posted by arnoldlayne on Sep 21, 2016:
It's usually the "I don't have the means to test it..." that (usually) gives the game away. I'm willing to bet someone's just paid a lot of money for a EUR copy of Zelda on a fancy cartridge.
In fact, for the money, you could just buy an eprom programmer and board and just make your own for a lot less.
Perhaps including some documentation from Nintendo Europe might have made it a more desirable prospect as there's no real provenance here, just an eBay listing saying "I got it from some guys who worked for Nintendo hotline in Europe." - that's hardly concrete proof of anything. I'm sure they do come from Nintendo but a few years down the line that won't mean much to someone trying to sell it on.
Anyone want to buy a copy of Chu Chu Rocket that was taken up into space by NASA? I've got a few of them lying around the house somewhere... bulk discounts available.
Zelda gb proto on eBay
Zelda gb proto on eBay
posted by TriMesh on Sep 21, 2016:
That seems highly likely anyway - if the claimed origin of this cart is true, then it's going to have to be identical to retail. There is simply no possible reason for the Nintendo hotline to have anything that ISN'T identical to the retail release, since their job is assisting customers who are playing the retail game.
arnoldlayne said:
It's usually the "I don't have the means to test it..." that (usually) gives the game away. I'm willing to bet someone's just paid a lot of money for a EUR copy of Zelda on a fancy cartridge.
Zelda gb proto on eBay
posted by Borman on Sep 21, 2016:
I mean, it could have a debug mode so that they can hop around things.
I mean, it could have a debug mode so that they can hop around things.
Zelda gb proto on eBay
posted by skarpo01 on Sep 22, 2016:
- You are not selling a product, you are selling a story that goes with a product
- ABC --> Always Be Closing
Like they in say in business sales, the two important things are:
arnoldlayne said:
It's usually the "I don't have the means to test it..." that (usually) gives the game away. I'm willing to bet someone's just paid a lot of money for a EUR copy of Zelda on a fancy cartridge.
In fact, for the money, you could just buy an eprom programmer and board and just make your own for a lot less.
Perhaps including some documentation from Nintendo Europe might have made it a more desirable prospect as there's no real provenance here, just an eBay listing saying "I got it from some guys who worked for Nintendo hotline in Europe." - that's hardly concrete proof of anything. I'm sure they do come from Nintendo but a few years down the line that won't mean much to someone trying to sell it on.
Anyone want to buy a copy of Chu Chu Rocket that was taken up into space by NASA? I've got a few of them lying around the house somewhere... bulk discounts available.
- You are not selling a product, you are selling a story that goes with a product
- ABC --> Always Be Closing
Zelda gb proto on eBay
posted by kennypecheur on Sep 22, 2016:
One question, is the eprom bigger (in data size) than a debug cart eprom ? A debug menu may involve a bigger Rom, so maybe a bigger eprom. Which can explain the "Frankensteined" cart ( thanks Bobo
).
But all this is suppositions. I just hope that the buyer will share some informations about the cart.
It can be true. I mean, if a customers says I have some troubles using a certain object in a certain region of the game. Hotline team should be able to access every region of the game fast, and use any items. So it is possible that they have debug options.
Borman said:
I mean, it could have a debug mode so that they can hop around things.
One question, is the eprom bigger (in data size) than a debug cart eprom ? A debug menu may involve a bigger Rom, so maybe a bigger eprom. Which can explain the "Frankensteined" cart ( thanks Bobo
).But all this is suppositions. I just hope that the buyer will share some informations about the cart.
Zelda gb proto on eBay
posted by ASSEMbler on Sep 22, 2016:
100% fake.
100% fake.
Zelda gb proto on eBay
posted by kennypecheur on Sep 23, 2016:
Why are you 100% sure it is a fake ?
What a weighty argument....
ASSEMbler said:
100% fake.
Why are you 100% sure it is a fake ?
Zelda gb proto on eBay
posted by skarpo01 on Sep 23, 2016:
A lot of assumptions and theories. Bottom line is only a proper dump will tell.
My guess is that this was bought by a hardcore Zelda fan. In other words, the story behind it is more important than the item itself. It will probably be displayed on a shelf and never touched. To each their own.
Regardless of the fact that it is real or fake, the seller fulfilled the main objective: selling it and making $.
A lot of assumptions and theories. Bottom line is only a proper dump will tell.
My guess is that this was bought by a hardcore Zelda fan. In other words, the story behind it is more important than the item itself. It will probably be displayed on a shelf and never touched. To each their own.
Regardless of the fact that it is real or fake, the seller fulfilled the main objective: selling it and making $.
