Celebrate the 40th (or 41st ) birthday of Nintendo’s game-changing video game console by putting together a perfect paper replica.

Any video game fan with an appreciation for the history of the hobby will tell you that the above photo shows the Famicom, Nintendo’s groundbreaking video game console which would later go on to be rebranded as the NES overseas and completely revolutionize the global gaming industry. And yet, that’s actually not a picture of a Famicom, but instead an awesomely detailed, precisely scaled papercraft recreation.

Japanese publisher Shogakukan puts out a monthly magazine called Televi-kun, with info on anime and tokusatsu TV series. The magazine also often contains papercraft projects, and while Televi-kun’s primary audience is little kids, the fidelity of the kits often attracts the attention of adult arts and crafts fans too, and that goes double, or even 40 times over, for the upcoming nostalgia-heavy “40 Year of Famicom” Televi-kun special edition.

▼ The magazine’s cover

You could nitpick the “40th anniversary angle,” what with the Famicom having been released in July of 1983, 41 years ago. There’s no denying, though, that this is an amazing piece of retro gaming art, and it’s also got some functionality built in.

For starters, the controllers can be either docked to the sides of the console or removed, just like the real thing. That protrusion in the middle of the Famicom base is actually an ejection slider, and pushing it forward will pop up the papercraft Super Mario Bros. cartridge that’s part of the kit so you can remove it, once again mirroring the way the actual Famicom worked.

But the coolest trick of all involves the Player 1 controller. Not only are the D-pad, start, select, and A and B buttons all pressable, they all make noises taken from Super Mario Bros., Shogakukan promises, ostensibly coming from some sort of speaker that comes bundled with the kit which you build the controller around.

▼ Between this and that life-size vibrating Master Sword that plays music, it’s a good time to be a Nintendo-oriented audiophile.

Also included in Televi-kun’s 40 Year of Famicom special edition are a notebook with Mario and Goomba pixel art on the interior pages…

…a set of stickers featuring old-school character artwork from Donkey Kong, Super Mario Bros., The Legend of Zelda, Xevious, The Tower of Druaga, Legend of Valkyrie, Nobunaga’s Ambition, Mega Man, Ghosts ‘n Goblins, and TwinBee…

…and a pair of posters, one reproducing the front of the box the Famicom came in, and another a collection of famous Famicom game box covers.

And yes, there’s even stuff to read inside the magazine, with interviews with Shigeru Miyamoto (creator of Super Mario and The Legend of Zelda), Yuji Horii (creator of Dragon Quest, Kou Shibusawa (founder of Koei), and Takahashi Meijin (spokesperson for Hudson).

Though officially listed as the August issue of Televi-kun, the 40 Year of Famicom special edition is scheduled to go on sale “around July 1,” priced at 2,860 yen (US$18.50).

Source, images: PR Times
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