Random: Someone Made A LEGO NES With Side-Scrolling Mario Long Before Nintendo Did

Probably didn't cost over €200 either

Poor mario, the only thing he can do is jump. But it's nice anyways👍

talk about stealing ideas!

I hope this person gets some credit!

I fall on the side of coincidence rather than taking someone's ideas. There's nothing new in building a Lego NES (Indeed, one of the first ones that appeared was designed by Chris McVeigh, now working as a Lego designer), and these sort of scrolling picture mechanisms have been around a while too (though I can't immediately find any great example of it as all searches are dominated by the NES model). It's sort of an 'obvious idea', though only some people, such as the individual discussed here, had the potential to actually build it.

Lego is well known for having surprisingly long development cycles for products - part of planning for retail slots etc — there's little doubt that this would have been in development, if not had a completed design, by the time that the custom model came out. I expect for many models that Lego release, somewhere online you can find something similar that someone's built a model of already - more a consequence of the universal appeal and widespread use of the toy than anything else.

@mr_benn The one and only correct reply.

@Menchi I dunno, getting all those very specific pieces and blocks in the right colors can't be cheap...

It's the kind of thing only a person that has already invested several hundreds of dollars on lego could make, without a premade kit...

This guy needs to get paid

The scrolling idea is very similar, but the overall looks are quite different. Based on the timing, it does sound like they were developed independently.

It's not a stretch to A. build an NES out of Lego and B. make a dynamic screen mechanism that uses pixels out of Lego blocks. Crying "copycat" here is not just silly, it's also ignorant of everyone else that recreated consoles and pixel art from Lego blocks well before either of these two projects.

This is just a coincidence I have seen lego nes and crt tv builds for years.

He should write them and let them know he expects royalties.

"Someone Made A LEGO NES With Side-Scrolling Mario Long Before Nintendo Did"

Except Nintendo didn't make it, LEGO did.

@sevex Usually they do (LEGO Ideas is a good example), but not in this case. Nintendo wouldn’t ever do that.

Well, it is a LEGO 80ies TV and a LEGO NES, obvious that it would be kind a similar...

@Menchi You don't understand how much Lego actually cost.
This probably cost as much as the official set getting all the parts from bricklink, especially as this guy would have probably needed to buy form several sellers.

@PaisanoJake It was in the works three years before this guy did his.. and it's not like making things out of Legos is new.

@zocker-hias This was my first thought. The TV Nintendo's official set uses is almost identical to the TV I had in the 80s. And, I mean, the NES was always going to be similar because it looks exactly like an NES.

Yep it's been at conventions. I've seen it. YouTube videos about it too.