PSA some asshole is doing spot on counterfeits of NWC now

[ThePhleo | 2,184]

wat

 

Either way, this sucks.

That dude or dudette is from a hardware hacking community. Things can get pretty ugly pretty fast as far as collecting goes.

 I wasn’t fast enough to document date codes it seems.

[guitarzombie | 924]

2 minutes ago, RegularGuyGamer said:

I genuinely, for the life of me, cannot see the appeal of a fake game other than to scam someone out of money. I don't know the person making these buy to question their motive is anything other than to scam someone is a farce.

People sometimes just want to feel like they own the game and play it on their system, without spending a ton of money on it.  They're not getting scammed, nor are the people selling it.  They know what they want, know its not real.  The problem is when it gets out, someone not knowing its fake and most repros are fairly obvious they're not genuine.  

This crosses the line because both the repros and real carts use eproms BUT the PCB was exclusive ONLY to the real cart.  NOW thats been copied, its will be much tougher and you'd need to know so much more in order to get a genuine one. 

My only guess is by the time these get out of the hands of people who know its fake and into the hands of someone that doesn't know it (thru someone else selling it, an estate sale etc), the game might have tanked in value since people have moved on to collecting other things and wouldn't get burned spending 20k on a fake.

[RegularGuyGamer | 2,012]

4 minutes ago, guitarzombie said:

People sometimes just want to feel like they own the game and play it on their system, without spending a ton of money on it.  They're not getting scammed, nor are the people selling it.  They know what they want, know its not real.  The problem is when it gets out, someone not knowing its fake and most repros are fairly obvious they're not genuine.  

Still, they're getting jipped out of something. The games never come at cost, most people pitching games are buying bulk from China trying to make a buck and the more accurate they are the more they can squeeze out of the marks who wanna buy. 

I get that they're doing it to themselves but I feel that there's a culture with the influx of collectors that accepts abs encourages the fakes. Maybe it's due to the rise in prices or just that they're against spending a decent amount on a cart. 

[guitarzombie | 924]

5 minutes ago, RegularGuyGamer said:

Still, they're getting jipped out of something. The games never come at cost, most people pitching games are buying bulk from China trying to make a buck and the more accurate they are the more they can squeeze out of the marks who wanna buy. 

Maybe, but they're not getting jipped ignorantly.  They dont want to spend the money on the real thing so they buy something that is ALMOST similar but not for maybe a quarter of the price.  They're making the choice to own it fully.  Also AFAIK I dont know how much extra they're making buying in 'bulk'.  A lot of those games might be like $20 and how much can you mark them up for if everyone sells them at a different price?  You get it for 20 and try to sell it for 50 and maybe someone else buys it for 20 and sells it for 30?  Im just guessing here, since i've been out of the buying game for a while, but no one is being jipped.  The only time I can tell someone got scammed is some idiot with too much money than sense was buy everything without thinking and bought a fake SE.  If he did a hair of research he'd know it was fake.  Aside from that, I can't think of one instance so far where someone bought something thinking they got the real deal.  I once bought a fake Tail Gator but I was already sure it was fake.  When I got it I let them know and they refunded me and I tossed it.  I couldn't tell from the pics but I would know immediately if I saw it, so to me it was worth the risk just in case.

But when it comes to repros, where is the line drawn? Is it ok to make a repro for a game like Mr. Gimmick that wont work on a real NES but only a clone or FPGA system?  Or hacks?

