Retail Super Mario Bros. Title Screen Variations

[MrWunderful | 2,927]

11 minutes ago, fcgamer said:

Wow. Just wow. 

Wow what? Is something I said incorrect? “Pennies” might be an exaggeration, but if a brand new (lol) bootleg goes for 11$ USD, a buck or two for a southeast asia stolen IP pirate from a junk shop nowadays isnt far off. 

[Ankos | 464]

6 minutes ago, MrWunderful said:

Wow what? Is something I said incorrect? “Pennies” might be an exaggeration, but if a brand new (lol) bootleg goes for 11$ USD, a buck or two for a southeast asia stolen IP pirate from a junk shop nowadays isnt far off. 

1. Sound of the Pipa is not really a bootleg. It is an original game, with original graphics, and original music

2. It was sold a long time ago, back when people in Taiwan did not have as much money, so naturally it had to be priced a little lower. I think the exchange rate was a bit different as well, though that factors into the price a lot less. Here is a site if you wish to check it

3. Here is a bit newer of a game that also has a price tag, this one at 690 NTD. That is not a whole lot, but remember, these are gameboy games, not NES games. They had much lower retail prices

[MrWunderful | 2,927]

2 minutes ago, Ankos said:

1. Sound of the Pipa is not really a bootleg. It is an original game, with original graphics, and original music

2. It was sold a long time ago, back when people in Taiwan did not have as much money, so naturally it had to be priced a little lower. I think the exchange rate was a bit different as well, though that factors into the price a lot less. Here is a site if you wish to check it

3. Here is a bit newer of a game that also has a price tag, this one at 690 NTD. That is not a whole lot, but remember, these are gameboy games, not NES games. They had much lower retail prices

Thanks for clarifying, it sure looks like a bootleg. So its an original, that wasn’t licensed by nintendo- (wouldn’t be considered part of a licensed set) that Makes  more sense. 
 

That link you posted was the same one I provided earlier so it seems like we are on the same page. 

[Ankos | 464]

1 minute ago, MrWunderful said:

Thanks for clarifying, it sure looks like a bootleg. So its an original, that wasn’t licensed by nintendo- (wouldn’t be considered part of a licensed set) that Makes  more sense. 
 

That link you posted was the same one I provided earlier so it seems like we are on the same page. 

I guess so. I must've missed that link earlier. My bad. Anyways, the price sticker is not new. That game goes for a whole lot more these days, that sticker is just what it went for back around 1992-1994

[fcgamer | 4,753]

I have several of these Famicom carts with prices of 600 NTD+ on the boxes; 100-200 is extremely low, never really saw any priced here at that price. Even in 2011 or 2012 the general price was easily 400-650 a cart. I'd suspect that in Taiwan and basically other countries, even buying unofficial versions were a bit pricey back then. These carts basically filled a void providing gaming enjoyment for millions of children across the globe. 

Corey's comment about all of these licensed games dominating the North American and European markets is a joke - a large portion of Europe was filled with Famiclones, Canada received plenty of the stuff too, and what about Mexico? 

 

[fcgamer | 4,753]

29 minutes ago, Tanooki said:

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.

Nah, you're arguing against MrWunderful, no matter what one says or posts, it won't change his mind on the matter.

[fcgamer | 4,753]

1 hour 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. 

I'll keep that in mind and make sure I get any surgery / health checks / dental cleanings done while visiting my folks back in the States...oh wait, oddly enough so many Taiwanese Americans head back to Taiwan every year or so to get their medical situations taken care of. I hope it's quality though.

[fcgamer | 4,753]

Bringing the thread back to it's original topic, here are two more fine alternative Super Mario Bros. variants.

The first one is sometimes referred to as "Dream Mary" or "Fancy Mary". As one can tell, it is a hack of Super Mario Bros. where the mirroring has been set incorrectly. Excitebike sometimes also appeared in such a "fancy" version, albeit much less frequently.

