Retail Super Mario Bros. Title Screen Variations

[fcgamer | 4,753]

7 hours ago, MrWunderful said:

I wish I saw more of those. I was heavy into 72 pin pirates/bootlegs/multicarts for a while and regularly bought them from an Indonesian guy from Illinois who worked in SE Asia half the year. The majority of the games he brought back for me were pretty gross and dirty, low quality. Nothing near holographic boxes lol. Lets see some pics!

Now Corey, this is the type of response I like to see. It gives me something to work with, to further the discussion. It seems that you offered me a glimpse into your perspective, so I'll offer you a glimpse into mine.

Would you be able to show me a picture of the items you got from that SE Asia guy? I'd be curious to see what he was selling you, as we'd then be able to better comment on it.

Regarding the games being dirty, that could happen anywhere. High temperature tropical environment, country still developing, it wouldn't surprise me at all. I've found some games here that were filthy, though at the same time, I've found some in near mint condition. This really is irrelevant to the games themselves.

In terms of quality, the Taiwanese stuff was of excellent quality, almost 1:1 to the originals. In some cases it was better, in other cases, just below. Take American Video Entertainment, our favorite all-American unlicensed / indie publisher for the NES. They were the subsidiary for a Taiwanese chip maker, which formed the company in response to Nintendo (allegedly) not wanting anything to do with using Taiwanese chips, quite possibly for nationalistic reasons, as well as so they could siphon more money off the top, etc. Sega, on the other hand, did work with the company on projects. Taiwan-made stuff from back then > China-made garbage of today. Some bootlegs, such as carts from Brazil, clones from Thailand, etc were also of dubious quality, though this shouldn't really surprise anyone - look at a lot of the old peripherals and computer/gaming stuff back in the 80s and 90s, it was all fabricated in Taiwan, even a lot of the big name stuff.

There's a second aspect which is worth discussing too, but I'll post that later, if you sincerely want to discuss it and not just for trolling purposes.

 

 

[fcgamer | 4,753]

@MrWunderful I'll also post some high quality things I've got floating around later

[spacepup | 2,412]

People can disagree of course, about the quality of such titles and whether they are official or retail or whatever, but let's all please try to be at least *somewhat* constructive or at least respectful in here.  

A little bit of sarcasm here and there is fine and natural conversation - but sometimes people take sarcasm into snark / trolling, to the degree that the conversation feels negative.  Let's think about new members, or guests reading through VGS, maybe not knowing some of the personalities and history, and their negative takeaway sometimes from how they read here.

Please understand where I'm coming from here, folks.  I'm all for passionate discussion and disagreement about things, but a little bit less snark all-around, is something good to shoot for, in my opinion. 

Carry on.

[SNESNESCUBE64 | 553]

Forgot this title screen

[MrWunderful | 2,927]

@Ankos thanks for showing. But my idea of quality and yours must be different lol. It looks like the metallic paint and foil was just a marketing scheme, which may have worked. 
 

But essentially those are no different than an LE put out by rose colored gaming, or fishy face games or whatever. I still think those homebrew/repro type games are of a much, much higher quality. 
 

Interesting to see the lengths some companies went to to try and sell a bootleg. 
 

2 hours ago, fcgamer said:

Now Corey, this is the type of response I like to see. It gives me something to work with, to further the discussion. It seems that you offered me a glimpse into your perspective, so I'll offer you a glimpse into mine.

Would you be able to show me a picture of the items you got from that SE Asia guy? I'd be curious to see what he was selling you, as we'd then be able to better comment on it.

Regarding the games being dirty, that could happen anywhere. High temperature tropical environment, country still developing, it wouldn't surprise me at all. I've found some games here that were filthy, though at the same time, I've found some in near mint condition. This really is irrelevant to the games themselves.

In terms of quality, the Taiwanese stuff was of excellent quality, almost 1:1 to the originals. In some cases it was better, in other cases, just below. Take American Video Entertainment, our favorite all-American unlicensed / indie publisher for the NES. They were the subsidiary for a Taiwanese chip maker, which formed the company in response to Nintendo (allegedly) not wanting anything to do with using Taiwanese chips, quite possibly for nationalistic reasons, as well as so they could siphon more money off the top, etc. Sega, on the other hand, did work with the company on projects. Taiwan-made stuff from back then > China-made garbage of today. Some bootlegs, such as carts from Brazil, clones from Thailand, etc were also of dubious quality, though this shouldn't really surprise anyone - look at a lot of the old peripherals and computer/gaming stuff back in the 80s and 90s, it was all fabricated in Taiwan, even a lot of the big name stuff.

