Certain games not working on the Genesis Model 2?

[rocketcat]

So it is to my understanding that some of the early Genesis games, mainly the EA ones, do not work on a Model 2 Genesis. Is there any sort of mod around this? Why does it do this in the first place? :/

[Teh Lurv]

No.

Those games will only run on non-TMSS Model 1 Genesis consoles. SEGA added a licence protection scheme after the first run of the Model 1 Genesis to combat unlicensed games. The console at start-up checks a specific part of the ROM for the ascii characters SEGA, otherwise the console will refuse to boot the game. The reasoning for this was since SEGA is trademarked, if a company put out a game without SEGA's approval, SEGA could sue for trademark infringement. IIRC, SEGA did take someone to court over this in the early nineties and lost.

[theclaw]

Yeah from what I know, Master System and Sega CD modes do not use TMSS.
The message won't appear when playing those games anyway.

[Jmustang1968]

A game genie gets around this.

[rocketcat]

A game genie gets around this.

Aren't Game Genie's bad for your hardware though?

[theclaw]

That IIRC mostly refers to NES.
Genesis Game Genie was licensed, in the US anyway.

There's two things to watch out for.
Don't bump it. The setup wobbles easy.
Some games won't save data with Game Genie.

You won't really be able to cheat on anything other than normal Genesis games.
The add-ons didn't get devices for that. I guess Master System Action Replay could work, but it's a scarce Europe import.