[phart010 | 1,707]

42 minutes ago, guitarzombie said:

Maybe, but they're not getting jipped ignorantly.  They dont want to spend the money on the real thing so they buy something that is ALMOST similar but not for maybe a quarter of the price.  They're making the choice to own it fully.  Also AFAIK I dont know how much extra they're making buying in 'bulk'.  A lot of those games might be like $20 and how much can you mark them up for if everyone sells them at a different price?  You get it for 20 and try to sell it for 50 and maybe someone else buys it for 20 and sells it for 30?  Im just guessing here, since i've been out of the buying game for a while, but no one is being jipped.  The only time I can tell someone got scammed is some idiot with too much money than sense was buy everything without thinking and bought a fake SE.  If he did a hair of research he'd know it was fake.  Aside from that, I can't think of one instance so far where someone bought something thinking they got the real deal.  I once bought a fake Tail Gator but I was already sure it was fake.  When I got it I let them know and they refunded me and I tossed it.  I couldn't tell from the pics but I would know immediately if I saw it, so to me it was worth the risk just in case.

But when it comes to repros, where is the line drawn? Is it ok to make a repro for a game like Mr. Gimmick that wont work on a real NES but only a clone or FPGA system?  Or hacks?

I’ve always drawn the line like this:

Im not going to question the ethics or legality of repros/fakes. If you want to make them have fun. But don’t cross into the collectors domain with repros/fakes.

You have crossed the line when you have created something that is not obviously a repro. Repros should not use the same label art as original games. Or if they do, then they should not have the same color shell as an original game.

Your never going to stop people from making repros. So at least draw a boundary that most people can agree on.

Edited February 1, 2021 by phart010

[fcgamer | 4,723]

1 hour ago, Gloves said:

Yeah so don't even use the term.

It's ALREADY silly and confusing cuz you're not actually being specific at all. There are people (myself included) who WOULD actually be interested to hear about how reproductions have impacted the value of games of various systems and specific regions, but you're not really helping.

You came in and just kinda went like "haha now you all have to deal with something I already have to!". Someone stated that they hadn't noticed repros impacting prices and you rebut with "you must not collect imports.". Like bro, share some knowledge, don't just lord it over people.

Sure, I'm off work now, not gonna write a book while on the clock.

A large portion of Famicom and unlicensed Famicom (no idea why people still insist on calling this bootleg, yet wouldn't refer to Baby Boomer or Tengen Tetris or something like that as bootleg, despite being the exact same) games, same with Sega Mega Drive, have tanked in price due to repros.

There's several reasons for it. One, repros increase availability for those who want to play the games, and two, demand is decreased for carts that are on a slightly different format (famicom vs NES), with a wide range of mental gymnastics of "the aesthetics", "don't fit in the set", etc. All of that people didn't care about in the early collecting days, it came about around the same time as repros, similar to how people dropping or redefining the "full set" came about when prices of games rose.

You can believe me or not, I'm not going to argue about it further, but as availability of increased, desirability of many to own the imported originals decreased, and so did the prices.

[fcgamer | 4,723]

I've been complaining about repros for years, it sucks when taking a historian approach and trying to document obscure items, then not knowing if it's real or just a repro.

Hopefully with this one, more people will start waking up and realise how shitty all repros are.

[Tanooki | 4,933]

Ehh they're only shitty to a very minuscule amount of people out of a very large pie of the whole who care about the old games.  Those getting mad over the ever increasing accuracy of these copies are those who are cool dropping, $100, $1000, $10000, $100000+ on a video game of all things.  In the large picture, if a lot of people love a game, but either refuse to get screwed on the after market, or they can't afford it, whatever the two good reasons are, they'll go after a copy and they want something that looks anywhere from quite good enough to dead on accurate so it fits with their other stuff.

In the end it's people driving these game prices into the 3 to 5+ figure range that brought it on themselves.  If you make the expense to normal people high enough, someone else with the money, technical know how, and the equipment will come along who can machine these things.  The original boards traces and all, the chips with the codes on them, everything.  Where do you run at this rate after a sliver minority of all who care about games have created this pricing gulf?  Nowhere, you bail, or adapt...somehow.  I know we all know where my feelings lie on copied goods, so I'm not even going to get into that debate as I'm trying to just paint and even handed point here.  People here on this site, facebook collector bins, whatever are in a very very select tiny group and it's an echo chamber of complaining about something that won't be stopped, discouraged, or changed in any way.  Now is the time to figure out how to pick out the real from the fake because 1:1 is here already externally, and now we're looking at internally too with this one.  What do you do??

