INSANITY (NES proto)

[nesman85]

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=3608&item=3017059949
This is just absurb.

[Epicenter]

You mean, because it closed at $31? That IS a rip-off, especially since Lethal Weapon, if I recall correctly, really, REALLY sucked. But, it's nowhere near as bad as the Action 52 cart that sold for over $150. I mean, the game may be god-awful, and fun to have for kicks .. but it's NOT worth that kind of money ..

[gamergary]

I would have paid $31 for that because i want a nes prototype. :-D

[leonk]

If you pay attention, that sellers has A LOT of protos on eBay, and quite often!

I think theres a few reasons why they sell for so low:

1) All his protos are PAL. A lot of collectors are NTSC based (North America) and don't bother with PAL games.

2) Authenticity. I can take a cart, cut a whole, rip the sticker, and put a bunch of stickers on the ROMs (to make it look like EPROMs) and call it a proto.. good luck getting your $$$ back from Spain!

3) Proto collecting I think is dying. Why collect useless 1/2 games if you can get the full glorry of the production! (unless of course its a proto for a game that never came out!)

LK

[TheRedEye]

1) All his protos are PAL. A lot of collectors are NTSC based (North America) and don't bother with PAL games.

Actually, they're not. While all of these protos are European in origin, most of them are simply NTSC versions sent overseas. Wondering where some of our lost protos are? They were shipped to Europe for evaluation!


2) Authenticity. I can take a cart, cut a whole, rip the sticker, and put a bunch of stickers on the ROMs (to make it look like EPROMs) and call it a proto.. good luck getting your $$$ back from Spain!

Trust me, these are all authentic. I've gone through twenty from the guy.


3) Proto collecting I think is dying. Why collect useless 1/2 games if you can get the full glorry of the production! (unless of course its a proto for a game that never came out!)

Yeah! Those are good! Heh!

...heh!

...ahem.

Anywho. I don't think proto collecting is dying at all, I think people are just not searching eBay for them anymore.

[nesman85]

You mean, because it closed at $31? That IS a rip-off, especially since Lethal Weapon, if I recall correctly, really, REALLY sucked. But, it's nowhere near as bad as the Action 52 cart that sold for over $150. I mean, the game may be god-awful, and fun to have for kicks .. but it's NOT worth that kind of money ..
that's not what i meant, its not a rip-off at all, its an EXTREMELY good deal.


If you pay attention, that sellers has A LOT of protos on eBay, and quite often!
i know, i see every proto that he puts up, i've bought one, bid on a few.


2) Authenticity. I can take a cart, cut a whole, rip the sticker, and put a bunch of stickers on the ROMs (to make it look like EPROMs) and call it a proto.. good luck getting your $$$ back from Spain!
i'd really like to see you construct a skeprom or tkeprom board from scratch.


3) Proto collecting I think is dying.
i agree with theredeye.

[leonk]

You have no idea how creative some people can be with a bit of time, a circuit board, and a soldering iron..

With a SMB cart and my workshop, I can make you a cart that looks like that in 5 minutes flat! So unless the person has some history of it, not as many will buy.. (lets face it, you won't got and spend 200 bux just like that on anything on eBay, so why do so on protos?)

And as far as proto collecting goes.. it's a wierd breed of people..

look at TRM for example.. the guy has lots of them, but he constantly trades them, sells them, buys more.. now does that sound like a collector or a trader? (compare to baseball cards!)

I guess what it boils down to is that with a crappy economy like we have today, most people that have dispossible income for things like NES game collecting, focus their funds more on finishing collections rather than blow it on protos..

I guess you can consider eBay prices as the litness test of the health of collecting.. (and by the looks of things, it doesn't look good!)

LK

[nesman85]

With a SMB cart and my workshop, I can make you a cart that looks like that in 5 minutes flat! So unless the person has some history of it, not as many will buy.. (lets face it, you won't got and spend 200 bux just like that on anything on eBay, so why do so on protos?)
that particular proto happened to be on a modified production board, but as you know, he has sold several that were on tkeprom and skeprom boards which can't be faked. armyx also sold another proto of this game recently and people might have thought nesdream turned it down and then it got relisted (i would guess that armyx had 2 and just used the same pic for both). which might be why not so many people bid.



look at TRM for example.. the guy has lots of them, but he constantly trades them, sells them, buys more.. now does that sound like a collector or a trader? (compare to baseball cards!)
LK
last i heard, trm only had a few protos.

[gamergary]

I think Leonk meant DreamTR.

[TheRedEye]

Well, if he did mean DreamTR, that guy only trades and sells his doubles.

