalist was complaining and saying how much he wants to not have Russian children on the Ukrainian streets - to "preserve ukrainian language", see? And nothing will happen to him for saying that.
So, just saying - we're at a much better place than China and North Korea but gamers need to encourage publishers and the rest to try to make games more accessible, so that everyone could play them, no matter which country.
ROFL, the first photo is from an Amazon listing for Switch Mario Tennis accessories, but then has the joy-cons removed and these wiimotes inserted instead:
https://www.amazon.com/MoKo-Tennis-Nintendo-Accessories-Controller/dp/B07F3V7GD1
Got to know how the North Koreans censored Contra, because surely they did?
@nhSnork Once people heard Jackie Chan once advertised for Subor, that got western gamers' attention.
(though arguably it was probably years before he became an international celebrity, probably would've been a good idea to avoid promoting a gray device after that.)
@N64-ROX : There's a can.
@nimnio Oh stuff it. There's nothing random civilians can do to change the situation in NK. However one thing we can do is not help the NK regime by normalizing their propaganda and acting like a game console they made is the same as a game console made elsewhere. North Korea does things like this as a deliberate facade to say "Look, we've got all the luxuries the rest of the world has too!" When in fact NK is one of the most hellish places to live on Earth, entirely due to their regime. Huge swathes of the population in NK can barely afford to EAT, let alone afford video games. And they aren't in that position because of tough economic conditions and bad luck, they are there due to deliberate repression by an openly cruel and violent regime.
They should be denounced universally.
Articles like this normalize their propaganda.
The Soulja Console's got some competition!
The 7th generation was actually not very good in general. It was almost a dark time for video games.
@GodOfPie : Well played. Looks like the PS5 will be dead on arrival. The real console war will be between the Moranbong and Soulja Boy.
Why does the screen on the lower-left screenshot have Chinese characters on it? Surely very few North Koreans can read Hanja, since those were put to rest decades ago from the general NK education. The real question is, then: what Sino-sphere game is that?
I heard discussions about North Korean video games before and the one I remember most is...this game where you have to fight back against invading Americans.
This is a country where loyal party members that do their bit for many years will be rewarded with a simple radio (with just one radio station). Now they are going to give terrible android computers to a select few.
At least Chinese knockoff consoles have been somewhat competent in their emulation in the past year.
Shutter to think about how these will play.
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