GoKawiilWay back in 1986, Nintendo released a commercial 8-bit Famicom system in Japan called the Nintendo Famicombox. It was designed to hold up to 16 game cartridges, making it easy to switch between titles, and was meant for use in hotels. You could typically access the games by paying with coins or via a pay-to-play system that tracked your gaming time. If you haven't heard of it before, that's because it's pretty rare. Now, a famous Famicom archivist who goes by the name "Orochi" recently found a bunch of them, fully functional, in a Japanese love hotel, of all places.
On X, Orochi said they went undercover to investigate the love hotel and found the Famicombox installed in every single room except for one. They were able to test at least one unit and found that almost all the installed games were perfectly playable. From what I could understand, the only ones Orochi couldn't play were shooting games that needed the Zapper, Nintendo's gun accessory, because it doesn't work with LCD TVs. Automaton Media first picked up the story after the post went viral.
As you can see in Orochi's photos, the Famicombox uses NES controllers instead of the Japan-only Famicom ones. In addition, the commercial console uses NES-like cartridges. Orochi didn't name the love hotel where they found the devices, insinuating that they want to "protect" the consoles. Before you decide to go hunting for the Famicomboxes, though, make sure you Google what Japan's love hotels are before asking around.