[guitarzombie | 924]

58 minutes ago, fcgamer said:

I've been complaining about repros for years, it sucks when taking a historian approach and trying to document obscure items, then not knowing if it's real or just a repro.

Hopefully with this one, more people will start waking up and realise how shitty all repros are.

The former I can totally understand.  Thats why we have prototype experts.  Usually its easy because Nintendo did make prototype boards for EPROMs.  But when it comes to a hand made 'in-house' one, how could you possibly know?

And with the former, I can't fully agree.  They're always gonna be around and MOST times they're harmless, unless you're an uneducated buyer/seller.  Which is why I always have been lobbying for EDUCATION.  Its not that hard to tell.  Except now, when the money matterns.  My hope is that this doesn't get worse.  I can't feel TOO much sympathy for someone that gets duped buying a fake, but for something like this how would they know?  But honestly, I don't think something like these 5 will really hinder the market, or even get anyone duped soon.  Its the pandoras box it can open that i'm really not excited on for OTHER things.  Or if that person makes more without them letting anyone else know and another one just 'pops up'. Esp re-creating that PCB board.  Anyone can really design it and do it, if they have the know how and time.  Luckily all that documented stuff Pheo could really pay off if someone isnt sure. 

[DefaultGen | 5,401]

These would be some of the most scrutinized collectible electronic components ever. I highly doubt this ever gets to the point of "perfect" as the counterfeiter so proudly claims. Even just looking at jpgs you can see all the details are wrong, fonts, masking, trace layout, etc. let alone whatever someone who actually knew about electronics would be able to tell with one in their hands.

If you want to make money duping people in collectibles, it's not going to be by printing out the million dollar baseball cards and trying to dupe the biggest cardboard nerds on planet Earth. Reseal some $300 Gamecube and PS2 games or something. Those are already difficult to spot. If you had the same exact wrapping machinery, which surely still exists, would it even be possible?

It sucks that someone is trying but if counterfeits haven't ruined books, cards, or coins, I doubt they'll ruin a much more physically complex medium.

[Gloves | 11,776]

Consider too that this person likely didn't have direct access to an actual NWC to compare to, just photos and videos online. There's gonna be a difference, and most people aren't buying these online and shipping them in the mail. Most of the deals I've been made aware of, the involved parties met IRL, even across significant distances. People fly across the country to make these deals.

[ThePhleo | 2,184]

11 minutes ago, Gloves said:

Consider too that this person likely didn't have direct access to an actual NWC to compare to, just photos and videos online. There's gonna be a difference, and most people aren't buying these online and shipping them in the mail. Most of the deals I've been made aware of, the involved parties met IRL, even across significant distances. People fly across the country to make these deals.

If you dig hard enough there are some really high resolution photos of the NWC circuit board, and an ungodly high quality scan of the NWC Gold label....something like 1200 dpi.

 

I also have to disagree with @DefaultGen.

Remember that NWC Gold #27 and #28 “allegedly” exist out there. Though it’s easy to fabricate a gold if you sacrifice a grey.

Other easy five figure conversion scam: buy a glossy sticker SMB, remove the sticker and transfer a cheap matte Gyromite or Duck Hunt sticker over to it...that is if there’s zero difference in the printing. Still never had a chance to scan a matte SMB yet  

We’re at a point that it’s worth it, and Game collecting already HAS a history with duping people into paying big money for counterfeits.

NWC, Neo Geo are the current targets. But Stadium Events is another low hanging fruit.

[Tanooki | 4,933]

I'd agree with that, flights and all.  Once you get into the thousands on something, closer to the 5-10000 mark, that's when it's best to meet up.  You'd have to be gullible, too trusting, or just deranged to throw something like that on ebay and hope someone doesn't claim it doesn't match the image, work right, or got lost...and we've seen how that works out for the seller.

