Micro Genius IQ501

[shoggoth80]

Hey all.
Just sharing. This is my Micro Genius IQ501. Bought it several years ago now off eBay. Box is a little beat up, but console is in really nice shape.
Not sure if this is a South American model or what, but it works on my American TV, and doesn't seem to complain about the outlet power here. Controller ports seem proprietary? Controllers are pretty nice. Actually, the nicest of the unlicensed clones I own. Turbo buttons a plus.  
I think it has a protective film over the front nameplate. Never peeled it off. Box has seen better days... but hell, it's boxed.

[fcgamer]

I have one of those, but it's dead, sadly.  That thing was distributed in Asia, Europe, Australia, and probably also South America like you said, probably also in Canada.

I really want to get a few boxed Micro Genius clones sometime.

[shoggoth80]

Yeah, I'm not positive what region this one was meant for. It has US style power supply, and outputs to NTSC. Maybe made for the Canadian market? Mexico maybe? Not sure. It was purchased so long ago, I can't even dig up the feedback from back then to see where the seller was based. Still, glad to have one in the collection. Almost seems harder to find than a real Famicom these days, which is kind of funny.

[chowder]

Micro Genius clones were popular in Russia/Poland as Dendy/Pegasus, but there's no way they sold as many consoles as Nintendo did, so it's not too surprising there are more of the original around.  It's a very durable and reliable machine too.

[shoggoth80]

Sure. The idea being that a relatively cheap, pirate console was probably punched out in high numbers, and sold in regions where there were a lot of people. Just an oddity that you don't see more of them. Some of the guys turn up some really interesting stuff from the more "ignored" regions of the global market. I know that the NES/FC was a massive success in terms of marketing and sales. We didn't get one until 1988, or 1989 or so, but it was awesome, and it was a big deal. Lol. Just with as much as this system has been pirated/bootlegged... and with the untold goofy number of clones seen, and sort of documented...I'm just surprised that more of them aren't seen more often.

[fcgamer]

The Micro Genius machine was also bootlegged.  Apparently the original designers went around showing people how to distinguish real "Micro Genius" products from the fakes.  I've seen the company before, from the outside, I nearly shit myself when I did and my gf wondered what was wrong with me, lol.  I definitely need to break down their doors and demand answers, lol.

In terms of quality, I've ended up purchasing a lot of dead consoles too though.  It was a popular machine, maybe people just abused them here.

On Friday I added a MG wireless controller to my collection, boxed, whee!