The second one I really like. The downfall to this variant is that it is running a PAL version of the game for God knows what reason, but otherwise I quite like the graphics displayed here, which remind me basically of SMB if it had SMB3-style graphics.

[Ankos | 464]

That Dream Mario one looks more like SMB2J, with the ground tiles and hills

[fcgamer | 4,753]

9 minutes ago, Ankos said:

That Dream Mario one looks more like SMB2J, with the ground tiles and hills

Good eye! It essentially is just SMB with reversed mirroring and the Mario 2 graphics.

I actually prefer the Mario 2 graphics, maybe someday I'll make a single cart version of SMB with the Mario 2 graphics for personal usage. Better yet, I might take Al's version and do that, as I love his stage designs.

[MrWunderful | 2,927]

43 minutes ago, fcgamer said:

I'll keep that in mind and make sure I get any surgery / health checks / dental cleanings done while visiting my folks back in the States...oh wait, oddly enough so many Taiwanese Americans head back to Taiwan every year or so to get their medical situations taken care of. I hope it's quality though.

What does that have to do with this thread?

46 minutes ago, fcgamer said:

Nah, you're arguing against MrWunderful, no matter what one says or posts, it won't change his mind on the matter.

You havent proposed any answers to my questions. IF you can show me these flea market bootlegs that are of higher quality than a licensed release, that you were referring to,  im open to changing my mind.  Just because YOU say something about pirates of famiclones doesnt mean we have to take it as gospel. You need to start backing up what you say with evidence. 
 

48 minutes ago, fcgamer said:

I have several of these Famicom carts with prices of 600 NTD+ on the boxes; 100-200 is extremely low, never really saw any priced here at that price. Even in 2011 or 2012 the general price was easily 400-650 a cart. I'd suspect that in Taiwan and basically other countries, even buying unofficial versions were a bit pricey back then. These carts basically filled a void providing gaming enjoyment for millions of children across the globe. 

Corey's comment about all of these licensed games dominating the North American and European markets is a joke - a large portion of Europe was filled with Famiclones, Canada received plenty of the stuff too, and what about Mexico? 

 

I was taking about where people purchased LICENSED GAMES. Did you read the post? There are far more licensed games sold in US, UK, Canada than bootlegs and pirates, we have the sales numbers. Its been proven.
 

 I can drive 45 minutes to chinatown in SF and buy a bunch of smelly, janky famiclones from the local storefront/flea market too, that doesn’t mean the famiclones “dominated” this area. I don’t buy them because my game room has a nice clean high-end aesthetic and smells good.
 

 Im sure you can get knockoff crap everywhere in north america or europe. But that isnt really relevant. 

[Tanooki | 4,952]

1 hour ago, fcgamer said:

Nah, you're arguing against MrWunderful, no matter what one says or posts, it won't change his mind on the matter.

Am I now?  I got tired of his trolling of anyone and anything he didn't like so I can't see anything but  "You've chosen to ignore content by... options ->"

My question still stands though, do quality manufactured long lived Taiwanese goods count?  The stuff I showed you in messenger yesterday are straight up NES clones, hell even Balloon Fight isn't actually Balloon Fight yet kind of is.  Because we all know the real name of Top Gun is Eagle Plan, and Dr Mario(what plumber gets a medical license in a year?!) is actually John Adventure.

 

I know when I had the Supervision 115in1 in the day it had one of those title variants, maybe two.  The current 111in1 I have from that demonic looking pengiun famiclone has another as well.  They're common to come across anywhere.  Personally I think leaving well enough alone would be just removing the title of the game like that one clean screen.

Edited February 22, 2023 by Tanooki

[Ankos | 464]

28 minutes ago, MrWunderful said:

You havent proposed any answers to my questions. IF you can show me these flea market bootlegs that are of higher quality than a licensed release, that you were referring to,  im open to changing my mind.  Just because YOU say something about pirates of famiclones doesnt mean we have to take it as gospel. You need to start backing up what you say with evidence.

