PCEngineFans.com - The PC Engine and TurboGrafx-16 Community Forum
NEC PC-Engine/SuperGrafx => PC Engine/SuperGrafx Discussion => Topic started by: Necromancer on March 10, 2019, 12:32:05 AM
-
Huey shenanigans (https://www.ebay.com/itm/DARIUS-ALPHA-029-PC-Engine-Rewrite-Hu-Card-Tested-Unofficial-Developer-item/362487547720?epid=1510161806&hash=item5465f10748)
(https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/RMQAAOSwQ5pb7R2Y/s-l400.jpg)
What the hell is this shit? Since it's possible to re-flash (or swap the rom chip), how long before someone is swapping the labels too? Maybe the serial number things can save us from fakes, but it's getting scary.
Also, fuck hit-japan for selling these things at retarded prices and acting like they're legitimate developer hardware.
-
Yet even after all of the stories of shitty behaviour over the years, people still like to praise hitjapan.
Even if you think that anyone dumb enough to buy something like this deserves it, this asshole is still getting rich and destroying authentic HuCards.
And from now on collectards will be passing arounds hundreds of these "prototypes" and rare variants for as much as they flip each other brand new bootlegs.
-
As I was saying before, if this is really the chip portion of a HuCard hacked up to have a reprogrammable ROM in it, we're fucked since the only extra step needed to do "perfect" repros would be finding a way to silk screen the new HuCard art onto the plastic. We barely know what's going on with those, how long do you think it will take us to realize some HuCards that look absolutely 100% legitimate are bootlegs?
This isn't as simple as it looks on the surface, though. Some guys at NECstasy forum bought those and opened them and it seems that the black (PCB) portion of the hucards are original, so either Hit-Japan found a very competent way to wire an EEPROM die on top of the original ROM but covered by the glob tops, or this is some elaborate(ly stupid) scam (who wants a Darius Alpha chip on a shitty F1 Circus 91 yellowed hucard? doesn't make any sense).
Images courtesy french xenophobes:
(https://nsa40.casimages.com/img/2019/02/25//190225115910576569.jpg)
(https://nsa40.casimages.com/img/2019/02/25//19022511591131340.jpg)
(https://nsa40.casimages.com/img/2019/02/25//190225115912526934.jpg)
-
It shows how little effort he's putting into these fake protos that NEC Ave's Darius Alpha proto is not only on a plastic HuCard and not a dev pcb, but it also has a Nichibutsu release on the backside.
-
Assuming he's swapping rom chips, the most exciting thing about this is the prospect of repairing all the dead Bonk's Revenges and other dead hueys, also assuming they're bad rom chips and not cracked pcbs or otherwise borked.
Lots of assumptions, but I can hope dammit! :mrgreen:
-
The things people will do for money, I mean hooking is one thing, but this...
-
I'm not gay, but $20 is $20. :cook:
-
I'm not gay, but $20 is $20. :cook:
Lips are lips, c'mom over... Lol ew
-
I'm not gay, but $20 is $20. :cook:
Lips are lips, c'mom over... Lol ew
(https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTaO8vmjDeSoRkYcdFKzLlOcdQrSdSLxudq1xvMV8dqVLxdsttV)
-
This is why I've stopped buying from hitjapan going on 12 years now. How do we know he's not getting these on the street and reselling them? Regardless he's selling them.
-
Those teardown pics are interesting. I wonder what it would look like going through an X-ray or something and if you could discern more about it.
The concept of new mass produced hucards is really interesting though. Given how they're put together if you could make a good enough fake the world would never realize unless they destroyed it to check (or did like a scan or something that could show the inside)
-
This is why I've stopped buying from hitjapan going on 12 years now. How do we know he's not getting these on the street and reselling them? Regardless he's selling them.
I haven't bought from HJ in quite awhile. I tried to buy a dirt cheap MSX game from them and they never shipped it. That was the last straw.
Lots of assholes on eBay. Coolstuffjp sucks too.
I know yamatoku shill bids, but sometimes they have decent bin prices. Depends on the item. You just have to add everything to your cart and "request a total" so you don't get dicked on shipping charges. Besides them I have had good experiences with japan4u and dora.
As for the OP, man this is nuts. HJ sucks.
-
This is still the weirdest thing ever. I guess some mysteries aren't meant to be solved...
-
That's the disappointing thing about PC Engine collecting these days (at least for me). Now if your looking for anything semi rare or uncommon, you have to carefully wade through all the high quality fakes that are appearing. I'd much rather deal with friendly collectors on forums, rather than re-sellers on ebay. Everyone gets deals, all the money stays in the community, you know items from trustworthy people are legit, and you know the games will be thoroughly enjoyed!