Yes, armyx had two Lethal Weapon protos. I had the other one, already sold it. This was before BOTH auctions, though, so I don't know why two more were listed.

As far as making a fake proto with Super Mario Bros., you'd only fool the ignorant with that. And the ignorant don't have money.

[delbogun]

maybe he was a tester for various nes companies and that way got hold of all those carts...

[Nespit]

This guy has a truckload of proto's in spain.he also had UR proto's. Unfortunately he sold about 24 that never made it on ebay. Sold in advance.

he still has a bunch left..

and they r definately for real. bought a lot from him in the past and will in the future.. I kinda missed this auction..:-)

[DreamTR]

Armyx's protos are the real deal. As for finishing collections, you get to a point when you already have done that, and you are lookng for other things to collect. Leonki, that's fine that you don't undertstand why people collect protos; I collect production and betas, more for me, ya know? But please don't assume that you could just make off something and sell it as fake. We (NES collectors) can tell the difference, and seeing almost 1000 NES protos, I am pretty sure I can verify authenticity on them soundly. i enjoy buying them, and armyx's turn out to be pretty different sometimes. Fake the look, whatever you say, but you can't fake that data that is not the same as the released version =D

[Nespit]

The man has spoken.

Exactly my thoughts.

[databoy]

Fake the look, whatever you say, but you can't fake that data that is not the same as the released version

you have NO idea how creative bootleggers can be ;)
sure depends on the game and what you want/have to change exactly.
im not talking about simple graphical modifications.
i must admit that you could distinguish a hacked retail game that looks like a beta
from a real beta if you are a bit into asm/romhacking and stuff .
but its much more difficult than identifying a fake proto cartridge that bases on a retail cart and a original beta rom downloaded somewhere on the net.(eartbound english and zeldaboy come to mind)
imagine someone buying an ORIGINAL snes protocart for about $100,removing the eproms and replacing them with a hacked 1st party snes game that looks like a beta,how would you tell if it was for real or not when you get an offer to buy it?
my 2 cents about collecting protos:
in about 50 years,most protocarts with eproms wont work anymore due to bit rot and stuff.this would not only lead to a massive loss of the carts value,but would also question the whole idea behind proto collecting i think.
sure you can dump carts and have backups of it,or if your eproms are socketed you can remove the original eproms and replace them with freshly burned ones,but would it be the same?and if the data inside the original ones vanishes,how could you tell if they are the original eproms at all?(in case
people would sell protocarts with broken original eproms and replacement eproms to play the game)
maybe a bit too pessimistic,but hey ;)

[/quote]

[nesman85]

i asked myself the question about protos being erased and "worthless", and whether it was worth collecting them. i think it is. most of them still have a good amount of time left before they will go down, but like you said, you can dump them and still be able to play them long after they die. i would be fine with being left with a non-working cart as long as i have the back-up to play and the original proto in my collection.


imagine someone buying an ORIGINAL snes protocart for about $100,removing the eproms and replacing them with a hacked 1st party snes game that looks like a beta,how would you tell if it was for real or not when you get an offer to buy it?

most proto collectors keep track of who buys what protos (i do at least), and if someone buys a 3rd party snes proto and a month later is trying to sell a first party snes proto, people would be suspicious. people would be suspicious of the 1st party proto even if the guy hadn't bought a 3rd party one earlier, since they are so insanely hard to come by.

remind me never to buy any protos from you, databoy ;) [/quote]

[databoy]

sure ;)
i dont do protos by the way.
seriously,if someone wants to make easy cash with faked protos,
i doubt he would buy and sell them with the same identity.
and even if 90% of the buyers believe its a fake youd always find a buyer...

[TheRedEye]

Yeah. Good luck faking a first party Nintendo proto.

As for EPROMs "dying"...it's not the EPROMs that die, it's the data. Simply reburn the game on the same EPROMs you have and voila, good as new.

[databoy]

sure you can reprogram it if its socketed.
but if its soldererd to the pcb it can be difficult,most likely
youre going to desolder it and if you put it back onto the cart
it will look like a fake cause the fresh solder points will look different than the 20 year old ones.
if the pcb design allows it(vpp not tied to ground or something)
you could also program it while the eprom is on the board with some kind of selfmade clip you place on top of the eprom...
but who cares

[rbudrick]

Fake the look, whatever you say, but you can't fake that data that is not the same as the released version =D

Ahhhh...and then there's Earthbound...

(*GRIND.*..that's the can opener openening the can of worms).

-Rob

[portnoyd]

Might as well play with that topic here: (The can's been open for a while):

http://www.nesworld.com/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.pl?board=nes-general;action=display;num=1050808130

dave