There's a second aspect which is worth discussing too, but I'll post that later, if you sincerely want to discuss it and not just for trolling purposes.

 

 

I sold the games a few years ago once i got away from collecting homebrews and pirates. Almost my entire collection is licensed, outside of the standard nes unlicensed like tengen, camerica, American video. Ill see if I have any pics. I know I still have a few, a pretty terrible bart vs space mutants and some multi carts. 

[fcgamer | 4,753]

25 minutes ago, MrWunderful said:

@Ankos thanks for showing. But my idea of quality and yours must be different lol. It looks like the metallic paint and foil was just a marketing scheme, which may have worked. 
 

But essentially those are no different than an LE put out by rose colored gaming, or fishy face games or whatever. I still think those homebrew/repro type games are of a much, much higher quality. 
 

Interesting to see the lengths some companies went to to try and sell a bootleg. 
 

I sold the games a few years ago once i got away from collecting homebrews and pirates. Almost my entire collection is licensed, outside of the standard nes unlicensed like tengen, camerica, American video. Ill see if I have any pics. I know I still have a few, a pretty terrible bart vs space mutants and some multi carts. 

May I ask what your method of measuring quality is? Durability of plastic, if the game is fun or not, quality of any translated information, if the label is stuck on straight, something else?

[Khromak | 770]

I can't believe this conversation has taken the turn it has.

First off: I don't think any reasonable person would consider romhacks of SMB1, even if they were created in 1992 and distributed by a company in a physical store, to be "retail" games. They were sold at retail to retail customers, but the game itself is a bootleg. It used the mechanics, code, level design, world design, monster AI, everything from the original game to "make" their game. Unless they made dramatic changes to the way the game works (Deadpool?) I wouldn't consider it to be a retail game/release, and even then it's pretty sketchy.

If you have a game like a "homebrew" where it's a brand new game from scratch, but not officially licensed by Nintendo, then sure you can call it a "retail" release if you'd like, especially if it was sold in Taiwanese Walmart. This could include Bible Adventures, Big Nose Freaks Out, or other at least somewhat original properties, even if they are a bit derivative of jumping mechanics and enemy behavior, they still coded it themselves and made their own assets.

There is a very clear line in the sand. I wouldn't call any company producing hacked versions of Nintendo IP a professional company just because they manufactured cartridges in 1990. It's a bootleg company. If you make Yoshi hoodies and sell them on Etsy, you're still making bootlegs and aren't what I would consider a professional company. If your business model relies upon a lack of enforcement of IP laws...you're not exactly making groundbreaking products.

There's my line in the sand, FWIW.

[MrWunderful | 2,927]

25 minutes ago, fcgamer said:

May I ask what your method of measuring quality is? Durability of plastic, if the game is fun or not, quality of any translated information, if the label is stuck on straight, something else?

All of those things yes. Similar to an analogue or apple product, well made intuitive packaging is obvious.  
 

I dont consider “if something is fun” because thats subjective based on personal preference.
 

But a highly quality, well made box or electronics are easily apparent. Clear, nice print glossy labels with clean cut lines.  Good soldering with high quality wire is another thing that separates the “repros” in this discussion from low quality pirates. The pirates/bootlegs I personally owned and opened looked like they were soldered by a 3 year old in a sweatshop. Globs of crap and cheap aluminum wire. Flux everywhere. 

[Ankos | 463]

1 hour ago, MrWunderful said:

@Ankos thanks for showing. But my idea of quality and yours must be different lol. It looks like the metallic paint and foil was just a marketing scheme, which may have worked. 
 

But essentially those are no different than an LE put out by rose colored gaming, or fishy face games or whatever. I still think those homebrew/repro type games are of a much, much higher quality.

Oh, these absolutely are gimmicks. I just picked them because they are easy to see examples. Out of curiosity, what are you referring to when you say "repro". When I hear that word I think of the stuff that could be bought on Aliexpress, which in my experience has been very fragile

10 minutes ago, MrWunderful said:

But a highly quality, well made box or electronics are easily apparent. Clear, nice print glossy labels with clean cut lines.  Good soldering with high quality wire is another thing that separates the “repros” in this discussion from low quality pirates. The pirates/bootlegs I personally owned and opened looked like they were soldered by a 3 year old in a sweatshop. Globs of crap and cheap aluminum wire. Flux everywhere. 

