Many clones are designed to resemble the original Famicom, but others have been produced to look like almost all other consoles from the NES, SNES, and Mega Drive/Genesis to the Xbox and PlayStation 3, and others simply in a generic console shape. In terms of appearance and basic build, there are four general types of clones: Most clones are produced extremely cheaply, while a few are comparable to first-party hardware in their manufacture quality.

They would often be distributed along pirate multicarts.Д«ecause NES clones are not officially licensed, they vary in areas such as hardware quality, available games and overall performance. Some manufacturers opt for a less misleading approach, describing the system generically as a 'TV game', ' 8-bit console', 'multi-game system', or ' Plug & Play', but even these examples generally say nothing to suggest any compatibility with NES hardware. Some of the packaging features screenshots from more recent and more powerful systems, which are adorned with misleading, or even outright false, quotes such as 'ultimate videogame technlology' or 'crystal clear digital sound, multiple colors and advanced 3D graphics'. ДЇew of these systems are openly marketed as 'NES compatible'. As opposed to that, in former Yugoslavia NES clones often visually resembled Mega Drive, together with the Sega logo. Many of these early systems were similar to the NES or Famicom not only in functionality, but also in appearance, often featuring little more than a new name and logo in place of Nintendo's branding. Elsewhere, these systems were often prompting swift legal action. Such was the case with the Dendy (including the Dendy Junior), a particularly successful Famiclone which achieved widespread popularity in Russia and former Soviet republics in the early 1990s. In some locales, especially former Eastern Bloc, former Soviet Union countries, South America, various Asian countries, and Africa such systems could occasionally be found side by side with official Nintendo hardware, and the NES was only available in low quantities so such clones were the easiest available console gaming systems. Most devices originate in China and Taiwan, and less commonly South Korea. The technology employed in such clones has evolved over the years: while the earliest clones feature a printed circuit board containing custom or third party integrated circuits (ICs), more recent (post-1996) clones utilize single chip designs, with a custom ASIC which simulates the functionality of the original hardware, and often includes one or more on-board games. Hundreds of unauthorized clones and unlicensed copies have been made available since the height of the NES popularity in the late 1980s. They are electronic hardware devices designed to replicate the workings of, and play games designed for, the NES and Famicom. Hardware clones of the Nintendo Entertainment System home video game consoleДЄ famiclone is a colloquial name given to any clone console of the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES), known in Japan as the Family Computer or Famicom.

Nes rom emulator classic clone