I've got a sealed pokemon red in great shape, and seeing what others in the last few months have gone for with identical if not worse wear I'm sitting on a game in that range if not higher.  Not selling, but if I were forced to, plane tickets would be in the figuring of things out, or a long road trip and that expense.

[Code Monkey | 2,006]

1 hour ago, fcgamer said:

Sure, I'm off work now, not gonna write a book while on the clock.

A large portion of Famicom and unlicensed Famicom (no idea why people still insist on calling this bootleg, yet wouldn't refer to Baby Boomer or Tengen Tetris or something like that as bootleg, despite being the exact same) games, same with Sega Mega Drive, have tanked in price due to repros.

There's several reasons for it. One, repros increase availability for those who want to play the games, and two, demand is decreased for carts that are on a slightly different format (famicom vs NES), with a wide range of mental gymnastics of "the aesthetics", "don't fit in the set", etc. All of that people didn't care about in the early collecting days, it came about around the same time as repros, similar to how people dropping or redefining the "full set" came about when prices of games rose.

You can believe me or not, I'm not going to argue about it further, but as availability of increased, desirability of many to own the imported originals decreased, and so did the prices.

This is every definition of a bootleg. The original product license belongs to Nintendo. The author of this product is not Nintendo. Ergo, this is a bootleg. Baby Boomer and Tengen Tetris can't be bootlegs, Wisdom Tree  developed Baby Boomer and owns the rights to it. Tengen acquired the rights to Tetris from the Russian creator as far as I know, so that is also a licensed product, not a bootleg.

This is increasing availability for people that want to play Super Mario Bros, Rad Racer and Tetris? I think those games are widely available. The competition cartridge is also available from retrousb.com if you want to play a copy.

Nobody's arguing with you, Gloves was just trying to figure you out. I also thought you were the guy that was collecting Asian bootlegs of Famicom games, I had the same question he asked and it never really got answered. Was that someone else?

26 minutes ago, Gloves said:

Consider too that this person likely didn't have direct access to an actual NWC to compare to, just photos and videos online. There's gonna be a difference, and most people aren't buying these online and shipping them in the mail. Most of the deals I've been made aware of, the involved parties met IRL, even across significant distances. People fly across the country to make these deals.

They mentioned in their writeup that they have an authentic cartridge for comparison.

4 minutes ago, ThePhleo said:

Remember that NWC Gold #27 and #28 “allegedly” exist out there. Though it’s easy to fabricate a gold if you sacrifice a grey.

Other easy five figure conversion scam: buy a glossy sticker SMB, remove the sticker and transfer a cheap matte Gyromite or Duck Hunt sticker over to it...that is if there’s zero difference in the printing. Still never had a chance to scan a matte SMB yet  

It's even easier to use a Canadian copy, they were all sticker sealed for years after the USA stopped using stickers. They even used sticker seals on their Canadian versions of Dr. Mario, Dragon Warrior, Cobra Triangle and many others. Probably all Nintendo published games.

[DefaultGen | 5,401]

16 minutes ago, ThePhleo said:

We’re at a point that it’s worth it, and Game collecting already HAS a history with duping people into paying big money for counterfeits.

When you reseal a game on Ebay or make a good repro label, you're trying to dupe rubes on Ebay on probably something that's like $20 to a few hundred tops. When you're recreating an NWC, you're trying to dupe experts scrutinizing something worth $10,000s. I think this amateur effort is a long ways off from being problematic in a high end way, especially in a world where people are grading water damaged CIB 3-screw Gotchas.

Wata would tell you that's why they exist! You wouldn't buy a loose Honus Wagner, you'd send it to people to look under a microscope and measure edges and whatever the hell they do. Don't try to authenticate your NWC. Be sure to send it in baby! $$$$$$$$$$

Edited February 1, 2021 by DefaultGen

[Gloves | 11,776]

  

3 minutes ago, Code Monkey said:

Nobody's arguing with you, Gloves was just trying to figure you out.

