POLL: Bootlegs / Reproductions: What is allowed

[KalessinDB]

Good god, legit pressed discs? That adds a whole new wrinkle.

If there's a legit pressed disc that plays 100% flawlessly and is indistinguishable from a retail disc in an unmodded system... I don't know if I'd be in favor of it or not, I really don't. I mean, that's kinda like making a repro from all original parts, without and nasty gloptops, without an eeprom being used... I just have no idea.

But I don't know that we're anywhere near that for Saturn/SCD... if nothing else, there's no longboxes yet. I know. I would buy a ton. And a copy of Smoke & Mirrors.

[AppleQueso]

are they actually pressed or like, 'pro-cdr' type stuff?

'cause a cd-r with a high quality label isn't hard to do

[mjmjr25]

Once they hit and there isn't push back - they take off like wildfire. With SAT-US and JP prices, i'd bet within the next year we'll see CIB reproductions to look original. Whether they create entirely new cases or not, i'm not sure. There are still thousands of NOS sports titles and cheap games like Fighting Vipers with perfect cases - i'd guess those will be used first. SNES didn't start seeing repros of US original games until about 18 months ago when the library just started taking off. Now Hagane, Wild Guns, Earthbound and Starfox Competition are just about a 50/50 shot on being original or not:/

There were no readily available atomiswave boots 2 years ago. Now there are quite literally more boots than originals - thousands are pumped out each month - it's horrendous. Luckily they are so rushed they are easy to spot as they all have the same serial number, but aside that, the very accurately recreated the entire shell, casing, tabs, and the labels are very close with the exception of that serial number and straight corners instead of rounded.

Without a closeup of the disc center, this game is nearly impossible to distinguish from an original. This seller disclosed it as the Care4Data version. The buyer of this item can easily pass it off as original. As far as value, Sapphire used to over $1,000 for originals. The professional quality of reproductions, down to warranty and spine card, have cut the value by more than half - you can now buy originals for under $500.

Some other fun links:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Super-Mario-All ... 461d2933b2

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Super-Nintendo- ... 43c9de0101

[KalessinDB]

are they actually pressed or like, 'pro-cdr' type stuff?

'cause a cd-r with a high quality label isn't hard to do

I don't know the Sapphire boot personally, I'm just saying if there was a completely indistinguishable pressed disc that could be played on an unmodded system (most of my systems are modded, but I rarely play burns because I'm worried about laser damage), it might affect my choices...

[Hobie-wan]

Nono, the PS1 bootlegs I'm aware of don't have the factory errors in them so they still need a chipped system to play them. I don't remember the ones my friend had being blue or gold on the bottom, but it has been several years. I bought his chipped PSOne so I could play imports and wasn't interested in the stack of bootlegs he'd brought back from Thailand. I have encountered various other bootleg disc media that were definitely pressed discs.

[pepharytheworm]

As far as I know, Sapphire by care4data has not been proven to be a bootleg or a repressing yet. We even have a thread on this site disscusing this. viewtopic.php?f=45&t=38069
Has this ever been officialy confirmed or denied by Hudson?

[Opa Opa]

AFAIK, no one has gotten a Yea or Nay from Hudson yet.

And I'm in agreement with Breetai (rest in peace, brother ).

They are from Switzerland in the mid-90s... and, that's all I've ever heard. They are professionally pressed and either meant to be sold illegally as bootlegs, or were actually ordered by Hudson to be made for the retail market but then they backed out on it. I lean towards the "legit" story, but in the end it doesn't really matter. They never were sold at retail, and are essentially bootlegs unless someone can prove otherwise (which probably will not happen). I guess I think that way because I cannot believe people would go to the trouble of printing at least a few thousand copies (no idea how many are out there) of a game on a very limited platform, and also go to the trouble of making it VERY legit looking with manual, back label, spine card, registration cart and having it properly sealed. It would be a total waste of money to do this just to sell bootlegs. Remember, these were apparently printed before the price of Sapphire shot up into the $300+ range (or I guess $400-500+ now, if you look at recent listings... ).

Bootlegs until proven otherwise. However I disagree with the notion that "a lot of materials were produced to make it look legit; therefore it could possibly real". I had a few bootleg soundtracks. They looked real down to the spine cards. But once I got the discs in my hands I was able to do a bit more research and find out they were bootlegs.

I think the Sapphire discs will remain an unsolved mystery and I would never pay any money for an unconfirmed printing.

[aaron]

i don't think we will have to worry about bootleg saturn games any time soon, fellas. maybe bootleg cases/manuals/traycards but not discs. relevant: http://www.assemblergames.com/forums/sh ... lusive-end

your $200 copy of Mega Man 8 is safe for now.

[Onyxthecat]

I decided to try and sell the last of what I have at a discount for Racketboy members. Other things gong on now and I'm losing interest. I might have others to offer in the future if I get enough requests but this is all for now.

[Hobie-wan]

i don't think we will have to worry about bootleg saturn games any time soon, fellas. maybe bootleg cases/manuals/traycards but not discs. relevant: http://www.assemblergames.com/forums/sh ... lusive-end

If I'm understanding that properly, it means that the copy protection is only added somewhere around the glass master stage and one will never be able to make CDRs that can be read by a normal system because blank discs already come with a groove so you really can't replicate the wobble security section even if you managed to bodger on some electronics that forced a burner drive to do unintended things. So short of using the glass masters to stamp out unauthorized discs or creating new ones which probably wouldn't be financially worthwhile, pressed disc boots are highly unlikely. I imagine the CD and DVD markets were big enough to make the occasional bootlegs worthwhile, or perhaps glass masters were being stolen and used.