KingMike

@_NetNomad I'd imagine they'd be similar to IBM, who NEC was so clearly trying to imitate. FAR too expensive for the typical home user, like probably almost any '80s IBM or Apple computer. But from what I hear, Japan had far less space so more than likely once the machines had served their business purpose, I'd guess they were more likely scrapped than IBMs were in America.

@KitsuneNight It's very easy in retrospect to say the Sony business model of taking a hit on hardware sales to boost console ownership to boost software sales, was what they should've done.
But still, when the 3DO Company asked hardware manufacturers to license it, where were Panasonic, LG and Sanyo (did theirs ever get release?) going to get any money if they didn't expect to turn a hardware profit? I don't think Panasonic originally planned to sell software, only going that route after about a year. (well, Panasonic did have experience selling MSX hardware, but then the MSX was a computer so it had more potential value to the consumer since it was programmable device than one that could only play prewritten software. An angle Jack Tramiel apparently didn't think about trying to sell Jaguars like they were Commodores.)

@Poodlestargenerica Yeah, I can't imagine that tracking down the seller to ask them for more deals being something a wholesome person does.
I know that whenever I get to play some Saturn games, I'll be playing some Shining Wisdom through the Japanese copy I paid about a dollar-fifty for some years ago. (I'm going to guess that playing Magic Knight Rayearth, saving not only the massive amount of cost in regional difference will be great... but maybe experiencing it without Vic's writing? )

@PKDuckman Last I knew, GameStop was only selling retro games through their website (which even then, became highly scrutinized about GameStop's ability to detect fakes) and not in stores. Last time I checked out one local store last year, that store was barely even selling any video games anymore, it was mostly a merchandise store at that point.

The only King's Quest I played as a child was Mixed-Up Mother Goose, which was like a toddler version of the game.
On the daycare's Tandy of some kind.
Uh... the Tandy 1000 was a clone of the IBM PC Jr.? I guess RadioShack saw more market potential in that then IBM did.

@GhaleonUnlimited From what I understand, how the NES Zapper even worked is that, after the trigger was pressed, the game software would expect the gun to sense a blank frame for one frame (dispelling the rumor that you could point the Zapper directly at a lit light bulb to register a hit every time), before the game cycles through a process of blanking out the screen except for placing white box over each of the possible targets for one frame. Which frame the Zapper registered a hit would indicate which target would be registered by the software. (the NES Zapper tech apparently primitive enough it could only sense whether or not it hit "something" but not what, apparently even the Master System gun released a couple years later had some ability to detect screen position)
The problem is that the NES Zapper games had that timing corresponding to CRTs, I would guess a patch would update the timing to reflect something friendlier to modern TVs.

"Retro Family Computer" is someone hedging their bets on how much Nintendo will care. Almost certainly Nintendo would still have the name Family Computer trademarked.
Though taking another look, while I have no understanding of the Chinese on the linked website... this looks to be someone selling consoles using modified genuine PCBs.

@DoorToMundane Still, wouldn't it be a lot cheaper to crush a fake cabinet?
Just grab a few planks and some paint from the hardware store and slab them together to construct a prop cabinet.

That is the kind of practice that can and should get them sued but won't because it's not going to be a big enough nature for a lawyer to care.
But what do you expect when the CEO was clueless enough to encourage people to play Pac-Man on that new VCS without Bandai-Namco authorization?

@TransmitHim I've heard some of the BS F-Zero 2 tracks (the only dump available is a practice version containing just one League, or five of the game's tracks) were reused in F-Zero 99, a game that will itself probably sooner than later just as Super Mario 35 did.

Releasing the 32X was Sega's first mistake of that era. Even when it was new, people thought buying that was going to be a waste of money.

Fighter and Attacker sure was a game to play for the reason stated by the Credit Inserted lady, "GET DOWN, EVERYONE!" (the tunes)

@Damo That cartridge slot looks like it wouldn't fit a retail cartridge inside it, if any retail cartridges would even function. Not sure that any person who would bid on this would intend to ever test that out and risk blowing something.

I don't know, if that copy of Sonic the Hedgehog was a For Resale USA Genesis copy, that might be a little scarce. I estimate Sega sold about five copies and gave away about a billion NFR copies.

@BulkSlash Protos are already supposedly illegitimate to sell on ebay. I remember about a decade ago reading on forums about ebay taking down a number of proto auctions (leading to some funny listings working around it. I remember one selling a broken pen and said it was still good for pointing, such as pointing to a Emerald Dragon SFC proto board they'd include as a free bonus if you bought the seller's very expensive dead pen).

Though I once got an ebay support rep on chat and they left as soon as I pointed out the "Reproduction" instruction manual sub-category on the Video Games section, when I asked them if ebay was aware "Reproduction" is mostly code for counterfeit.

The Switch was such a huge success that unfortunately Nintendo's history means they'll probably get confident on selling on their brand name again and let it flop.

@Damo Reportedly 100k 64DD drives were made, but the unsold were scrapped.

