A new generation of researchers and archivists reexamines the underappreciated history of China-made video game consoles, challenging long-held notions about the devices remembered dearly by millions of Chinese
T he living room is peak late 1990s China—wall calendar, upholstered sofa, tape deck, and Titanic film poster. Pride of place belongs to a boxy analog TV, hooked up to the device that perhaps most defines that era of tech: Little Tyrant, or Xiaobawang (小霸王), a clone of Nintendo’s Famicom video game console cleverly marketed as a study device and famously endorsed by Jackie Chan. To a generation (or two), Little Tyrant was their first introduction to gaming.
It’s mid-2023, and lead curator Chu Yunfan is guiding a group through a video game archive newly opened in Beijing by the gaming media outlet Game Research Society founded by Chu in 2016. He has been rattling off the standard history, starting in 1972 with the US-made Magnavox Odyssey. Eyes peer down a long main wall housing countless famous foreign gaming systems before the group reaches the living room exhibit. “Here we’ve set up an interactive time capsule; most of you probably don’t need an introduction,” explains Chu, motioning at the Chinese-made Little Tyrant.
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