 Yup. 

 

3 minutes ago, Code Monkey said:

They mentioned in their writeup that they have an authentic cartridge for comparison.

I missed that; thanks.

[Code Monkey | 2,006]

I forgot another important piece of information.

This is pretty futile anyway because provenance is a large part of the value for such rare items. When I bought my 1 of 10 cartridge (a different game) a few years ago, I spoke with the previous owner that actually worked on the game, got them to put their relationship with the game in writing, asked them for their name and then matched it up with the name in the game credits. I fully expect if I ever sold this game that I would need to provide this to the new owner as well as another writeup from me explaining how I obtained the game and what my name is.

If you buy a Action Comics 1 or Amazing Fantasy 15, you probably get a binder of information with it dating back to the original owner. I remember a few years ago on Nintendo Age when the guy paid $17,000 for Howard's copy of Nintendo World Championship that came with a big binder of history on it and we all thought he was nuts for overpaying for it. I guess he's laughing now. That game, no matter how many times it changes hands, will always trace back to Howard.

The minute someone tries to scam someone with one of these cartridges, the buyer will ask where it came from the owner won't have an answer. I know some came from garage sales and the famous Jolly Rancher find but those are already well documented.

[fcgamer | 4,723]

16 minutes ago, Code Monkey said:

This is every definition of a bootleg. The original product license belongs to Nintendo. The author of this product is not Nintendo. Ergo, this is a bootleg. Baby Boomer and Tengen Tetris can't be bootlegs, Wisdom Tree  developed Baby Boomer and owns the rights to it. Tengen acquired the rights to Tetris from the Russian creator as far as I know, so that is also a licensed product, not a bootleg.

This is increasing availability for people that want to play Super Mario Bros, Rad Racer and Tetris? I think those games are widely available. The competition cartridge is also available from retrousb.com if you want to play a copy.

Nobody's arguing with you, Gloves was just trying to figure you out. I also thought you were the guy that was collecting Asian bootlegs of Famicom games, I had the same question he asked and it never really got answered. Was that someone else?

The lions share of my collection is unlicensed original games, on Famicom. They are not bootlegs, though if it is a Sachen game, for example, everyone considers it a bootleg, erroneously, despite not considering the two games I mentioned as bootlegs. That's my point, we've been through that discussion millions of times before, not necessarily you and I but, some here.

And for the actual bootlegs that I do collect, we've been down that discussion a billion times too, the difference between period games and modern crap.

[fcgamer | 4,723]

The fact stands, none of this has anything to do with this discussion other than the fact I find it amusing people are now getting upset over a repro, yet for years people , many in this forum and NA even, loved them, and the few that warned against such things were treated as a pariah.

So now I'm enjoying to see how everyone's tunes are suddenly changing with this one. And why, just because it's worth more?

So if someone keys my Toyota, it gets a pass, but keying a guys Mercedes doesn't? Honestly doesn't make much sense to me.

Edited February 1, 2021 by fcgamer

[Code Monkey | 2,006]

1 minute ago, fcgamer said:

The lions share of my collection is unlicensed original games, on Famicom. They are not bootlegs, though if it is a Sachen game, for example, everyone considers it a bootleg, erroneously, despite not considering the two games I mentioned as bootlegs. That's my point, we've been through that discussion millions of times before, not necessarily you and I but, some here.

And for the actual bootlegs that I do collect, we've been down that discussion a billion times too, the difference between period games and modern crap.

I'm really just trying to understand here. Period and bootleg aren't mutually exclusive. I could make a bootleg of any modern Switch game, assuming I figure out the proprietary technology. You might want to collect those bootlegs and I have no problem with that but they are definitely bootlegs. And any Famicom game from the 1980s that was made without licensing is certainly, by definition, a bootleg.