I have not heard of an Exa Arcadia until being informed on an arcade-heavy stream channel that it is an extremely expensive arcade console such that you may be unlikely to ever play one, at home or in an arcade. They were saying the console costs about $4000 (which, yes, is cheaper than what I've heard some arcade machines originally cost) but the games cost like $1600 apiece, which I would guess is where they expect to make their money.

@mandlecreed A Japanese N64 cart slot would probably be easier to modify, but a USA N64 was easier to obtain and I'm also the sort that if I have to modify a retro device, I'd rather go for the most abundant version anyways.

With the amount of no-name Chinese aftermarket stuff produced these days WHO KNOWS if they are actually the worst.
@Poodlestargenerica But how can Mega Bloks be bad? They were prominently featured in the hit theatrical film Home Alone 3.

Disappointed. Article preview guy looked like Howie Mandell. It's not him?
Not unless Howie bought a Metal Slug with the money in the case.

Didn't Sega have an issue with one GPU company because one company inadvertently (or not?) spoil the other company's upcoming product reveal?
I forgot how exactly that went.

@Sketcz In doing a fan translation of the Famicom RPG Deep Dungeon III, I had to look at the game's programming to figure out how the game's mechanics even work (unless that information was hidden somewhere else, like the magic info, I could tell even with my limited Japanese that even the instruction manual wasn't divulging info on what the stats the player was offered to spend their points on even did). And also find out they were pretty busted.

I'm guessing this game is not won by slashing, perhaps in bulk repetition?

I do remember when I played through the fan translation of Vilgust for the Famicom in 2001, I had to rely on a babelfish translation of a German walkthrough for some parts.
(though the same group that did the FF4 retranslation, I can only look at both these with a rather sus opinion of the quality of the translations. )

@Spider-Kev Probably a Nintendo Power ad.
The console shown in this article is a later release, I'd say about 1993.
At least, I can only estimate that for the US, though I'd suspect the EU market to be very similar. Before that, even console came with Tetris and had what was honestly a cooler boxart, with some kind of cyborg playing the Game Boy. Of game on this box, only Tetris and Super Mario Land were around for the original.

@Uncharted2007 Game Gear required more like 50 extra batteries when you consider the battery life difference.
I'd have liked to have both when I was a kid, but I was glad for having my Game Boy.

@Gamemoose 3DS/2DS consoles can't play GBA cartridges. The only way to my knowledge that Minish Cap is playable officially on this consoles is to people registered as "3DS Ambassadors": early adapters who bought the console and registered it with Nintendo within the first few months of release, when Nintendo uncharacteristically slashed about a third off the price. They were given digital downloads of 10 GBA games (Minish Cap one of them) exclusively and 10 NES games complimentary as a reward for having presumably paid the launch price for their console.
Reportedly the GBA games were technically constructed as DS digital software masquerading as GBA games. (the only similar game, a DS game distributed digitally on 3DS, which comes to mind was an extremely limited release of Advance Wars: Days of Ruin for Club Nintendo in Japan, a game that was originally developed for but otherwise unreleased there)

@Spider-Kev I feel like there's details missing here.
From my understand, the only way The Minish Cap is officially playable on New 2DS XL is through a System Transfer of a launch 3DS Console with the 3DS Ambassador games.
My guess is that while an original GBA running an original cartridge would save the game as soon as you saved, the 3DS Ambassador would not update the save file unless the app is closed and you return to the OS menu.
Not sure what "close the system" is precisely. Turning it off? Sleep Mode? Although I think sleep mode probably should retain it, closing the app I assume would ensure the game's save data on your console is updated, if you weren't doing that step.

@smoreon Ghouls 'n Ghosts is one of the early games that has identical ROM in all regions. Such in that case, the same cartridge will play "Daimakaimura" if you run it on a Japanese console and "Ghouls 'n Ghosts" if you play it on another region console.
Genesis lockout is entirely software programming. No actual hardware protection, unlike Nintendo.

@protocol_penguin Sega didn't have "protection chips". The console itself had jumper points which allowed the software to identify what console it is.
Early games used that console ID to allow them to produce single universal ROMs which would apply region differences based on the console (or what region it thought the console was) rather than the cartridge. (so like a "Bare Knuckle" and a "Streets of Rage" cartridge are literally the same thing on the inside, despite a different label and plastic mold on the outside)
Later on Sega repurposed it for lockout.

A Game Genie is all you need.
Defeats the physical lockout.
Most software-lockout games have codes online to defeat it too.

@JackGYarwood Actually it makes quite sense to put an anti-smoking game on a console with a preteen/teen demographic.

I believe a big part of the 1998 US government lawsuit against the tobacco industry was evidence it was largely dependent on an underage audience to sustain its industry. Including aiming its marketing at them. The regulation that killed Joe Camel.