I have never used one of their products, so I can't comment on their exact quality, but if you want an example of a well respected unauthorized product, then I recommend checking out Micro Genius. They were one of the earliest Famiclone manufacturers, and their Famiclones were known for build quality. They were able to continue releasing new models over time, having several generations of Famiclones. Their machines are still popular to this day, and even have tons of imitations around the world, in fact in Turkey there are products that still steal the Micro Genius brand name with zero modification of their logo just because of how well respected it is. Even Samurai, and official distributor of Nintendo goods sold Micro Genius products. They also were able to get their games released internationally, such as by Gluk in Europe, American Video Entertainment in the USA, and HES in Australia. Their later machines included neat features, like infrared wireless controllers

[Ankos | 464]

It feels a bit weird for me to use Micro Genius as an example though, since they didn't really do pirate carts. They did consoles, and made their own original games. I'd say that they were exceptional compared to most of their peers, which is how they managed to dominate Russia (with their products being sold under the Dendy name), Poland (under the Pegasus name), Turkey (well pirates of them anyways), China, Taiwan, and probably a whole bunch of other places I don't know about. I think Bit Corp did more in South America, they're the other big old school Famiclone company, though I think Micro Genius had more success overall. You  are correct in thinking that not all companies from Taiwan were as accomplished as these, but some did exist

[MrWunderful | 2,927]

12 minutes ago, Ankos said:

I have never used one of their products, so I can't comment on their exact quality, but if you want an example of a well respected unauthorized product, then I recommend checking out Micro Genius. They were one of the earliest Famiclone manufacturers, and their Famiclones were known for build quality. They were able to continue releasing new models over time, having several generations of Famiclones. Their machines are still popular to this day, and even have tons of imitations around the world, in fact in Turkey there are products that still steal the Micro Genius brand name with zero modification of their logo just because of how well respected it is. Even Samurai, and official distributor of Nintendo goods sold Micro Genius products. They also were able to get their games released internationally, such as by Gluk in Europe, American Video Entertainment in the USA, and HES in Australia. Their later machines included neat features, like infrared wireless controllers

All good info, and im sure they worked great for the rest of the world market. Im trying to get to the bottom of Dave’s argument that these bootlegs are SUPERIOR to licensed western releases. 
 

What year were the famiclones that had infrared released? I think we need to delineate the time frame, because if they were made later into the 90s that tech was more prevalent by then as opposed to 1985 when the NES was released. When the Famicom came out, you couldn’t even disconnect the controllers!

[Ankos | 464]

14 minutes ago, MrWunderful said:

What year were the famiclones that had infrared released? I think we need to delineate the time frame, because if they were made later into the 90s that tech was more prevalent by then as opposed to 1985 when the NES was released. When the Famicom came out, you couldn’t even disconnect the controllers!

To my knowledge the earliest IR micro genius machines were being sold during the early 90s, though I do not see a date on the board (maybe I just missed it). Here is a link to a teardown. IQ-1000 I think was the first model Micro Genius used IR controllers for

[MrWunderful | 2,927]

1 minute ago, Ankos said:

To my knowledge the earliest IR micro genius machines were being sold during the early 90s, though I do not see a date on the board (maybe I just missed it). Here is a link to a teardown. IQ-1000 I think was the first model Micro Genius used IR controllers for

Cool read thanks for the link. The pics still look lower quality than an NES-001 due to the electronic components however.  Interesting controller design. 
 

When discussing quality, it dont think its fair to compare something created at a later date- thats like saying the AVS or the Analogue NT is “better quality” than an original NES -which they arguably are, but the tech required has changed significantly so its not apples to apples. 
 

Its important that people realize that while pirates and famiclones are a fun niche to collect and talk about, Licensed western releases are still of a significant higher quality- not only from a build standpoint, but verified by true sales numbers- especially when you consider respect for IPs.  That doesnt say anything about their collectibility, just desirability. 
 

