Random: Remembering When One Company Ruined Christmas For Some NES Owners

A chastity belt, but for your console

This Christmas, we'd imagine plenty of Switch consoles are going to make their way under trees all over the world, promising a legion of new players a pretty incredible holiday season.

However, let's spare a thought for the kids back in 1989 who got a NES from Santa, only to find that their parents had also bought this accursed contraption:

That's right; parents were so scared about their children spending too much time playing video games that a company actually created a physical lock which prevented the NES from being used. The lock bolted onto the front of the console and covered the cartridge slot, preventing games from being inserted. The cads.

The device was also marketed as a protection against other people loading up your games and overwriting the save data, but we can't imagine many people bought it for that reason.

According to The Verge, Nintendo declined to officially endorse the $15.95 product, but Safe Care president Tom Lowe claimed to have sold 25,000 units.

Of course, it's not like modern young gamers have totally escaped limitations on their playtime – the Switch has a parental control app, after all – but at least it's more elegant than this ugly chastity belt for your beloved console.

Can you think of a worst Christmas present? Animal Crossing: Amiibo Festival, perhaps, but it's a close call.

[via twitter.com]