Qi Sheng Long = sister company of Ending Man?

[codeman38]

Just discovered something that's possibly as big of a deal as when we discovered that Waixing owned Subor:

http://www.ending-man.com/

Yep, that appears to be the "Ending Man" company that made many Famiclones back in the day, or at the very least, its modern-day successor. That's exactly the same logo that appeared on those consoles.

But here's where it gets interesting.

Note the company name on the above-linked site: "Dongguan Feihao Industrialist Co. Ltd."

Now, according to our own Wiki page on Qi Sheng Long (emphasis mine):

Quote:

 

According to its website it also uses the brands Hengmei, Feihao, Qijian and Meitrumei, and it has a Hong Kong office called Glorypower International Electronic Ltd. [/quote]Gotta be a coincidence, right?

Well... not entirely. Although QSL is based in Shenzhen and Ending Man is based in Dongguan, the two companies are clearly linked.

Proof? At the upper right corner of the Ending Man site is a link to "奇胜隆电子"-- that is, Qi Sheng Long Electronics!

[taizou]

Hmmm. I've actually seen new(ish) Ending Man branded Famiclones on Taiwanese auction sites, but they don't look like Qi Sheng Long consoles at all, and the logo is different (more of a modern updated version, as opposed to QSL's which is just a straight recreation of the original)... I'd imagine whoever made those was closer to the original Ending Man company, assuming the originals were Taiwanese anyway.

I'm kind of more inclined to believe that Qi Sheng Long just did their usual opportunist ripoffery thing and registered the trademark in China despite having no connection to the original makers - they also own Chinese trademarks on "Micro Genius" & "Dendy", and I'm sure they have no legitimate claim to those names either. in fact I'm sure all the Famiclones in the Hanoi pics on this page are QSL manufactured knockoffs. ("King Game" and "Fei Hao" are definitely them)also: interestingly "Dendy" was registered before any of QSL's other trademarks, even their own name, on 22nd December 1994. Subor also registered it two months previously, on 13th October, and it was registered by "Stipler Investment" (presumably Steepler) and one other Russian sounding company (but I can't see the dates on those because the Chinese trademark website is fucking awful). Clearly no one was checking this shit at all back then.

[codeman38]

Ohh, duh! *slaps head* I didn't even think to check the Chinese trademark database to look into this.

That would totally explain this weird "Super Micro Genius All Stars" console that I stumbled across on YouTube a while back. It looks far more like something made by Qi Sheng Long than by the original Taiwanese Micro Genius company.

[Awesome Panda]

In that case, I wonder if the NOAC Dendy and Micro Genius Famiclones are by QSL. I doubt the real companies bothered with those, especially considering that Steepler went out of business in 1996.

[taizou]

I'm really not sure about a lot of these later Micro Geniuses. Like, I know the trademark went to Smartain (a HK company) legitimately, but I'm not sure when that happened and when TXC stopped making them, and I dunno if Smartain's products were a continuation of TXC's or if they just used the brand name on generic stuff. TXC made NOAC-based Micro Geniuses for sure, but the ones I've seen still used an actual chip rather than a gloptop.

and then there's a Turkish company that's still using the name today... so if you see something with "Micro Genius" on it, it could either be by TXC, Smartain, Qi Sheng Long or the Turkish company.

Like, check these out:

http://www.famicomworld.com/forum/index.php?topic=683.msg112240#msg112240
http://www.famicomworld.com/forum/index.php?topic=683.msg111832#msg111832

The controller-based one is either a legit TXC Micro Genius IQ-901 or a clone of it, but the packaging is very similar to the Famicom-looking one, which also has an MG logo. TXC did make some clones like that as Dendies for Steepler but I'm not sure if this one is TXC or not.

Then there's the Mega Drive-ish "Fun Time" one (... don't a lot of Power Players credit Fun Time?) which has the same "Home Computer" logo as the Fami one, and the same Seal of Quality as the All-Stars, except it says "Maxwise" instead of Micro Genius if you squint... and the back of the box looks more like quite a few late-90s generic Famiclones with that "The New System" logo & the background, like this Mega + Power II (that one is Simbas branded but I've seen them under tons of different names). Incidentally Qi Sheng Long made some with that packaging style as "Fei Hao" but I'm not sure if they were the originators or if they just ripped it off like everything else.

Awesome Panda

May 6 2012, 05:57:37 PM

In that case, I wonder if the NOAC Dendy and Micro Genius Famiclones are by QSL. I doubt the real companies bothered with those, especially considering that Steepler went out of business in 1996.[/quote]oh tons of companies have been selling "Dendy" Famiclones in Russia since Steepler went out of business. There's no one around to stop them any more, after all.