It also extends to modern “repros” (bootlegs, pirates), especially those made in the west tend to be hand made with care and quality components. They would be a similar analog to SE asia pirates, but incomparable in build quality and actual 2nd hand market value. I had trouble selling 72pin multi-carts for 10-15$ usd, but some “repros” of 60 to 72pin conversion or translation still sell for hundreds and hundreds of dollars. Looks like brand new, CIB micro genius consoles are selling for less than loose used NES consoles. 

[Code Monkey | 2,014]

18 hours ago, fcgamer said:

Agreed, they would be part of the set for people collect more than just plain vanilla missionary style boring ass NES NA licensed -SE set, shelved on some cheap shitty Ikea shelves, all the while giving themselves attaboys for owning a full set , lol

You managed to insult me and my Ikea shelf game collection in one single comment here, was that necessary?

 

17 hours ago, fcgamer said:

I feel confused. If you're not referring to the low quality counterfeit stuff that retrousb, rose colored gaming, etc were cranking out, then what sort of poorly made counterfeit trinkets are you referring to? 

Dude, for real? Many of the RetroUSB releases were programmed by Solo Goose and Kevin Hanley, are you calling them out as low quality counterfeits? And what about the AVS which Bunny Boy had tooled specifically for his needs with a built in Four Score, built in Game Genie and Disk System compatibility? I certainly couldn't build that.

 

35 minutes ago, Ankos said:

It feels a bit weird for me to use Micro Genius as an example though, since they didn't really do pirate carts. They did consoles, and made their own original games. I'd say that they were exceptional compared to most of their peers, which is how they managed to dominate Russia (with their products being sold under the Dendy name), Poland (under the Pegasus name), Turkey (well pirates of them anyways), China, Taiwan, and probably a whole bunch of other places I don't know about. I think Bit Corp did more in South America, they're the other big old school Famiclone company, though I think Micro Genius had more success overall. You  are correct in thinking that not all companies from Taiwan were as accomplished as these, but some did exist

No, that works, you may not be aware Micro Genius did some of the Wisdom Tree and Bunch games. Many of them come in both blue and black shells, I believe the black shells were Micro Genius releases and we're still trying to figure out if the entire library exists in both variants because some like Metal Fighter have yet to be found. I'm still doing research on whether the boxes are different and why the change was made.

[Link | 2,732]

28 minutes ago, Ankos said:

they were exceptional compared to most of their peers, 

You're saying they stood out, amongst poorly faring competition. The existence of one or two quality options could indicate that most of the others, are not so great.

6 hours ago, spacepup said:

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.

I love ya, spacepup Mr. "nicest and most conciliatory guy in the world" (as I called him in another thread last week - for any wondering readers)

but there's a point where posting inflammatory or controversial stuff on a constant, constant basis and getting offended when other people respond to the avalanche of assertions (>30% of replies ITT e.g.), there's a point when this grows old for others.

His personality is on him. How he acts doesn't get a free pass any more than it would for anyone else. He is not a kid on a playground constantly getting picked for no reason on who needs to be protected, nor an investigative journalist crusading for The Real Truth, no matter how much he likes to pretend those things. He's an openly admtted troll and, imo abuses impartiality of moderation. And did I just see him call somebody else stubborn? There's a laugh and a half.

[Ankos | 464]

17 minutes ago, Link said:

You're saying they stood out, amongst poorly faring competition. The existence of one or two quality options could indicate that most of the others, are not so great.

That is exactly right. They also outperformed their competitors by a big margin. Sort of like how Nintendo ran circles around smaller devs on the NES. I'm not saying there weren't lower quality options, I'm just saying that there was some good stuff people could buy, even without going the official route

31 minutes ago, MrWunderful said:

When discussing quality, it dont think its fair to compare something created at a later date- thats like saying the AVS or the Analogue NT is “better quality” than an original NES -which they arguably are, but the tech required has changed significantly so its not apples to apples. 

