PSA some asshole is doing spot on counterfeits of NWC now

[Lincoln | 230]

and happily posted about it at nesdev being pleased with himself

http://forums.nesdev.com/viewtopic.php?f=22&t=21857

apparently he has a hidden marker of some kind so it can be distinguished but it looks like it's gonna take closer examination than you can reasonably do online

[Gloves | 11,761]

1. They claim to be female
2. They also claim that after the sale, they will share the intentional "mistake" that they included on the PCB so they could be differentiated from the real thing
3. None of the above really matters, and I too think this is pretty shitty

[ThePhleo | 2,184]

I've been preparing for this moment

(Also...I'm removing my bounty for undiscovered carts. I'm sure people will want to contribute to the anti-counterfeit initiative freely now)

Edited January 31, 2021 by ThePhleo

[phart010 | 1,705]

7 minutes ago, ThePhleo said:

I've been preparing for this moment

As collectors we pay attention to the small details. I don’t need the person selling this to tell me the differences. I can already see some subtle differences just by comparing the two

[ThePhleo | 2,184]

23 minutes ago, phart010 said:

As collectors we pay attention to the small details. I don’t need the person selling this to tell me the differences. I can already see some subtle differences just by comparing the two

 

EDIT: I'm removing this info...don't want to help them perfect their trade.

...

All in all, this is a REALLY good fake. But I'm sure with some work it could be made perfect. With the price these are going for it may be worth it to somehow make the chips show the "proper" information.

Edited January 31, 2021 by ThePhleo

[Bearcat-Doug | 5,104]

38 minutes ago, phart010 said:

As collectors we pay attention to the small details. I don’t need the person selling this to tell me the differences. I can already see some subtle differences just by comparing the two

I caught one difference right away, but I don't want to give them a heads up either if that's not their "secret mistake".

[Strange | 1,700]

That’s dumb as hell.

(Thank you for taking the time to read my contribution to this discussion.)

[guitarzombie | 924]

FUCK.  I REALLY didn't think someone would ever go thru the trouble of creating an entirely new PCB board as an exact replica of the NES-EVENT PCB.  Then having to get all the right era date codes for the chips.  THE ONLY saving grace is MAYBE they couldn't find EPROMs printed around 89/90 and that could be the give away.

This is ridiculous.  

[ThePhleo | 2,184]

2 minutes ago, guitarzombie said:

FUCK.  I REALLY didn't think someone would ever go thru the trouble of creating an entirely new PCB board as an exact replica of the NES-EVENT PCB.  Then having to get all the right era date codes for the chips.  THE ONLY saving grace is MAYBE they couldn't find EPROMs printed around 89/90 and that could be the give away.

This is ridiculous.  

I thought the first generation of these fakes when they inevitably popped up would use the "proper" chips with the wrong date codes. But they skipped an entire step.

There's still a couple more iterations to perfection but man am I happy that I at least verified 85 copies publicly and a couple more privately before this popped up.

I will start to scrutinize a lot more from now on.

[guitarzombie | 924]

10 minutes ago, ThePhleo said:

I thought the first generation of these fakes when they inevitably popped up would use the "proper" chips with the wrong date codes. But they skipped an entire step.

There's still a couple more iterations to perfection but man am I happy that I at least verified 85 copies publicly and a couple more privately before this popped up.

I will start to scrutinize a lot more from now on.

At least its not that bad like the NEO GEO community.  Glad I was never in the market for these things.  Even though I didn't mind repros as long as they were easily shown to be fake, then to big deal.  It'll still be tough to create an SE copy because you'd need a company to print mask roms with an older date code.  But when you start adding in EPROMs, thats when things really get tricky.  I always felt the PCB was good enough.  I was wrong.  Also I'd like to know how they created their own PCB.  If they had a factory print them because small prints like this would cost a LOT more than printing like 10.  Its like when you print CDs.  

[Tanooki | 4,930]

I get being angry over this, but that truly is impressive.  If that's not smoke being blown, the amount of dedication to track every part down, match them, and re-create a basically perfect copy, which if it's right could be made perfect, that's devilishly excellent work.  You don't have to like it, but got to respect the work put into that as it's insane the level of dedication there.

Given what (outside of this game) things in general are going for now, and especially since the shut-in shut-downs of 2020 caused to prices since I can't say I'm surprised in the slightest.

We are at a point now you can't even buy GBA games anymore around the $40+ level because externally they're identical, and short of a glop top inside of the copies these days, they got the plastics, pins, ink near them, and the stickers pixel perfect and material correct as well.  This is what happens when people drive rates up so high it forces creativity by the full range of honest types to the snakes.

