VGS rare variant/error thread Nintendo edition

[Goodvibes | 158]

2 hours ago, Hybrid said:

@Goodvibes got your games up finally sorry about the wait

 

Thank you!

[ThePhleo | 2,184]

17 hours ago, PII said:

These are the remaining Undiscovered Likely to have a 5-Screw Carts (1991 and earlier) and the Undiscovered Unlikely to have a 5 Screw carts (1992 - 1994), respectively.  

 someone actually read my list!

[PII | 1,884]

8 hours ago, ThePhleo said:

 someone actually read my list!

lol, with gusto!

[ThePhleo | 2,184]

8 hours ago, PII said:

lol, with gusto!

I haven't actually updated that specific part of the list in a while.

I don't know if any new games were discovered since when I started that list it was sort of a new trend on NintendoAge. Jack Nicklaus and Blades of Steel are huge omissions though. It seems like they should exist...but then again it's 7am and I never slept so I have no idea what I'm talking about right now.

[PII | 1,884]

7 hours ago, ThePhleo said:

Jack Nicklaus and Blades of Steel are huge omissions though.

Exactly right.  One of the factors that weighs heavily against these renegade 5-Screws being refurbs is the fact that not even one has been found for a game like Blades of Steel, which was an extremely popular game (that came out in North America in December of 1988).  If games like "ski or die" or "base wars" have 3 found copies (I'm going off of the old NA Listing here), then it stands to reason that a game as numerous as blades of steel would have at least one found copy by now.  I'm not saying it isn't out there, just that it really ought to have been found by now, if not a while ago; same goes for the "post-1991" games on this list having no known 3-Screw copies that are missing a back label...

[Hybrid | 424]

I agree with that statement i don't think they are refurbs. I've also heard that they were kiosk copies, but I would have no way to validate that.

[Hybrid | 424]

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Silent-Service-Nintendo-NES-CARTRIDGE-FACTORY-ERROR-NO-BACK-LABEL-AUTHENTIC-MINT/264847549486?epid=56248897&hash=item3daa24e42e:g:FwcAAOSwh25fSoRE

Weird although it looks too fresh to have been played

[PII | 1,884]

I may as well throw down my own theory on these.  All I am claiming here is a theory.  I've suspected for some time now that these oddball Konami/Ultra 5-Screws might represent one or more brief phases in between "prototype" and "everything else that was mass printed for public consumption."  I figure that at some point in a game's production someone has to make a decision to throw a switch and print 1000 or 25,000 (or some other big round number) boards and that the company would also have pallets of shell casings, each containing an equal or otherwise divisible number of said shell casings.  I also figure that whoever is responsible would want a given run of printed boards to match up with a given pallet or number of pallets of shell casings; just figure, 1000 circuit boards printed matching up with a pallet of 1000 shell casings for example.  

I also figure that once the prototype(s) have been thoroughly tested and deemed ready, that it would make sense to "mass print" One, or A Few, Or Several circuit boards, give one to each head of development and have them test these out to make sure that nothing was lost, glitched or otherwise buggered up in translation.  So I think maybe these started as in-house circuit boards which were placed inside old left over 5-Screw Shells so as not to booger-up the counts for Mass production.  I go on to figure, that if there were then a problem in translation, development teams would go back to the prototypes, do whatever they figure necessary, and then repeat the process until all is deemed well.  This could possibly account for the variance (so far) in numbers of found 5-Screw Cartridges for a given game relative to another (For example - 1 Tiny Toon Adventures and several Silent Services [so far.] )  

I keep on figuring, by thinking, hmm what to do with these random Extra 5-Screw Carts now that everything's ready to go.  Why not call up heads of regional distribution (say - one in New York, one in L.A., One in Chicago etc.) and see if they know anybody in the biz who'd like to purchase (for a pretty penny) an advanced copy for display/play in a store kiosk a month or three before the rest of the games ship in order to give the kiddies a reason to drop by and see what's knew, give it a whirl and part with some cash before leaving to go tell all their friends about the cool new game that such and such store has playable before release.

