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The Samurai NES "Indian Version"


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24 minutes ago, bowser said:

Uh oh, looks like Mr Mahesh just shot himself in the foot there with that picture then 😶

By the way, isn't the existence of that Samurai micro genius ad enough proof that Samurai was selling famiclones? Or is it within the realms of possibility for pirate groups to have the audacity to put out ads for their products?

I tried to ignore the advertisement for sake of believing Mahesh, but you know..

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6 minutes ago, ThePhleo said:

This is some amazing detective work here.

This is basically the exact same story as the Phantom System & Playtronic NES in Brazil. They sold illegitimate games and clone systems first and then went legal once they made their money.

The same as Dendy in Russia/CIS countries.

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On 10/25/2020 at 8:21 PM, Joshua Rogers said:

For reference, this is the photo he sent me (see the attached image.)

Also for reference, in talking about the posibility of Samurai selling Famiclones/pirate carts, Mahesh had this to say:

"Samurai could only source from Nintendo. After 7 years Samurai sold console with one free official cartridge. Rest the grey market [ Parrallel] Market supplied. Most of samurai Distributors and Dealers started stocking and selling Pirated versions and there was no Option for us to do this"

 

"All Games were always from Nintendo.  After about 5 Years Nintendo did allow Samurai to source directly from developers but it was too late and Original cart sale was virtually ZERO. Samurai Consoles were selling with one free cartridge but all consumers purchased extra Catrts from Grey market."

"Samurai initiated several Court cases to stop all this Piracy and misuse of Brands and it did result in stopping use of Samurai with Microgenius but Microgenius all alone was already selling very well due to very low Price and steady quality"

"Nintendo Officials visited India and we took them around to dealers / wholesales selling Pirated Carts in Bulk . Photographs were taken but nothing could be done to stop them "

"Samurai only sold official Nintendo Chips in Nintendo Plastic Shells with Samurai Label"

After 6 years in 1993 Taiwan and China introduced imitation Consoles  at 25% of Samurai Price and multigame cartridges at 10% of Samurai Price resulting in steep drop in Samurai Sales . After 2 years trying to Fight China .  As Mr S.K. Lal had other countries as an agent he always resisted sale of Imitation Consoles in India . No Nintendo did not cancel contract as they could understand that NES can Not sell at the price we had once China came in with Pirated Version. Due to very Poor Piracy law implementation in India at that time no one could do anything and Nintendo sales died down automatically resulting in Huge Losses to SAMURAI  . Microgenius was a Taiwan Brand introduced in India by another parallel Video Game Distributor .

 

"

"Samurai never moved into Piracy and closed down Operations due to heavy Losses trying to fight Piracy"

Clearly, these were all lies.

Also it's great to see you included the Samurai advertisment

 

But I also would like to now add this

Which, your photo has just confirmed Samurai was indeed behind!

Thank you very much, as this 'closes' the Indian chapter of my book, since the only thing I had left to write in it was an analysis of whether Samurai were selling pirate products. No analysis needed: the answer is yes!

Samurai_NES_Mumbai.jpg


Wow, never thought Samurai would go non-legit, yes we can see the micro-genius at 11:05 in my video (Credits section) and these photos were provided by Mahesh. 

My questionnaire wasn't as detailed as yours maybe thats the reason why Mahesh did not include that information; moreover I was mostly interested in documenting the Nintendo Samurai NES first and foremost.

I can share the details over Private message if required, along with the photos.

Lastly are you "of games" from nintendoage; it was your post over there that pushed me to find and get in touch with someone from Samurai Electronics to get more details for the video, the information we had before hand was from nintendoage and tribal knowledge from Retro video game collectors in India.

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On 10/25/2020 at 8:13 PM, Joshua Rogers said:

Then, Mahesh lied to me in an email. Also see https://web.archive.org/web/20080918224605/http://samuraiindia-nintendo.com/index.html

also cool video but some notes

region lockout would have been 3196 then 3196A, not 3195/A.

In terms of the 3,000 units per month number, Mahesh said this was the minimum order from Nintendo, which coincides with a number I have from a certain other distributor. But who knows, maybe Nintendo wasn't as cruel as one mayt hink.

There were two companies. Samurai Electronics, which handled assembly of consoles, and Samurai Software which handled assembly of cartidges.

