Disclaimer: While we don’t like to get too preachy about the legal/moral implications of these copyright issues, remember that if you really have an itch to play some of these old games, you can find them on the Nintendo Wii’s Virtual Console for cheap. Buy officially licensed stuff: you’re worth it!

A white-hot trademark supernova

Super Mario, Contra, Space Invaders.  And just about every other old NES game you remember, housed in a PSP-like shell.  The PVP is a crazy little handheld videogame device for playing old school video games on an emulator.  This one boasts 2500 games on one cart- a classic game clean sweep.

Portable or TV-connected

Every day, I play a game on my commute home from work. And every day, my commute is finished before the game is.  These guys have a crystal ball into this scenario, and have built a TV out from the PVP device, so players can finish the rest of the level with big-screen comfort.

Emulated video games take a wide variety of forms on Taobao. You can get your games in a Game Boy Advanced shell, or a retro Japanese Famicom-like shell. If you don’t mind hardware copycats but despise software emulation, you can find some examples of those too.

Fun little training games are one of the DS’s strong suits, and a game called My Chinese Coach was released a few months ago. It is not a full-featured learning course, but has a handful of good interactive exercises that will be useful for helping beginner- and intermediate-level students remember words and tones. 

If you get some momentum with this training thing, you can also train your brain, your eyes (probably my favorite), and facial expressions.

There are currently two models out on the market (not counting the old ugly one). The DS pictured here, and a brand new DSi released in Japan which has some added features like a camera. 

If you are new on the DS scene, it is my recommendation to pick up the standard DS and not the DSi. It usually takes about two years for the game developers to figure out cool stuff to do with the new features (see the facial expressions link above for an example of what they are doing so far). With the standard DS, you already have a lengthy back catalog of great games to explore. And you’ll save a bit of money. 

The one linked here has all the accessories you need, including the R4 card, a 7-day unconditional exchange and a one year repair warranty. 

A Nintendo DS - 1120rmb

To get the full Wii experience, you will want to pick up the Wii Fit Balance Board. I tried it for the first time this past weekend, and I really liked it.  Besides zany minigames like Hula Hoop, Wii Fit focuses on nuanced movement with balance and yoga exercises.

The mood of these new Nintendo products is a step into the future. The clean white designs and gentle prompts are like some 2001: Space Oddessy vision of how we will someday exercise in our space pods.

When I was in 4th grade, my teacher turned me into a slave for gold-star stickers.  I was skipping recess and cleaning the overhead projector for those stickers. Skipping recess, dude. Nintendo pulls some similar psychological tricks to incite your gold-sticker addiction. But they employ these nefarious tactics to remind you not to skip recess.

Wii Fit encourages you to play for short periods every day. You get a stamp on the calendar when you finish your daily activities, and a chart to show your progress. The drive to get today’s stamp is just enough to overcome the inertia that kills most exercise plans within the first week.

The balance board accessory is a really nice-looking and sturdy machine. Most of the ones available on Taobao come with the Wii Fit game disc in traditional Chinese. But you should have a local shop that will be able to provide English editions of this and most other games. Accessory compatibility is not a problem on the Wii, and this Balance Board will be compatible with the Wii console we wrote about earlier.

Get Wii Fit on Taobao - 658rmb

The Wii is Cheap and Awesome

So what special considerations do we need to take when buying a Wii in China? Since China is not an official Wii market, the ones on sale here are a mix of imports from other regions. That means that the ones for sale here are unlocked – firmware scrubbed – to accept a wide variety of discs.

Make sure you get an English-ready model

The thing you need to avoid here is a Wii that was made for the Japanese market, because it will likely be in Japanese. When looking on Taobao, make sure to keep English 英文in your searches.

Get a Nintendo Wii on Taobao – 1500rmb

Word on the street is that this new thing – Wii Motion Plus – is the real deal. It adds a lot of accuracy to what the Wii’s motion detectors can pick up. Right now, people are saying that the new Tiger Woods game is great for demonstrating what this new technology can do. Golf was my favorite Wii Sport, so I am pretty pumped for it. Wii Motion Plus – 200rmb

Check out all of our Wii-related posts.