I don't know how well I could show off glossy labels since I try to minimize glare in my pictures, but I do have a multicart with a decent looking circuit board (at least to someone not knowledgeable on electronics). Old games from Taiwan and Mainland China I don't think were taken care of as well as games in the USA since a lot of the ones I see are at least a little beat up. Come to think of it, even some of the official game releases out there used glob tops in the cartridges. I also found a picture saved of my favorite looking unofficial shell

[fcgamer | 4,753]

41 minutes ago, MrWunderful said:

All of those things yes. Similar to an analogue or apple product, well made intuitive packaging is obvious.  
 

I dont consider “if something is fun” because thats subjective based on personal preference.
 

But a highly quality, well made box or electronics are easily apparent. Clear, nice print glossy labels with clean cut lines.  Good soldering with high quality wire is another thing that separates the “repros” in this discussion from low quality pirates. The pirates/bootlegs I personally owned and opened looked like they were soldered by a 3 year old in a sweatshop. Globs of crap and cheap aluminum wire. Flux everywhere. 

That's the issue though, I haven't really encountered any of that in the items I've owned. Perhaps on the labels, but in terms of build quality, more or less excellent, and some of the offerings were (imo) even better than the official stuff.

edit: It just sounds like a stereotype or generalization to me, honestly.

Edited February 22, 2023 by fcgamer

[MrWunderful | 2,927]

4 minutes ago, fcgamer said:

That's the issue though, I haven't really encountered any of that in the items I've owned. Perhaps on the labels, but in terms of build quality, more or less excellent, and some of the offerings were (imo) even better than the official stuff.

edit: It just sounds like a stereotype or generalization to me, honestly.

I would love to see a taiwanese bootleg that is higher quality than an original licensed release. What specifically is better? The soldering? The quality of the cart plastic? The microchips?
 

Its not a generalization, its the majority experience Ive had with made in china/taiwan  junk. Not everything, but 95%.  Its why I buy US made every chance I get, even spending more and inconveniencing myself in the process. 
 

I have a hard time believing something sold for pennies at a back alley stationary shop in china is higher quality than a 70$ US release, but am open to seeing evidence to the contrary. 

[fcgamer | 4,753]

2 minutes ago, MrWunderful said:

I have a hard time believing something sold for pennies at a back alley stationary shop in china is higher quality than a 70$ US release, but am open to seeing evidence to the contrary. 

Who said anything about the shops being back alley? Also, for curiosity's sake, what makes you believe that these items were being sold for pennies?

edit: Finally, which NES games were being sold for $70 back in the day?

Edited February 22, 2023 by fcgamer

[CodysGameRoom | 2,008]

I for one have enjoyed both the strange super mario title screens AND the snark. 

[MrWunderful | 2,927]

16 minutes ago, fcgamer said:

Who said anything about the shops being back alley? Also, for curiosity's sake, what makes you believe that these items were being sold for pennies?

edit: Finally, which NES games were being sold for $70 back in the day?

1) Me, I said the shops were back alley. Front alley, its irrelevant. Either way they are selling pirated, stolen goods- unlike where most of europe and north america gets their games in 80s and 90s- large, legitimate retail stores that only sell approved, licensed items  

2)Sorry, pennies compared to american dollars. Looks like 1 TWD is equal .03 USD currently.  Is a game 5 TWD? Thats .15 cents
 

also it looks like in 1983 the annual Average income in taiwan was 1800$ usd : https://www.ceicdata.com/en/indicator/taiwan/annual-household-income-per-capita

logic leads me to believe that most households didnt have the money to pay “good” money for games. Compared to USD= pennies

 

3) Nes games were 60$ at retail- if you account for inflation, roughly 130$. My 70$ estimate was a combo of the two. 
 

Looking forward to seeing the bootlegs that surpass the quality of nintendo, which was super stringent about their quality control. Is PikaMan one of the quality games?

Edited February 22, 2023 by MrWunderful

[MrWunderful | 2,927]

4 minutes ago, CodysGameRoom said:

I for one have enjoyed both the strange super mario title screens AND the snark. 

