I think I found some pirate carts at a local store...

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slembcke
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I think I found some pirate carts at a local store...

Post by slembcke »

At first I thought it was neat that a local games shop was selling homebrew games. When I started Googling for the names, a lot of them seem to be Japanese only. Are these pirate carts or something?

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lidnariq
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Re: I think I found some pirate carts at a local store...

Post by lidnariq »

Vs. The Goonies in a cart is unequivocally someone making unlicensed reproductions of original commercial games.

None of the Vs. System games were ever released by the same name in a cartridge; the original hardware looked like these.
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Dwedit
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Re: I think I found some pirate carts at a local store...

Post by Dwedit »

They are "Reproduction" cartridges, aka Pirate cartridges.
They are most definitely not "Homebrew". Is this why Mike Mattei keeps referring to hacks and reproduction cartridges as Homebrew? Because of crappy game stores that shove the "Homebrew" label on reproduction cartridges?
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slembcke
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Re: I think I found some pirate carts at a local store...

Post by slembcke »

Goonies and Hello Kitty certainly caught my eye on a second look. Who would risk selling a homebrew game based on somebody else's IP. I wonder if the store realizes what they are selling. It's just a little locally owned game store, so I'm kinda guessing not.
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FrankenGraphics
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Re: I think I found some pirate carts at a local store...

Post by FrankenGraphics »

Funny that the label for "sumo wrestling" (Tsuppari Oozumou) looks like it has been in the collection of some careless kid since 1987 but in really it was just a bad job done by some repro pirate this decade. :lol:
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nesrocks
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Re: I think I found some pirate carts at a local store...

Post by nesrocks »

Dwedit wrote:They are "Reproduction" cartridges, aka Pirate cartridges.
They are most definitely not "Homebrew". Is this why Mike Mattei keeps referring to hacks and reproduction cartridges as Homebrew? Because of crappy game stores that shove the "Homebrew" label on reproduction cartridges?
I think it may be the other way around. Cinemassacre has proven time and time again to not know much about the games they play / talk about.
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Sumez
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Re: I think I found some pirate carts at a local store...

Post by Sumez »

Yeah, James Rolfe seems like a nice and respectable guy (Mike less so, but I'm sure he's well meaning), but damn are they champions in spreading misinformation about classic games. :P Intentionally or not.
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Re: I think I found some pirate carts at a local store...

Post by FrankenGraphics »

There seems to be a confusion between DIY and homebrew. And of course the lines blur even more when DIY artifacts are put on sale, because then you didn't do it yourself.

Homebrew has caught a second signified which seems to be something to the value of "something someone has madee at home, that ought/is usually to be made at some shop/factory". I'd rather call pirate repros moonshine.
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Sogona
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Re: I think I found some pirate carts at a local store...

Post by Sogona »

I've seen plenty of unlicensed games at shops before, but never flat-out pirate carts. The fact that they're selling "homebrew" games like these for $20 a piece seems pretty shitty in that they obviously don't have much knowledge / haven't done much research on the products they're selling.
FrankenGraphics wrote:I'd rather call pirate repros moonshine.
I like this idea.
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Punch
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Re: I think I found some pirate carts at a local store...

Post by Punch »

People calling pirate bootlegs* "homebrews" does a lot to hurt the community in general. Remember Mike calling Streemerz a "Bionic Commando romhack"? This gives our games an aura of illegitimacy, which is something similar to how people associate emulation with piracy. Too bad bootleggers don't care about any of that and they would rather use the term "homebrew" to help sell their garbage.


*(I'm honestly going to stop using the term "reproduction" for those, it IS a bootleg, usually made to get some $$$ with other people's hard work, end of story)
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Sumez
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Re: I think I found some pirate carts at a local store...

Post by Sumez »

Punch wrote: *(I'm honestly going to stop using the term "reproduction" for those, it IS a bootleg, usually made to get some $$$ with other people's hard work, end of story)
Thanks <3

I think "reproduction" is actually worse than homebrew. I think the process of creating these is very cool, and legitimate for personal uses, but making money off selling them is 100% the definition of bootlegging. And calling them "reproductions" feels like an attempt to whitewash it, which seems to have gone through with eBay who does nothing to stop these.
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rainwarrior
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Re: I think I found some pirate carts at a local store...

Post by rainwarrior »

Dwedit wrote:Is this why Mike Mattei keeps referring to hacks and reproduction cartridges as Homebrew?
To be fair, Mike did get a lot of feedback about the terminology after misusing it and since has corrected himself.

Here's a video from today:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MIc4MO9gCPg#t=1m10s
Erockbrox
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Re: I think I found some pirate carts at a local store...

Post by Erockbrox »

I've always classified it like this:

Licensed - Game was officially licensed by Nintendo (seal of approval)

Unlicensed - Homebrew that wasn't licensed by Nintendo

Hack - An existing game which was modified by another person different than the person who originally coded it

Reproduction - A reprinting of a game
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Re: I think I found some pirate carts at a local store...

Post by FrankenGraphics »

But there's several unlicensed releases that aren't homebrew. Tengen, wisdom tree, the previously unreleased games the oliver twins found in their attics, and so on.

I think there's a distinction between a reproduction and a reprint. In this context, a reprint is whenever a new batch is required because the first "print" sold out. These may be years apart, sometimes. A reproduction implies that the reproduced material has been out of production for quite a while and has been resumed by someone. Usually by another part that had nothing to do with the original run. Usually this is also unlawful.

(in other contexts, a repro might simply be any copy made from an original such as a photo from negative or a manually or mechanically reproduced painting).
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Re: I think I found some pirate carts at a local store...

Post by tepples »

Might homebrew mean non-Chinese unlicensed games dated 1997 or later? It's hard to set a date for famiclone homebrew, as Chinese companies continued to produce originals and fan demakes for famiclones for years after the Famicom and NES were discontinued in Japan and the West.
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