Guitar there is right, I am in that Neo Geo community.  Going well back even into the years it was on the arcade market, no one really thought twice of either SNK repair jobs or doing it themselves re-flashing busted chips yet keeping the original cages(shell), snk boards, and at least one or more of the original chips as they'd just be considered either repairs or conversions.  I own a few repair and/or conversions, I don't care, and the value isn't really harmed by it much either.

Seeing what happened here on the NWC, it has to make you wonder, how much time is still on borrowed time?  What happens when the last of the eye level visible glitches are taken care of?  How about when if you can get 80s parts to do that, you could also get 80s parts to do Samson, BB2, Flintstones, Bonk and the other 100 to 1000 dollar carts??  Planning to quit caring and sell out fast?  Get an electron microscope and get all twitchy about it?  Carbon dating?  Sooner than later the shit will hit the ultimate fan and then what once that perfection really does hit?

[Code Monkey | 2,005]

Where would he find dip switches?

[fcgamer | 4,719]

I've been anti repro for years, and no one really gave a shit when it came to potentially decreasing value of  items in my niche. Glad to see the chickens coming home to roost, finally to have it hit something on the other side

Edited February 1, 2021 by fcgamer

[guitarzombie | 924]

11 minutes ago, fcgamer said:

I've been anti repro for years, and no one really gave a shit when it came to potentially decreasing value of  items in my niche. Glad to see the roosters coming home, finally to have it hit something on the other side

As far as I can see, repros have never decreased values of ANY games because those people were gonna be priced out anyway.  The only time it would be a real scam, is if it was sold with the intention of keeping or INCREASING the value, just with a non-genuine item.  Repros have been more prevalent than ever and prices are also higher than ever?  At least temporarily.  Im more concerned that its hyper accurate that it takes a GREAT detail of knowledge to catch one, instead of being able to tell from a non-genuine label or eprom/wired chips.

Wonder if it'll get to an ethical question.  If I use a genuine shell, a genuine pcb, all I would need to do is print a genuine SE label (which can be done), chips (unsure if mask roms with the correct date codes can be printed from a factory) and proper machine soldering.  If I could do that, how would you even tell my cart wouldn't be genuine?  If its literally impossible to tell, would it matter?

[Braveheart69 | 124]

Ugh... I’ve always said I hated REPROs, after reading this I hate them even more.    This won’t end well...

[fcgamer | 4,719]

19 minutes ago, guitarzombie said:

As far as I can see, repros have never decreased values of ANY games because those people were gonna be priced out anyway.  

That's because you don't collect imports.

 

[Gloves | 11,761]

Just now, fcgamer said:

That's because you don't collect imports.

 

Do you? I thought you collected bootlegs. 

[fcgamer | 4,719]

5 minutes ago, Gloves said:

Do you? I thought you collected bootlegs. 

Why would I want a reproduction of an 80s or 90s game? Anyone want repros of color dreams games? No? Well then why would I?

[Gloves | 11,761]

Just now, fcgamer said:

Why would I want a reproduction of an 80s or 90s game? Anyone want repros of color dreams games? No? Well then why would I?

I don't understand your response. I was just asking, don't you collect bootlegs in the Asian regions, rather than specifically imports? 

[fcgamer | 4,719]

Similarly, I am the guy with half a Sega MD J set, a full famicom set, and 20% of a Sega Mark 3 set, yeah I think I've got a lot of imports.

[Gloves | 11,761]

Just now, fcgamer said:

Similarly, I am the guy with half a Sega MD J set, a full famicom set, and 20% of a Sega Mark 3 set, yeah I think I've got a lot of imports.

Do you not live where famicom games are the norm? 

[fcgamer | 4,719]

1 minute ago, Gloves said:

Do you not live where famicom games are the norm? 

Well in the mind of the majority here, they would be considered imports. If we really want to talk about my imports and your imports, it could get silly and confusing fast.

[Gloves | 11,761]

5 minutes ago, fcgamer said:

Well in the mind of the majority here, they would be considered imports. If we really want to talk about my imports and your imports, it could get silly and confusing fast.

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.

[RegularGuyGamer | 2,011]

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.

[guitarzombie | 924]

Also you are VERY VERY much in the minority with that stuff.  YOU might have to deal with it, but 99.9% of people who collect dont care enough about that stuff and wont affect them.  With the majority of what people collect, licenced titles, repros have not affected prices to my knowledge in the slightest and to my knowledge, repros of expensive games exist ONLY because they're being priced out to begin with.  Those people were never gonna buy a Samson in the first place.  But someone who does, knows its value and will pay for it.