I guess, like you, Mahesh refused to answer as to whether Samurai ever sold pirate games or consoles themselves, given https://www.indiatoday.in/magazine/economy/story/19911015-indian-entertainment-electronics-industry-goes-through-turbulent-times-814947-1991-10-15

and

https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:IdrxHA9MnCEJ:https://www.quickcompany.in/trademarks/540483-miclo-genius+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=pl&client=firefox-b-d

Mahesh sent me a similar picture used in the last couple of seconds in your video as well which I thought was amazingly cool, but he never sent that pic of the kiosk.

 

However. Those last two pictures are important (at 11:03 in your video), and I think they clear up the question as the whether Samurai sold pirate consoles/games. It is very clear from the first photo in the video, that the posters have the Famiclone (pictured here:tZvIuzs.jpg on them. NOT original Samurai NES consoles.

This puts any doubt in my mind that to rest, and I can say with certainty that Samurai did indeed sell Famiclones. Did they do it with Nintendo's unofficial approval though, is a good question (like Dendy in Russia.)

Dont know why, but I was in a rush to complete the video, the information had been lying around with me since June 2020, same time as I had requested @bowser for the photographs offline.

In the interim I ended up losing the email, however the questionnaire and 2 out of the 3 photos Mahesh had shared with me were downloaded on my older phone, which helped me complete the transcript and the voice over, due to which I could go ahead and complete the video.

Ended up pushing 3195A instead of 3196A (Asian Nes lockout) in the video, thank you for your observation 🙂

He never said that Samurai was involved in Piracy, I was told that Piracy hit the business harder than anything else.
 

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  • 2 months later...
On 7/26/2020 at 8:40 PM, bowser said:

I have a pic of that. Couldn't find the original high res pic that I had. I'm not surprised with the poor quality. They cut corners and used the cheapest materials possible.

tZvIuzs.jpg

 

  

According to the info from Joshua above it was sold for 4800 INR which converts to about $370 at that time. This corresponds to what I heard from a friend that it was sold for around 4500 INR ($345).

May I know where I can purchase this, I had same model but different color (White and black) but lost it somewhere, how stupid of me.

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  • 5 months later...
17 hours ago, wyansas said:

posting on a dead thread, hoping i can get some answers.

Does anybody know if Super Mario Bros for the Samurai came in a black cart?  If it did, I would love to get my hands on one.

I think you've been looking for one of these for years. I think I remember your WTB thread on Nintendo Age.

But to answer your question I think they randomly used whatever parts they had lying around so there's a good chance there is an SMB in black. However whether the PCB inside is legit or pirate is another matter entirely.

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On 6/27/2021 at 4:55 AM, wyansas said:

posting on a dead thread, hoping i can get some answers.

Does anybody know if Super Mario Bros for the Samurai came in a black cart?  If it did, I would love to get my hands on one.

 Samurai for sure had a black Mario cartridge. I sold one to a guy on NA years ago, and had a second request for another from someone else. I may even still have pictures of it if NA has those pictures stored from PMs. I sent him pictures of three different marios... one black cart and two grey carts with different style labels. The labels had the same art, but were on different paper and of different print quality.

  I too have about a dozen Samurai consoles and a box of games.... from about twenty years ago. Plus another different 72-pin console from India. I collected 72-pin NES consoles and NESclones from around the world, and India was the toughest nut to crack. And that country didnt take paypal then.

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  • 1 month later...

Samurai india also made Mega Drive MK1 clone called Samurai MG-16. Same console was available under different name like Scorpion XVI, Froggy System 16 and Magic 2 depending on region.IMG-6420.jpg.632038eca2ee06c70fb468c7beec3512.jpg

It works like real mega drive and has expansion port also.

IMG-6418.jpg.86485d6deabc913da2af80457b0d30c2.jpg

Samurai Software ltd had a trademark on SAMURAI MG-16 name according to this website.

https://www.zaubacorp.com/company-trademark/SAMURAI-SOFTWARE-PRIVATE-LIMITED/U72200RJ1988PTC004703

316409562_Screenshot2021-09-08134205.png.5562074cf463c28e4bb5920083ebefff.png

Edited by pika_pikachu
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  • 1 month later...

Extremely cool thread. I was just telling an Indian friend about the Samurai and this is the thread that popped up on Google and I was showing it to them. I have never seen that many Samurai games all together in a single pic, let alone boxed/CIB games, let alone a CIB Super Mario Bros - amazing! Extremely cool stuff!

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On 11/3/2021 at 9:17 PM, EarlyWorm said:

 

   Here are a couple of pix. I cant add much to the discussion, other than the black mario existing.... the OP has covered way more than I could offer.

 

Image preview

Image preview

Thanks, is it only me or are these pictures not showing up?

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