Once the Mass Shipments go out and sell there's not much reason to keep displaying the game so eventually it gets sold as well.  I do not believe that any of these ever had a box or manual.  If this theory would ever turn out to be correct it would raise the possibility of functional differences between these carts and the rest of their brothers and sisters; and possibly between themselves as well (for a given game.)  If that last part sounds unreasonable, I'll remind that Castlevania 3-Screw and Castlevania 5-Screw are functionally different.  It's not quite the same thing, I know, but still I think its worth pointing out that a 5 screw Castlevania is program 0 and a 3-screw is program 1 (Rev-A) after a particular bug was fixed.  If you're not familiar, that particular bug resulted in a crash, usually due to excessive on-screen sprites.  Personally this has happened to me while playing the 5-screw during the corridor preceding the Grim Reaper (lots of enemy sprites), while fighting the Reaper (lots of Scythes/sub weapons flying around) and oddly, just before entering Dracula's Chamber at the end where nothing is happening. 

Perhaps time will tell.  At this point it seems reasonable to suggest that maybe there is someone among us who'd like to school the rest of us on how to make sense of the date codes that are printed on each game's chips.  Any takers?  I would be an avid listener.

Finally, I'll suggest one last related possibility that I think is reasonable, simple and almost entirely without mystique of any kind:  The numbers of printed Circuit Boards and pallets of shell casings ought to line up.  Circuit boards are presumably tested and shell casings are perhaps checked for flaws, cracks etc.  Maybe they end up with 1000 tested working circuit boards and one broken shell casing.  Don't want to mess up the count so just go and grab one of those old 5-Screw Shell Casings, seal up the extra board and ship it out with the rest.  Somebody ends up with a rare variant.  The only problem I see with this is that (thus far) no one seems to have claimed to have acquired one of these back in the hey-day in a box w/a manual from a store, just like usual except it was a 5-Screw.

Maybe someone will open a sealed copy some day and find one, but I kind of doubt it.  Maybe the corresponding 3-Screws w/out back labels will show up some day, who knows. 

It's a theory.

[NesQuest | 93]

38 minutes ago, PII said:

I may as well throw down my own theory on these.  All I am claiming here is a theory.  I've suspected for some time now that these oddball Konami/Ultra 5-Screws might represent one or more brief phases in between "prototype" and "everything else that was mass printed for public consumption."  I figure that at some point in a game's production someone has to make a decision to throw a switch and print 1000 or 25,000 (or some other big round number) boards and that the company would also have pallets of shell casings, each containing an equal or otherwise divisible number of said shell casings.  I also figure that whoever is responsible would want a given run of printed boards to match up with a given pallet or number of pallets of shell casings; just figure, 1000 circuit boards printed matching up with a pallet of 1000 shell casings for example.  

I also figure that once the prototype(s) have been thoroughly tested and deemed ready, that it would make sense to "mass print" One, or A Few, Or Several circuit boards, give one to each head of development and have them test these out to make sure that nothing was lost, glitched or otherwise buggered up in translation.  So I think maybe these started as in-house circuit boards which were placed inside old left over 5-Screw Shells so as not to booger-up the counts for Mass production.  I go on to figure, that if there were then a problem in translation, development teams would go back to the prototypes, do whatever they figure necessary, and then repeat the process until all is deemed well.  This could possibly account for the variance (so far) in numbers of found 5-Screw Cartridges for a given game relative to another (For example - 1 Tiny Toon Adventures and several Silent Services [so far.] )  

I keep on figuring, by thinking, hmm what to do with these random Extra 5-Screw Carts now that everything's ready to go.  Why not call up heads of regional distribution (say - one in New York, one in L.A., One in Chicago etc.) and see if they know anybody in the biz who'd like to purchase (for a pretty penny) an advanced copy for display/play in a store kiosk a month or three before the rest of the games ship in order to give the kiddies a reason to drop by and see what's knew, give it a whirl and part with some cash before leaving to go tell all their friends about the cool new game that such and such store has playable before release.

Once the Mass Shipments go out and sell there's not much reason to keep displaying the game so eventually it gets sold as well.  I do not believe that any of these ever had a box or manual.  If this theory would ever turn out to be correct it would raise the possibility of functional differences between these carts and the rest of their brothers and sisters; and possibly between themselves as well (for a given game.)  If that last part sounds unreasonable, I'll remind that Castlevania 3-Screw and Castlevania 5-Screw are functionally different.  It's not quite the same thing, I know, but still I think its worth pointing out that a 5 screw Castlevania is program 0 and a 3-screw is program 1 (Rev-A) after a particular bug was fixed.  If you're not familiar, that particular bug resulted in a crash, usually due to excessive on-screen sprites.  Personally this has happened to me while playing the 5-screw during the corridor preceding the Grim Reaper (lots of enemy sprites), while fighting the Reaper (lots of Scythes/sub weapons flying around) and oddly, just before entering Dracula's Chamber at the end where nothing is happening. 