-
That's not high quality by any means though... no pirate hueys that can't be distinguishable from real ones yet.
-
That's not high quality by any means though... no pirate hueys that can't be distinguishable from real ones yet.
Oh for sure. I was speaking on more general terms given the way things tend to be going. Before the only really fake you needed to watch out for was Sapphire, but now they're all over the place.
-
Oh ahahah... ahahahahahahah
(https://pceworks.files.wordpress.com/2020/01/darius_pc_engine_hucards_1.jpg?w=1000&h=)
I'm helding everyone from the Star Parodier bootleg thread partially responsible. Well done guys!
-
This looks like an entirely new HuCard repro that physically could pass as authentic to the kinds of people who couldn't tell that Sapphire bootlegs weren't real.
-
I wonder if the front and back are silk screened or if they are all stickers. If you had to make a generic blank card, I assume you could silk screen the back, but you'd have to leave the front a sticker so you could easily change production? But then again, they spend an awful lot of time on presentation so maybe they're paying for unique prints each time.
-
I doubt those are reflashed hueys rather than all new molded cards and pcbs. He's even made new cases.
-
I wonder if Tobias has just gone ahead and invested in disc pressing hardware to cut out the middle man and ensure that he can keep producing CD releases long after companies stop offering the service?
Considering that passible bootleg HuCards have the potential to be much more lucrative, I wouldn't be surprised if he bought the equipment to silkscreen plastic.
-
I wonder if Tobias has just gone ahead and invested in disc pressing hardware to cut out the middle man and ensure that he can keep producing CD releases long after companies stop offering the service?
Considering that passible bootleg HuCards have the potential to be much more lucrative, I wouldn't be surprised if he bought the equipment to silkscreen plastic.
As long as it keeps the PC Engine / Turbo community alive and even introduces a new generation into the joy of our beloved gaming system, then I have absolutely no qualms. If your end game is to prevent those of us who do not have unlimited amounts of money to spend on hard to find titles, then I cannot agree with you. This Tobias person is giving people a chance to play games on actual hardware instead of having to settle with dodgy emulation. BTW, there is no "middle man" in long defunct video game systems. You even say that companies stop offering service long after release, so which is it?
-
As long as it keeps the PC Engine / Turbo community alive and even introduces a new generation into the joy of our beloved gaming system, then I have absolutely no qualms. If your end game is to prevent those of us who do not have unlimited amounts of money to spend on hard to find titles, then I cannot agree with you. This Tobias person is giving people a chance to play games on actual hardware instead of having to settle with dodgy emulation.
We've explained the issue with Tobias before, and it has NOTHING to do with preserving game values, so stuff your holier than thou attitude and willful ignorance.
BTW, there is no "middle man" in long defunct video game systems. You even say that companies stop offering service long after release, so which is it?
The middleman is the disc pressing company, obviously. The point being made had NOTHING to do with the original game developers.
-
I wonder if Tobias has just gone ahead and invested in disc pressing hardware to cut out the middle man and ensure that he can keep producing CD releases long after companies stop offering the service?
Considering that passible bootleg HuCards have the potential to be much more lucrative, I wouldn't be surprised if he bought the equipment to silkscreen plastic.
As long as it keeps the PC Engine / Turbo community alive and even introduces a new generation into the joy of our beloved gaming system, then I have absolutely no qualms. If your end game is to prevent those of us who do not have unlimited amounts of money to spend on hard to find titles, then I cannot agree with you. This Tobias person is giving people a chance to play games on actual hardware instead of having to settle with dodgy emulation. BTW, there is no "middle man" in long defunct video game systems. You even say that companies stop offering service long after release, so which is it?
I'm literally just wondering if he is manufacturing some of the games himself now. We know where he was having his discs pressed and card games manufactured in the past. Those are the existing middlemen. The cards were made by people from this forum.
Tobias has prevented you and many people from playing the games that might have been translated by now if he hadn't gone against one particular translation project head's explicit wishes and physically published and sold their work.
The only thing I've done to "prevent" people from buying his products is put together the Sapphire bootleg guide, so that people paying $1000 for the game could know what they're buying... after he had already made $100k passing of counterfeits as authentic copies. Eventually he created another alias to sell them for only $160 each. He presented the story that they were a long lost "second print run" and out of sheer curiosity, flew to Japan on a whim and walked straight into Hudson's HQ and asked their PC Engine authentication department to verify that they were made by Hudson. They "told him" that not only were they, but that it would be very valuable to any serious PC Engine collector. They went so far as to give him a nice and totally not embarrassingly fake letter of authenticity which he was kind enough to post a photo of.
