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Sega Genesis - We Bring The Arcade Experience Home
protokatie:
--- Quote from: brandon on October 31, 2008, 04:35:53 am ---Why didn't they just make the home Neogeo carts hardcoded to free play so that any operator that tried to use one couldn't make any money? that seems like a simple enough solution to me ;)
--- End quote ---
Would be an excellent solution today, but to get custom ROMs mastered back then would have cost a fortune. Economies of scale kinda issues. It was cheaper to make PCBs for each system and use the same ROMs than to make 2 separate ROMs for the 2 types of game systems.
Hence why they went with the "folded over" and different pinout PCB for the home model as opposed to making new ROM chips (That would be like trying to publish 2 games with approx half the audience for each game).
brandon:
--- Quote from: protokatie on October 31, 2008, 05:30:41 am ---
Would be an excellent solution today, but to get custom ROMs mastered back then would have cost a fortune. Economies of scale kinda issues. It was cheaper to make PCBs for each system and use the same ROMs than to make 2 separate ROMs for the 2 types of game systems.
Hence why they went with the "folded over" and different pinout PCB for the home model as opposed to making new ROM chips (That would be like trying to publish 2 games with approx half the audience for each game).
--- End quote ---
That makes sense.. but it seems like changing the pinout isn't really a solution at all when you consider how quickly stuff gets bootlegged. A pinout adapter would be a piece of cake compared to reverse engineering hardware and decrypting roms.
protokatie:
--- Quote from: brandon on October 31, 2008, 06:40:46 am ---
--- Quote from: protokatie on October 31, 2008, 05:30:41 am ---
Would be an excellent solution today, but to get custom ROMs mastered back then would have cost a fortune. Economies of scale kinda issues. It was cheaper to make PCBs for each system and use the same ROMs than to make 2 separate ROMs for the 2 types of game systems.
Hence why they went with the "folded over" and different pinout PCB for the home model as opposed to making new ROM chips (That would be like trying to publish 2 games with approx half the audience for each game).
--- End quote ---
That makes sense.. but it seems like changing the pinout isn't really a solution at all when you consider how quickly stuff gets bootlegged. A pinout adapter would be a piece of cake compared to reverse engineering hardware and decrypting roms.
--- End quote ---
Quick answer:
Cheap deterrent.
Long answer:
In 1990 (or so) I don't think there was as much worry about ROM piracy as there is today (or atleast more recently). Many companies (cf. Nintendo) tried ways of making lock-out chips and failed. I think SNK was more worried about the basic problems. I wonder if in 1990 there were any arcade operators who has a means by which to use MVS carts in cabs... Meh. Not meaning to belittle you, just talking about how a company needs to accept that there is only so much they can do to prevent theft. (One of those stupid economics thing, where theft is built into the level of protection as compared to price)
Minwah:
--- Quote from: Martijn on October 29, 2008, 11:10:52 am ---genesis was without blood by default but with a key combination during startup logo enabled blood
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I remember...it was ABACABB.
Wierd that I can remember that as although I wanted MK, I never owned it for the Mega Drive. It's a pretty good conversion but does pale in comparison after playing the arcade version IIRC.