Perhaps time will tell.  At this point it seems reasonable to suggest that maybe there is someone among us who'd like to school the rest of us on how to make sense of the date codes that are printed on each game's chips.  Any takers?  I would be an avid listener.

Finally, I'll suggest one last related possibility that I think is reasonable, simple and almost entirely without mystique of any kind:  The numbers of printed Circuit Boards and pallets of shell casings ought to line up.  Circuit boards are presumably tested and shell casings are perhaps checked for flaws, cracks etc.  Maybe they end up with 1000 tested working circuit boards and one broken shell casing.  Don't want to mess up the count so just go and grab one of those old 5-Screw Shell Casings, seal up the extra board and ship it out with the rest.  Somebody ends up with a rare variant.  The only problem I see with this is that (thus far) no one seems to have claimed to have acquired one of these back in the hey-day in a box w/a manual from a store, just like usual except it was a 5-Screw.

Maybe someone will open a sealed copy some day and find one, but I kind of doubt it.  Maybe the corresponding 3-Screws w/out back labels will show up some day, who knows. 

It's a theory.

There may be something in your logic here.  A user quite a while back commented on Nintendo Age that the chip date for my 5 screw copy of Jackal  was earlier than anything listed on bootgod (if my memory serves correct).  Theory would make sense that it was something in between a prototype/demo and everything else.

 

[Avgn Gamer | 669]

Would this be eligible for the variant list?

[Avgn Gamer | 669]

[guitarzombie | 924]

I REALLY wanted a MM6 until I realized it was by Playtronic.  I dont think it should be a variant, only because it isn't a true US release.  Its still hella cool.

[guitarzombie | 924]

1 hour ago, PII said:

The numbers of printed Circuit Boards and pallets of shell casings ought to line up.  

I really dont think they do.  Im pretty sure no one truly knows what those back-label markings are really for.  Either way they aren't date codes, thats for sure.

[3rdStrongestMole | 430]

1 hour ago, PII said:

I may as well throw down my own theory on these.  All I am claiming here is a theory.  I've suspected for some time now that these oddball Konami/Ultra 5-Screws might represent one or more brief phases in between "prototype" and "everything else that was mass printed for public consumption."  I figure that at some point in a game's production someone has to make a decision to throw a switch and print 1000 or 25,000 (or some other big round number) boards and that the company would also have pallets of shell casings, each containing an equal or otherwise divisible number of said shell casings.  I also figure that whoever is responsible would want a given run of printed boards to match up with a given pallet or number of pallets of shell casings; just figure, 1000 circuit boards printed matching up with a pallet of 1000 shell casings for example.  

I also figure that once the prototype(s) have been thoroughly tested and deemed ready, that it would make sense to "mass print" One, or A Few, Or Several circuit boards, give one to each head of development and have them test these out to make sure that nothing was lost, glitched or otherwise buggered up in translation.  So I think maybe these started as in-house circuit boards which were placed inside old left over 5-Screw Shells so as not to booger-up the counts for Mass production.  I go on to figure, that if there were then a problem in translation, development teams would go back to the prototypes, do whatever they figure necessary, and then repeat the process until all is deemed well.  This could possibly account for the variance (so far) in numbers of found 5-Screw Cartridges for a given game relative to another (For example - 1 Tiny Toon Adventures and several Silent Services [so far.] )  

I keep on figuring, by thinking, hmm what to do with these random Extra 5-Screw Carts now that everything's ready to go.  Why not call up heads of regional distribution (say - one in New York, one in L.A., One in Chicago etc.) and see if they know anybody in the biz who'd like to purchase (for a pretty penny) an advanced copy for display/play in a store kiosk a month or three before the rest of the games ship in order to give the kiddies a reason to drop by and see what's knew, give it a whirl and part with some cash before leaving to go tell all their friends about the cool new game that such and such store has playable before release.

Once the Mass Shipments go out and sell there's not much reason to keep displaying the game so eventually it gets sold as well.  I do not believe that any of these ever had a box or manual.  If this theory would ever turn out to be correct it would raise the possibility of functional differences between these carts and the rest of their brothers and sisters; and possibly between themselves as well (for a given game.)  If that last part sounds unreasonable, I'll remind that Castlevania 3-Screw and Castlevania 5-Screw are functionally different.  It's not quite the same thing, I know, but still I think its worth pointing out that a 5 screw Castlevania is program 0 and a 3-screw is program 1 (Rev-A) after a particular bug was fixed.  If you're not familiar, that particular bug resulted in a crash, usually due to excessive on-screen sprites.  Personally this has happened to me while playing the 5-screw during the corridor preceding the Grim Reaper (lots of enemy sprites), while fighting the Reaper (lots of Scythes/sub weapons flying around) and oddly, just before entering Dracula's Chamber at the end where nothing is happening. 