So that was you, right? You collect the Asian bootlegs? That's what we found confusing about your post, you were complaining about bootlegs but you collect them. It's strange.

I don't consider Sachen games bootlegs. Which original games are they bootlegs of? If Sachen developed their own unique games, then they aren't bootlegs and I'd challenge anyone to argue that.

[Code Monkey | 2,006]

Just now, fcgamer said:

The fact stands, none of this has anything to do with this discussion other than the fact I find it amusing people are now getting upset over a repro, yet for years people , many in this forum and NA even, loved them, and the few that warned against such things were treated as a pariah.

So now I'm enjoying to see how everyone's tunes are suddenly changing with this one.

Sorry, I'm confused more now. I never once saw this on Nintendo Age, nor here. Nobody was okay with bootlegs and if anyone tried to sell direct copies of expensive games they were always ridiculed. Do you have any sources I can check out for where you saw this take place?

[Gloves | 11,776]

I have no words lol.

[fcgamer | 4,723]

2 minutes ago, Code Monkey said:

Sorry, I'm confused more now. I never once saw this on Nintendo Age, nor here. Nobody was okay with bootlegs and if anyone tried to sell direct copies of expensive games they were always ridiculed. Do you have any sources I can check out for where you saw this take place?

I see it in your very response though.

What about Timewalk games? What about "repros" of Japanese / Taiwanense exclusives? What about the vs games conversions? Or the FDS conversion of SMB2J? The last one is quite rich, as a Taiwanense bootleg company called Kaiser converted the game to cartridge format, then BunnyBoy took that rom and made "repros", all the while hyping it up as an accurate port on his site.

Those aren't / weren't widely supported bootlegs? 

 

[fcgamer | 4,723]

Which brings me back to my original post.

Aside from very few collectors, the vast majority of people only care about this stuff when it's their swimming pool that has been shat in. It's always been that way and it's apparent it hadn't changed.

With that being said, no use getting upset over it, just gotta become more informed if you want to make a purchase, as this stuff will keep happening.

[Code Monkey | 2,006]

1 minute ago, fcgamer said:

I see it in your very response though.

What about Timewalk games? What about "repros" of Japanese / Taiwanense exclusives? What about the vs games conversions? Or the FDS conversion of SMB2J? The last one is quite rich, as a Taiwanense bootleg company called Kaiser converted the game to cartridge format, then BunnyBoy took that rom and made "repros", all the while hyping it up as an accurate port on his site.

Those aren't / weren't widely supported bootlegs? 

 

Timewalk? Those games were never released, I don't think. They had games like Zelda: Ancient Stone Tablets and some other hacks that weren't official releases so they weren't bootlegs of anything official. Their version of Mr. Gimmick is from the NTSC prototype that was never released so that's also not a bootleg, there was no official version released. Did Timewalk actually sell bootlegs of any licensed properties?

Japanese / Taiwanese exclusives I have no clue about.

VS. game conversions aren't bootlegs, those games were only released as arcade cabinets if I understand the VS. games correctly. Seeing them on a cartridge is like a novelty more than anything, it can't be a bootleg if there was no previously official release on that medium.

What's SMB2J? Do you mean Super Mario Bros. 2? There was never any J in the title and Nintendo are the ones that converted that game to cartridge from the disc, they did the same with The Legend Of Zelda after it had been out a few years. Bunnyboy put the ROM on North American cartridges which is a different medium, does that classify as a bootleg? Same as my previous paragraph, I don't think so but I'd have to think about that.

All of these examples are vastly different from a bootleg of an identical game on the same media delivery system. This isn't putting a Nintendo World Championship cartridge onto a DVD, it's putting it onto an identical NES cartridge like the original. These really are not fair comparisons.

If you have comparable sources to support your argument I would be very interested in discussing it but probably in another thread. I think other people would like to discuss that as well but these comparisons are not the same.