 

Its important that people realize that while pirates and famiclones are a fun niche to collect and talk about, Licensed western releases are still of a significant higher quality- not only from a build standpoint, but verified by true sales numbers- especially when you consider respect for IPs.  That doesnt say anything about their collectibility, just desirability.

That is fair. Though I should point out that the Micro Genius stuff I posted on technically still was within the NES's lifespan, so it was in production at the same time as the NES, just not the earliest NES machines. As for their value today, I do agree that it is lower due to their niche nature. I mostly just want to put some respect on the names of companies that I think deserve more than a reputation of being some garbage with no regard for quality

 

35 minutes ago, Code Monkey said:

No, that works, you may not be aware Micro Genius did some of the Wisdom Tree and Bunch games. Many of them come in both blue and black shells, I believe the black shells were Micro Genius releases and we're still trying to figure out if the entire library exists in both variants because some like Metal Fighter have yet to be found. I'm still doing research on whether the boxes are different and why the change was made.

That is pretty interesting. Thank you for the info

[Khromak | 770]

This thread is still off the rails. Maybe that's OK because that's what you want to discuss, cool whatever.

The original controversy was: are these retail games?

IMHO, the term "retail" has absolutely nothing to do with quality. Plenty of crap sells at retail, and plenty of high quality stuff isn't what we would call retail.

Bootlegs can also be sold at retail, and apparently in third world countries it happens quite commonly because they need to be produced cheaply in order to be affordable to the consumers there, and they can't afford pesky licensing fees, so they just rip off the IP, make a bootleg copy of a game, slap it in a differently-colored shell, and call it a "Legend of Brenda".

There are way too many terms in retro collecting and they each mean different things to different people, but imho every single one of these SMB title screens comes from a bootleg retail game. You may say these are high quality bootlegs, and lots of people had fun with them as kids, and they sold like hotcakes and the companies were known for using only the highest quality plastics and chips, and they were sold in your local video game store. They're still bootlegs.

Whether or not that changes their "value", monetarily, in terms of fun, history, or nostalgia, is up for debate. But I think that's a different conversation from "is this a retail game?" or "is this a bootleg game?"

[AirVillain | 491]

Intriguing. 

[the_wizard_666 | 1,325]

3 hours ago, Code Monkey said:

No, that works, you may not be aware Micro Genius did some of the Wisdom Tree and Bunch games. Many of them come in both blue and black shells, I believe the black shells were Micro Genius releases and we're still trying to figure out if the entire library exists in both variants because some like Metal Fighter have yet to be found. I'm still doing research on whether the boxes are different and why the change was made.

I'll save you some research.  Most of the super rare black variants (like Metal Fighter, which does exist) were found by opening sealed copies that had a "distributed by Micro Genius" sticker on it, usually in European markets.  Usually if there is any kind of difference to the boxes, it's just a sticker covering the text on the back of the box with another language (usually French but others probably exist too).

[fcgamer | 4,753]

3 hours ago, Code Monkey said:

You managed to insult me and my Ikea shelf game collection in one single comment here, was that necessary?

Last time around I personally built some furniture instead of going the Ikea route. Next time you upgrade shelves, I guess it's a possibility?

[fcgamer | 4,753]

6 hours ago, MrWunderful said:

What does that have to do with this thread?

You havent proposed any answers to my questions. IF you can show me these flea market bootlegs that are of higher quality than a licensed release, that you were referring to,  im open to changing my mind.  Just because YOU say something about pirates of famiclones doesnt mean we have to take it as gospel. You need to start backing up what you say with evidence. 
 

I was taking about where people purchased LICENSED GAMES. Did you read the post? There are far more licensed games sold in US, UK, Canada than bootlegs and pirates, we have the sales numbers. Its been proven.
 

Well of course the game machines in the minority will sell less than those in the majority. Is this really news?

Also, perhaps you should be reading your post, here's a reminder to what it says.

Nice to see that the UK= most of Europe, I guess?