Perhaps time will tell.  At this point it seems reasonable to suggest that maybe there is someone among us who'd like to school the rest of us on how to make sense of the date codes that are printed on each game's chips.  Any takers?  I would be an avid listener.

Finally, I'll suggest one last related possibility that I think is reasonable, simple and almost entirely without mystique of any kind:  The numbers of printed Circuit Boards and pallets of shell casings ought to line up.  Circuit boards are presumably tested and shell casings are perhaps checked for flaws, cracks etc.  Maybe they end up with 1000 tested working circuit boards and one broken shell casing.  Don't want to mess up the count so just go and grab one of those old 5-Screw Shell Casings, seal up the extra board and ship it out with the rest.  Somebody ends up with a rare variant.  The only problem I see with this is that (thus far) no one seems to have claimed to have acquired one of these back in the hey-day in a box w/a manual from a store, just like usual except it was a 5-Screw.

Maybe someone will open a sealed copy some day and find one, but I kind of doubt it.  Maybe the corresponding 3-Screws w/out back labels will show up some day, who knows. 

It's a theory.

If this is the original box for this it would go with theory 2

https://www.ebay.ca/itm/114282393119

[PII | 1,884]

3 minutes ago, guitarzombie said:

3 minutes ago, guitarzombie said:

I really dont think they do. 

 

It's a natural presumption to make based on the economics of production.  Do you really want to have to produce/purchase another (big round number, say 1000) shell casings in order to accommodate 3 circuit boards because the count is off or do you want the numbers to line up and not have to spend that extra $$$?

8 minutes ago, guitarzombie said:

Im pretty sure no one truly knows what those back-label markings are really for.  Either way they aren't date codes, thats for sure.

If the back label markings that you're referring to are the usually stamped and rarely printed numbers in the upper left corner then, the last I heard was that those are thought to be assembly line numbers.  The date codes I referred to are on the Circuit Board's Chips.

[PII | 1,884]

5 minutes ago, 3rdStrongestMole said:

If this is the original box for this it would go with theory 2

https://www.ebay.ca/itm/114282393119

Correct.  Personally I doubt that the two are originally connected.  If anyone can prove otherwise, I'm all ears.

[Divingninja | 47]

I don’t think quality control would have allowed the copies to be sold without a back label in my opinion. Couldn’t someone have sued the company for the lack of caution etc?  One of the old ezine’s back in the day I think I Was the one with the theory they were perhaps kiosk or the first like not for resale cartridges for NES which may have been part of the reason for the security bits on 5 screw carts without the caution label- so people would know they were Kiosk/NFR .

[guitarzombie | 924]

9 hours ago, PII said:

If the back label markings that you're referring to are the usually stamped and rarely printed numbers in the upper left corner then, the last I heard was that those are thought to be assembly line numbers.  The date codes I referred to are on the Circuit Board's Chips.

Yeah that what I mean.  Theres no way to verify a 'date' for shells, or what numbers they should be or anything.  

[ThePhleo | 2,184]

14 hours ago, imabadguy1 said:

Would this be eligible for the variant list?

That’s the Playtronic variant. The Capcom variant is the hard one to find.

...

On topic with the Konami/Ultra 5-Screws again though.

This is why I dubbed them “Konami / Ultra 5-Screw Fun Variants” because we’re all gonna have fun trying to figure out what the hell they actually are.

One route we haven’t explored yet is trying to figure out where these are coming from in the first place. Are they being found in a general vicinity? If so, is that area relevant to Konami?

Another thing we haven’t considered is if there are any Konami/Ultra games they *should* have 5-Screws, but don’t have back labels....it’d sure as hell be the easiest variant to make (even easier than turning a myriad into a Caltron) but it’s worth looking into.

[PII | 1,884]

1 hour ago, ThePhleo said:

One route we haven’t explored yet is trying to figure out where these are coming from in the first place. Are they being found in a general vicinity? If so, is that area relevant to Konami?