Zelda gb proto on eBay
posted by Sonny_Jim on Sep 23, 2016:
Don't think so, the pic shows an M27C4001 (4mbit/512KB), retail ROM is 512KB.
kennypecheur said:
One question, is the eprom bigger (in data size) than a debug cart eprom ?
Zelda gb proto on eBay
posted by jossan on Sep 25, 2016:
Hi all! Just registered after having this thread pointed out to me by a French collector. The Zelda GB proto listing in question was mine, and I'd be happy to answer any questions you may have to (at least try to) clear things up. I'm awaiting feedback from the buyer, and will definitely contact him to hear if he wants to come forward to dump the ROM.
As pointed out by Bobo, this cart was part of a bigger collection of prototype/sample carts for GB, NES, SNES and N64, and I posted photos of them over at NintendoAge a while back. I don't know much about protos in general, but I'm 100 % sure that the background story checks out - I have proof of the previous owners being hired for the hotline job, and their names and phone number are mentioned several times in the official Nintendo magazine we had in Norway in the 1990s.
The wording in my listings were hands-down completely honest, chosen with care and no intentions of foul play. Some of the carts were labeled with words and remarks like "final", "sample", "V. 1.1" and the like, and some were not. I was merely stating what I actually knew. Me saying that I didn't have the means to compare them to final/retail versions was just that, as I don't have access to the required tools for checking/dumping ROMs or time to play through them all.
However, I don't think it's reasonable to be too hung-up on the hotline part when it comes to the prototypes. I simply provided that info to "back up" the story of how they would have access to this amount of protos, showing that they worked with the company distributing Nintendo games in Norway. I think it's important to remember that some of the protos were games not even released in Europe (Speedy Gonzales and the SFC exclusive F1 Grand Prix, for example). While some of the protos/samples I listed were clearly final (or close to final), these other bits of info leads me to think that what they've told me is definitely plausible: some of the prototypes were given to them so they could give feedback to the developers. That being said, it's reasonable to believe that most of them or all were late versions.
I've been trying to dig up some of the spreadsheets they were talking about, but haven't had any luck yet.
Hi all! Just registered after having this thread pointed out to me by a French collector. The Zelda GB proto listing in question was mine, and I'd be happy to answer any questions you may have to (at least try to) clear things up. I'm awaiting feedback from the buyer, and will definitely contact him to hear if he wants to come forward to dump the ROM.
As pointed out by Bobo, this cart was part of a bigger collection of prototype/sample carts for GB, NES, SNES and N64, and I posted photos of them over at NintendoAge a while back. I don't know much about protos in general, but I'm 100 % sure that the background story checks out - I have proof of the previous owners being hired for the hotline job, and their names and phone number are mentioned several times in the official Nintendo magazine we had in Norway in the 1990s.
The wording in my listings were hands-down completely honest, chosen with care and no intentions of foul play. Some of the carts were labeled with words and remarks like "final", "sample", "V. 1.1" and the like, and some were not. I was merely stating what I actually knew. Me saying that I didn't have the means to compare them to final/retail versions was just that, as I don't have access to the required tools for checking/dumping ROMs or time to play through them all.
I don't see how this cart is much different from photos of other GB dev carts being posted in this thread? The main photo in my listing was showing the cart with the front of the shell removed. I later added a photo of the cart fully assembled.
Sonny_Jim said:
Still begs the question, whoever supplied it obviously had access to the dev carts (the shell is from one), so why hack up a retail cart when they could have just popped the EPROM into a dev cart?
I think you might be onto something, but I don't believe this to be the case for all of the protos I sold on eBay, as there are things that point in the opposite direction as well. I've been helping in the sales of this collection since around April this year, and it included hundreds of games in total for different Nintendo systems. All of these were regular retail copies meant for the brothers to play to be able to help people calling the hotline.
TriMesh said:
That seems highly likely anyway - if the claimed origin of this cart is true, then it's going to have to be identical to retail. There is simply no possible reason for the Nintendo hotline to have anything that ISN'T identical to the retail release, since their job is assisting customers who are playing the retail game.
However, I don't think it's reasonable to be too hung-up on the hotline part when it comes to the prototypes. I simply provided that info to "back up" the story of how they would have access to this amount of protos, showing that they worked with the company distributing Nintendo games in Norway. I think it's important to remember that some of the protos were games not even released in Europe (Speedy Gonzales and the SFC exclusive F1 Grand Prix, for example). While some of the protos/samples I listed were clearly final (or close to final), these other bits of info leads me to think that what they've told me is definitely plausible: some of the prototypes were given to them so they could give feedback to the developers. That being said, it's reasonable to believe that most of them or all were late versions.
I've been trying to dig up some of the spreadsheets they were talking about, but haven't had any luck yet.