After my guide saved many people from being swindled, he used it to make changes to his next print run of Sapphire, in an attempt to pass them off as real even to people referencing my guide.
He then took another fan project, Mega Man CD, and published it without consent and just as before with Sapphire, trickled it out slowly in Japanese circles as a long lost production for $1000+ per copy. I remember seeing one auction end at over $3000 USD. After he later created another alias and began selling "25th Anniversary" copies of Sapphire, Space Fantasy Zone and Mega Man, the guy who ported Mega Man got in touch with him. Tobias said that he didn't make any money off of his productions and could only afford to offer him $1 per copy sold... but only if he signed a contract giving him exclusive rights to the sell his project.
As Necromancer has said in various sections, many in the PC Engine community don't have a problem with these kinds of products being produced and sold without tricks, deception of misc gouging. Many years ago, pressed discs would have helped many people play games that they had trouble burning themselves. But today there are more ways than ever to play games on real hardware or otherwise.
You don't need a custom HuCard to play Darius Alpha. You can play it on real hardware using one of the many flashcarts which have been available for a couple decades now. You can also play everything using an UpperGrafx or Super SD System 3. This forum has all the info you need to successfully burn game discs. PCE Works productions are collectibles, which is why many of them sell for more in the "secondary market" than the actual games they're copies of.
PCE Works also isn't keeping alive or representing the PC Engine community or introducing the PCE to new generations. Most of his customers are collectards who brag about not owning or playing PC Engine hardware and love to brag about flipping their "investments".
There is endless info in this salvaged forum that has fostered the PC Engine dev community, tech/repair community and brought together game lovers for over 20 years. You could also learn the full story about Tobias here as well, after which you won't be so quick to attack people who aren't actually going after him or anyone else. Several people from this thread have worked on misc PC Engine homebrew projects. We're not trying to sabotage anyone's PCE experience.
I'm most curious about the 3D glasses. His description on how they work makes sense. On my phone, after the text has stopped moving on this page, I get that kind of 3D effect just from looking at it with the differences in contrast:
https://www.analogue.co/mega-sg/
After reading his description, I can tell that the funkier colored elements in the PCE Darius games is both a change in contrast and brightness.
-
Sorry, but that's waaaay too much stuff for me to read. I'm sure there are great rebukes and theories, but in the end, you can't take it with you so in my view, the more access people have to enjoy these games, the better off humanity can be. Cheers
-
Like I said, you're wilfully ignorant.
-
Sorry, but that's waaaay too much stuff for me to read. I'm sure there are great rebukes and theories, but in the end, you can't take it with you so in my view, the more access people have to enjoy these games, the better off humanity can be. Cheers
If you want the TL'DR, Black Tiger is basically saying what everyone (who's been around) already knows: People generally don't have an issue with reproductions as long as they aren't being deliberately deceptive about it. That includes: passing off fake reproductions as real copies and taking community projects and commercializing them without permission. Had he been honest, upfront, and clear about distinguishing his products from the start, it would have gone a long way with people.
I'm pretty sure that a fair share of community projects have (at the very least) considered, or been discouraged from working on something, because they didn't want their work stolen or commercialized. Even if you put a "This game is offered free for the community. If you paid for this, you've been ripped off", I'm sure they'd find a way to hack it out before putting it on a disk :/
-
Like I said, you're wilfully ignorant.
Not really. I just don't care to argue with people who are entrenched in their beliefs. It's like arguing to a brick wall, so why bother?
BTW, you are very presumptuous. You don't know jack about me, brother.
-
Not really. I just don't care to argue with people who are entrenched in their beliefs. It's like arguing to a brick wall, so why bother?
Who said anything about arguing? You said flat out that you were unwilling to even read BT's post.
BTW, you are very presumptuous. You don't know jack about me, brother.
Based on your postings here (pathetic cheerleading, shallowness, and demonstrated illiteracy), I'm pretty sure that I don't want to know you better.