I think the mods should be clear about the level of “snark” allowed, and the metric they use to measure “snark”.  Sounds like its subjective

[CodysGameRoom | 2,008]

9 minutes ago, MrWunderful said:

I think the mods should be clear about the level of “snark” allowed, and the metric they use to measure “snark”.  Sounds like its subjective

Let me mod.

[Ankos | 463]

38 minutes ago, fcgamer said:

Finally, which NES games were being sold for $70 back in the day?

Final Fantasy? It was either that or $80 IIRC

[Ankos | 463]

28 minutes ago, MrWunderful said:

1) Me, I said the shops were back alley. Front alley, its irrelevant. Either way they are selling pirated, stolen goods- unlike where most of europe and north america gets their games in 80s and 90s- large, legitimate retail stores that only sell approved, licensed items  

2)Sorry, pennies compared to american dollars. Looks like 1 TWD is equal .03 USD currently.  Is a game 5 TWD? Thats .15 cents
 

also it looks like in 1983 the annual Average income in taiwan was 1800$ usd : https://www.ceicdata.com/en/indicator/taiwan/annual-household-income-per-capita

logic leads me to believe that most households didnt have the money to pay “good” money for games. Compared to USD= pennies

 

3) Nes games were 60$ at retail- if you account for inflation, roughly 130$. My 70$ estimate was a combo of the two. 
 

Looking forward to seeing the bootlegs that surpass the quality of nintendo, which was super stringent about their quality control. Is PikaMan one of the quality games?

Whenever I see old Taiwanese games that still have price tags, they're usually a few hundred NTD. Stuff that surpasses Nintendo's quality would be pretty rare, but in terms of utility and durability I'd say that old Taiwanese games were in general not that far behind the quality of official stuff

[fcgamer | 4,753]

41 minutes ago, MrWunderful said:

1) Me, I said the shops were back alley. Front alley, its irrelevant. Either way they are selling pirated, stolen goods- unlike where most of europe and north america gets their games in 80s and 90s- large, legitimate retail stores that only sell approved, licensed items  

2)Sorry, pennies compared to american dollars. Looks like 1 TWD is equal .03 USD currently.  Is a game 5 TWD? Thats .15 cents
 

also it looks like in 1983 the annual Average income in taiwan was 1800$ usd : https://www.ceicdata.com/en/indicator/taiwan/annual-household-income-per-capita

logic leads me to believe that most households didnt have the money to pay “good” money for games. Compared to USD= pennies

 

3) Nes games were 60$ at retail- if you account for inflation, roughly 130$. My 70$ estimate was a combo of the two. 
 

Looking forward to seeing the bootlegs that surpass the quality of nintendo, which was super stringent about their quality control. Is PikaMan one of the quality games?

Wow. Just wow. 

[fcgamer | 4,753]

8 minutes ago, Ankos said:

Whenever I see old Taiwanese games that still have price tags, they're usually a few hundred NTD. Stuff that surpasses Nintendo's quality would be pretty rare, but in terms of utility and durability I'd say that old Taiwanese games were in general not that far behind the quality of official stuff

You get one then? If so, congrats!

[Ankos | 463]

1 minute ago, fcgamer said:

You get one then? If so, congrats!

I have not been able to get one. This is a picture of the box that got saved from an old eBay listing. I think I've figured out where these got sold (aside from Taiwan), but listings are really few and far between

[Gloves | 11,830]

 

 

[Ankos | 463]

Yeah. They tried to come up with a way to say Gameboy without saying Gameboy and came up with something way worse. Should've just said official Gowin game pak

[MrWunderful | 2,927]

18 minutes ago, Ankos said:

Whenever I see old Taiwanese games that still have price tags, they're usually a few hundred NTD. Stuff that surpasses Nintendo's quality would be pretty rare, but in terms of utility and durability I'd say that old Taiwanese games were in general not that far behind the quality of official stuff

Ok so that game would be about 11$ brand new, sealed. Good to know the exchange rate vs value. 

[Tanooki | 4,952]

Would my Watara Supervision stuff come into play here on quality build stuff that holds up as I got some more of those carts locally strangely yesterday.  They hadn't been taken care of or used in a super long time, held up and worked great from the get go.

Also have some old taiwan early 90s era multis here too among some other odds and ends largely gameboy into the color days.  If pictures are wanted it could be done, sometime later...this week sucks being busy.