I've wondered about this just a bit and figured that if they were released as some kind of demo/kiosk item then it might make sense for them to turn up predominantly around the largest urban areas ie. New York, Chicago, L.A. as those would be the first choices to demo something in order for it to reach the most possible consumers.  On that note one of the 5-Screws that I've acquired came from someone in the Chicago area, for whatever that's worth...

1 hour ago, ThePhleo said:

Another thing we haven’t considered is if there are any Konami/Ultra games they *should* have 5-Screws, but don’t have back labels....it’d sure as hell be the easiest variant to make (even easier than turning a myriad into a Caltron) but it’s worth looking into.

Things may be about to get a bit "through the looking glass" here.  I have something like that and once again I'm not going to make any claims.  This copy of Goonies II 5-Screw w/no back label, security screws and White Oval Seal on the front turned up on Ebay in early 2019.  It was from a seller called "mouseman140" and I think it was originally posted for $150 w/"factory mismatch" in the title.  I thought it looked suspect and certainly wasn't going to dive in.  I remember a couple of price drops like 120 and 100 maybe and then I kind of forgot about it for awhile.  When I randomly checked again one day the price was down to a song and dance so I figured what the heck and grabbed it.  This was in early March 2019.  Shortly thereafter I noticed that some folks on NA were talking about this very item, most of whom seemed to find it suspect, mostly due to the state of the front label.

I thought there was a possibility that it could be legit as someone having torn the label by starting at the top would then have had to remove what was left starting again from the bottom.  The problem I see is that the "remaining torn portion" (white part) would have had to have gone through removal and reapplication without getting so much as a wrinkle in it.  It is quite thin and would have been especially supple during removal.  To give an idea, upon close up inspection there are apparent grey blotches on the white torn portion that are actually just spots where the grey shell casing can be seen through it.  There is another point to be made for possible legitimacy that I noticed upon further inspection of the cartridge, but I'd rather not mention it in a public forum as I'd hate to give the wrong person any nefarious inspiration.

At any rate I still regard this one as highly suspect for the one simple reason that it is a singular anomaly within an anomaly.

On a related note I occasionally wonder if R.C. Pro-Am might prove to be the key to all of this at some point as it too is an anomaly within an anomaly, however it is not singular and  is a well established occurrence.  Recently, somewhere online I saw a photo of a 5-Screw R.C. Pro-Am that had a back label.  I'm not sure if I have a snap shot of it or not, I'd have to sort through some folders.  At one time I thought maybe that one could possibly have been a "normal" 5-screw as it came out in early 1988, is not Konami/Ultra; and the fact that I used to recurringly happen onto someone commenting online that they own a 5-Screw R.C. Pro-Am that they'd had since childhood.  

The last anomaly within this particular anomaly-field that I know of is that copy of Track & Field II 5-Screw that has a circular black seal on it and was originally documented on NA.

[Avgn Gamer | 669]

3 hours ago, ThePhleo said:

That’s the Playtronic variant. The Capcom variant is the hard one to find.

...

On topic with the Konami/Ultra 5-Screws again though.

This is why I dubbed them “Konami / Ultra 5-Screw Fun Variants” because we’re all gonna have fun trying to figure out what the hell they actually are.

One route we haven’t explored yet is trying to figure out where these are coming from in the first place. Are they being found in a general vicinity? If so, is that area relevant to Konami?

Another thing we haven’t considered is if there are any Konami/Ultra games they *should* have 5-Screws, but don’t have back labels....it’d sure as hell be the easiest variant to make (even easier than turning a myriad into a Caltron) but it’s worth looking into.

I did have a capcom version but it reeked of mold/mildew so I got rid of it. Here's an old scan I did of the cart if it'll still count for the list.

[Divingninja | 47]

I have found a total of 3 TMNT in the wild. 
1 in Arkansas,

1 in ABQ, NM and

1 in Mildland, TX

not sure we will have much luck with a standard location

[Hybrid | 424]

@PII you own the Goonies II?

Can we get close up shots of the label area on the front and the back label area

[PII | 1,884]

53 minutes ago, Hybrid said:

@PII you own the Goonies II?

Can we get close up shots of the label area on the front and the back label area

Yes, I do.  I hadn't wanted to post it previously due to it's weird on weird nature, but the topic at hand here got me thinking otherwise.  Here're some additional shots.

[ThePhleo | 2,184]

OK, that definitely throws a wrench into things...but in a good way.

These things were clearly made by Konami / Ultra during a certain time period now. possibly all at once.