-
Sorry, but that's waaaay too much stuff for me to read. I'm sure there are great rebukes and theories, but in the end, you can't take it with you so in my view, the more access people have to enjoy these games, the better off humanity can be. Cheers
TLDR + ELI5:
PCE Works Darius Alpha single region: $130
Authentic Super Darius containing full game + superior Darius Alpha: $20
PCE Works Dracula X: $145
Authentic Dracula X: $175
Turbo Everdrive = all HuCards & more multi region: $70
Super SD System 3= all HuCards & CDs + Arcade Card & more multi region: $255
UpperGrafx = all HuCards & CDs + Arcade Card & more multi region: $375
2 x PCE Works box sets (5 - 8 games): $300
Super SD System 3 + CoreGrafx (all games): $325
You may have unlimited amounts of money to spend on PCE Works games, but the rest of us prefer supporting the affordable alternatives first, as they are keeping the PC Engine / Turbo community alive and even introducing a new generation into the joy of our beloved gaming system
-
... the more access people have to enjoy these games, the better off humanity can be.
What access? Everything he sells is very overpriced, to the point that your essentially better off just spending the extra few dollars to buy the real game (Something that will maintain it's value over time, rather than become worthless). The only conceivable reason you'd want to buy his 'packages' is perhaps for the extras, like: no-name drinks, ladies underwear, coins, longplay DVDs, etc. But again, all cheap gimmicks included just to make you feel you got something 'exclusive', but doesn't really mean anything.
-
Sorry, but that's waaaay too much stuff for me to read. I'm sure there are great rebukes and theories, but in the end, you can't take it with you so in my view, the more access people have to enjoy these games, the better off humanity can be. Cheers
tl;dr: pceworks is actually pretty expensive and everdrives/originals are cost effective
LALALALALA I CAN'T HEAR YOU *sips dracula x energy drink*
-
I wonder when we'll get to see the quality of those reproduction HuCards. I'm curious to see what the build quality is like (compared to regular HuCards). I guess it's only a matter of time before someone ends up buying and shows up.
-
I'm glad that HuCards that look like HuCards are possible. Hopefully Catastrophy can be released on something like that.
-
I'm glad that HuCards that look like HuCards are possible. Hopefully Catastrophy can be released on something like that.
Thank you sir - we do hope to have some physical cards made. I am super curious to hear what Tobias is using, and how he is making them.
-
I like the cases. If sold in bulk as replacements (along with the sleeves) it could give loose hueys nice homes and maybe save a few cheap sports games from being gutted.
-
Wow, I hadn't seen the cases. That was one of the questions we had not found any great answers for. Does this mean some chinese company is making the case trays now?
(https://pceworks.files.wordpress.com/2020/01/darius_pc_engine_hucards_3.jpg?w=770&h=521)
(https://pceworks.files.wordpress.com/2020/01/darius_pc_engine_core_grafx_1.jpg?w=770&h=410)
Edit: I couldn't see the PCEWORKS engrossment on the plastic before I posted it... :bonkthis:
-
edit: misquote, but still the point stands:
Tobias had the injection molds made for both trays and hucard plastic, meaning he's the sole manufacturer of them for the time being. This also means he profited a shit ton with his previous antics AND will profit a shit ton more in the future if people keep advertising his stuff like it has been done before.
He benefits from economies of scale and initial investment now and any repro is possible, though I don't think he'll ever try a Sapphire again since he's pretty well off just doing "normal" reproductions.
-
To be honest, I'm surprised he hasn't been sued by any companies yet.
-
To be honest, I'm surprised he hasn't been sued by any companies yet.
Konami's twitter said that his Dracula X coffin set was really cool and that they'd love to have one, or something
-
To be honest, I'm surprised he hasn't been sued by any companies yet.
Konami's twitter said that his Dracula X coffin set was really cool and that they'd love to have one, or something
That's really strange! Usually companies that don't actively try to enforce their own copyright claims are at risk of forfeiting their rights for it altogether.
-
To be honest, I'm surprised he hasn't been sued by any companies yet.
Konami's twitter said that his Dracula X coffin set was really cool and that they'd love to have one, or something
That's really strange! Usually companies that don't actively try to enforce their own copyright claims are at risk of forfeiting their rights for it altogether.
I think that whoever operates their twitter account is as in the loop as the guys who were representing "Hudson Entertainment".
-
After reading the description of the 3D glasses that are included with the Darius Alpha set, I found a supplier of flat fold-out glasses that can be worn either way. They should work as well as the two pairs in the PCEWorks set.
Since the glasses were cheap but shipping is expensive, I ordered ten pais and if they do work I can hopefully mail free pairs by letter mail to people who want to play the PCE Darius games with them.
They might also work for the parallax stages of Jim Power.
-
Was Darius specifically programmed with this 3D effect in mind, or is this just a nice side effect of the way parallax scrolling works? I can't imagine the experience to be anything more than a gimmick, but then again, I've experienced my fair share of gimmicks and tricks. #-o