Useless Gaming Experiments - Playing NES and SNES Simultaneously

[133MHz]

I had a weird idea. What would happen if I could play, say NES SMB and SNES SMB (the one in Super Mario All-Stars) simultaneously? If I could rig up a way to send the exact same controller input to both systems and start the games at the same time, would they play synchronized with each other? So I made that happen in order to find out.

Due to the differences between NES and SNES systems and controllers, it isn't as easy as splicing the controller wires together. But that wasn't a problem for me, for I came up with an electronic circuit that decoded the button information from a standard SNES controller and then re-encoded them into NES and SNES format simultaneously, so that I could control both systems with one controller, and therefore put my idea to the test.

Unfortunately it's kinda difficult to keep both games in sync because of time differences in transition times, completely revamped game mechanics (SMB2 is the worst in this aspect), non deterministic game events (like Birdo in SMB2) and possibly minute differences in the physics engines. No matter how hard I try, the games will de-sync after the second stage or so, but it still turned out to be a cool experiment nonetheless, so I've put up a Youtube video of it for everyone to see.

Here's the video: Useless Experiments #1 - Playing Different Game Systems Simultaneously

I'd like to see what you guys think.

[MS-DOS4]

I liked it. Nice idea.

[Jedi Master Baiter]

Maybe we should do this with other games (Ninja Gaiden Trilogy!) - it takes enough skill to play one game, it takes mad skill to play two.

[manuel]

That's useless, but totally awesome.  And that's all that counts!
Great video!

[cubelmariomadness]

I always thought of doing that. always. I never had the knowledge to do it though.

[jpx72]

...just AMAZING!
Never thought that the SNES ports are so accurate what timing concerns.

[Strider_Hiryu]

Cool!, i always feel that the all stars phisics were a little...weird (specially in SMB) now this confirm it 

Incredible work 

[satoshi_matrix]

hey you found my SNES female connector!

[famiac]

DUDE SO AWESOME!! i wish i could do that

[FamicomFreak]

Awesome stuff like always!

[b1aCkDeA7h]

Reminds me of that TAS video where someone uses the same input to beat a single level in Mega Man 1-6.

[manuel]

b1aCkDeA7h, do you happen to have a link to that video? Sounds nice to watch.

[PatMan33]

One word...

AWESOME.

[Jedi Master Baiter]

You could perhaps do another one for this:

http://www.gametrailers.com/video/japanese-debut-super-mario/705059

Even though it looks to be an exact replica of All-Stars.

[MWK]

133MHz, you're simply a genius! TOTALLY AWESOME!!!
I was like LMAO when I saw that.
You got mad skills - I never doubted in that :-)