The system is more or less the same as its US counterpart, although you could say that the motives for releasing these consoles were different in the two countries. In the US Nintendo needed an answer to complaints of NESes succumbing to dirt and bent connectors; in Japan Nintendo needed to update the Famicom to modern times and TVs. The original Famicom being RF only, it was still popular yet fairly out of date by 1993, with most TVs in Japan featuring AV inputs only. This new AV Famicom only accepts composite video out, giving excellent video and sound and updating the system for the 90s, so to speak.

The FC expansion port has been moved to the right side of the console and the microphone on controller 2 has been removed. Indeed, the controllers are detachable, a feature sorely missing on the old Famicom. As a side effect this lets you use most NES joysticks with the unit. Also, the system's top is flatter than the redesigned NES so that a Disk System RAM pack can be fit in.

For FC fans on foreign shores, this is the system you want to get - it's small, you don't have to deal with RF hell, and it's still widely available if you can find an importer.

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