abstract
| - The Phantom System was the first Brazilian famiclone, released by Gradiente during the end of the 1980s, and was compatible with NES cartridges. This console can therefore be considered a clone of the NES, at least in technical aspects. Gradiente launched it at a time when Nintendo didn't show any interest in launching the NES in Brazil. Therefore, they pounced and launched the Phantom System to meet a growing demand for a community of avid gamers looking for new systems, with the market being saturated with Atari 2600 clones. The Phantom System eventually became the most popular NES clone in Brazil. The Phantom System possessed the same platform 8-bit of the Nintendo, and the 72-pin cartridges the NES used. It was possible, however, to insert Famicom cartridges which were 60-pin, but this could only be done with the use of an adapter. The Phantom had a controller with a similar model used for the Sega Mega Drive, and usually the consumer got a free game cartridge when they purchased the console. The games which accompanied the console could have been Ghostbusters, Super Pitfall, Gauntlet or Schwarzenegger´s Predator, all of which were officially licensed by Activision and Tengen. In reality, Gradiente had plans to launch the Atari 7800 in Brazil, but after seeing public interest with Atari games fade, and clones for the NES increase in popularity with the release of Dynavision 2 by Dynacom, they decided to change the system to a NES clone while keeping the external appearance.
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