@Jhena To be honest, emulation isn't completely without benefit to publishers.
Retro collections very likely wouldn't have happened without ROM distribution showing publishers there is value in their back catalog.
To give one example, it can be argued that Final Fantasy V likely wouldn't been officially localized without that game being one of the very first targeted by fans for unofficial translation. Square had planned and dropped THREE attempts to bring that game to America prior to the fan translation. They very likely somehow saw how much the patched ROM was getting spread and considered the potential to get the PlayStation version out for the fourth chance and the first one successful to release it, followed by countless more.
(That was twice on SNES and even once through a PC port when they first announced getting into PC games. But when Eidos got involved as publisher, it would seem that they only wanted to keep FF7, the one current generation game at the time.)
FF4 was both helped and hurt by fans though. Glad it showed Square interest to keep the game available, but one of my online friends spent time comparing versions and found unfortunately even current official versions kept a few lines of bad fan-written jokes/memes/etc.

If we're not spending real money to win at the Double Dragon 3 arcade game, are we really playing?

About how widespread is the DOL-101 compared to 001?

I know people bring up non-BC Wiis, but I imagine those will be rather uncommon compared to BC Wiis, fortunately.

It's Genesis Sunset Riders, though. Hilariously realistic unforgiving dynamite range. You're getting blown away if you're in the same ZIP code when it goes off!
(compared to SNES and I think the arcade original, it was more player friendly)

Though wasn't the Genesis port just in general much more unforgiving than SNES?

@Jhena Real hardware is going to break down someday. The majority of games are going to be unavailable because of licensing, etc. (DS, 3DS and Switch games are going to break down even faster than older consoles because of cheaper manufacturing) It's great to not have to dig through boxes of carts to find a game as well as not having to do cleaning rituals for every game you want to play.
Emulation also offers more features than original hardware.

There is absolutely reasons besides "theft" to use emulators. And Nintendo's bare-effort official offerings do not compare to the quality of the fan stuff. If Nintendo cared more, they'd do something about that. But they clearly don't care enough.

I can only imagine British children playing one of Rare's games and wanting to another word or two to that title.

Glover is one of those games I hear Piko has "improved" over the original version.
Skuljagger original had a comic strip that took up almost the entirety of the instruction manual, which I guess you were supposed to read for tips.

Dragon's Lair is more significant in its regional differences. I can at least respect what the game wanted to be in its European version. The USA version deserves the zero-star bombs it gets from people who probably only played that version without even knowing there is a difference. Having any idea of the technical reason why makes me more upset than most kusoge.

Kickle Cubicle is another NES game I remember being fairly different between the USA and Japanese versions.

@Daggot Well, there are at least a couple games that do use the connection cable to use a GBA as a controller.
Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles and Four Swords Adventures (and Pac-Man Vs. uses one of them for its asynchronized multiplayer mode, a decade before Nintendo created that term.)

I believe SFC Tenshi no Uta was Telenet's last non-pachislot game on the console.
I believe it was also the last Wolfteam game, before or as they were producing Tales of Phantasia for Namco, and we know how that went.

I've heard Joe & Mac isn't exactly an easy find complete (but maybe it was the Game Boy version, I do recall hearing of a box collector saying it was one of the harder ones to find) nor Gilligan's Island (how many people in 1990 were looking for a video game based on a 1964 sitcom?)

Didn't Daze Before Christmas originally get extremely distribution? Like only in Australia or something.
But maybe that was just one of the two versions, SNES and Mega Drive.
(one that was announced for a US release at least for SNES, but never came out. Supposedly Nintendo of America did approve the game, as has been questioned before, if it counted as a "religious" game towards NoA's acceptable content policies.)

I've read that even the engineers who made the 32X were surprised it didn't get canceled before release.

Then there was the horrifying story of the Japanese developers getting physically abused because they weren't doing as well as Tom Kalinske, so its speculately they let stuff like this happen with an agenda at embarrassing Tom over successful business practice.

@Jacoby The GBP Startup Discs are probably as valuable or more than the actual hardware at this point.

So now you can play Game Boy Color games without the color? Sweet!

Seriously though one thing it should've added is an option to emulate the effective desaturation of the original LCD. Games were definitely designed around that, which is why emulators have a setting for that.

@Guitario They can't whine about it if they didn't try to sell legitimate downloads.

@Bonggon5 Someone will have to RE the mapper.
The only GBA "games" to use a mapper were a few GBA Videos. Those went uncracked for like a decade because, who wanted to put in the effort to be able to watch Shark Tale in 160p at like 5fps, except the one person who did the research for the technical challenge?

I agree that the answer to the company being upset at illegal downloads, should be to offer legal downloads then.

@NatiaAdamo The problem I heard is that, for whatever reason, Philips decided to put the battery INSIDE the chip, making it unreachable except to people with very specific skills.

@Bro3256 I only remember hearing about a few of those on the Japanese Wii Shop. Though one of the games released being Space Manbow (Mambo?), which was supposedly one of the technically better side-scrolling shooters on the hardware (would hope so of a Konami game), would hope it would get released.
I do remember the Japanese Wii Shop even got a port of the X68000 version of Phalanx, though sold as a WiiWare game.