Legit or Pirate: You decide

[The Unknown Gamer]

Some of you might of seen a post I made recently
concerning Gex 3 which I purchased at
Blockbuster, which I say is a pirate copy. But
some of you question that. So here are the facts
so you can decide for yourself.

The game played perfect at first on my original
Playstation model no. SCPH-7501 but for only
3 days. At first I thought it was my system,
but everything else ran fine. Then I recalled
a piece I had seen on CNN on how a game pirate
was caught simply for this reason that all of
the copies he sold went bad after 3-10 days.

Then I thought I might of purchased one, but
from Blockbuster, even I admit I had second
thoughts. The first thing I did was call
Crystal Dymanics the maker of the game. Even
they said it was pirate, but I have to send
it in to make sure, if it was I lose it.
But then I remembered there was a Sony store
here in Chicago. So I brought the disc down
there and one of the employees not only told
me the disc was pirate. IE: the label of the
disc was blurry and the color on the bottam
of the disc was not right. I was told Sony
had copyrighted the color, later when I
checked my other Playstation discs I found
it was a half shade lighter. The biggest
confirmation I got when the guy from the
Sony store asked me to try to remove the
clear label Blockbuster put over all of
it's discs. He said "If any part of the
label beneath comes off, it's a pirate"
and sure enough it did.

A friend later explained something to me,
before there were such coping programs
such as "Alchol 120%", there were crude
game copying programs that more often than
not caused the same problem I experiance,
where the game stopped working. Simply
beacause of this. When a game disc is
placed in any Playstation, it automattically
scans the disc and if it repeatedly sees
errors in the copy protection
on the same disc it will lock it out.
Saying after a few seconds it is a music
instead of a gaming disc.

[Oobgarm]

The biggest
confirmation I got when the guy from the
Sony store asked me to try to remove the
clear label Blockbuster put over all of
it's discs. He said "If any part of the
label beneath comes off, it's a pirate"
and sure enough it did.

Was it a paper-type label underneath the BBV one, or was it a nicer screen printed one, like the PSX standard?

Removal of those evil BBV stickers can and will destroy any label, pirate or not, unless you are incredibly skilled at removing them, or if you're lucky. That's what they're designed to do. Ruin the disc.

I don't think his justification of label removal is correct. Is there any way you can get this thing scanned? I'm curious.

[Captain Wrong]

One question, if it's pirated how does it play in an un-modded PSX at all?

I don't follow this stuff, so I diidn't think you could copy a game and get it to play in an un-modded system.

[brykasch]

That was my whole therory. PSX systems will not play a pirated disc out the box without a mod, boot disc or soemthing similar. I can see how he might have, but for blockbuster to sell a disc that didn't have a black bottom is jsut wrong. And I am sorry but Sony did not copyright any color of a cd, can't be done, you can't copyright a color, there are places all over to buy black bottom discs. I admit some labels look damn good but compare dto an original 9 out of 10 time syou can tell the differences.. HEll scan this disc so we can see it.

[Flack]

This story didn't make any sense the first time around and it makes less sense this time. Your PSX can't decide that a game is a pirated copy 3-10 days later any more than your fridge can deicde you're too fat and not open the door or your car could decide it knows a shortcut and begin driving itself like Herbie the Love Bug or something.

A copied CD will not boot on an unmodified Playstation. Not for ten days, not for three days, not once, not ever. There is no record of copies going bad after three days, nor any scientific reason for them to. I have Playstation "backups" that are over eight years old and they all still work.

Sony did not copyright black bottom CDs. You can buy them right here on Amazon (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B00007JO1D/ref=pd_sbs_e_3/104-5328879-9503966?v=glance&s=electronics). I highly doubt any employee at "the Sony store" would tell you that.

I will explain this again. When a CD is placed into a Playstation, the Playstation checks the CD's country code. Pirated CD's have no country code. If the country code does not match the code of your PSX (or doesn't have one at all), the CD will not load. Not today, not tomorrow, not in three days or ten days or 18 million years. It just doesn't work that way. If you can get a copied Playstation disc to BOOT on a non-modified Playstation, I will personally eat it.

I don't know how to explain it any more plainly than that. Either your friend and the Sony employee are flat out lying to you, or you have misunderstood them. There is no magical long term evaluation the Playstation does to detect pirate discs. Either they work, or they don't. Nobody is burning pirated CDs with magical disappearing ink. They work, or they don't.

[PapaStu]

Flack is right, 100%.

Being one of the PSOne junkies, might you post the pic/s of the game??? Either in here or the PSOne thread would work. To my knowledge, if you have a Pirated game, there is NO possible way for it to work on your unmodded system. The lockout codes just simply prevent that. Unless you had an Actionreplay/Gameshark kinda thing in there (or something in your Parallel I/O to get it to ignore it somehow, Im thinking of stuff like Goldfinger).

I worked at a music store for over 4 years, and we sold the Black bottomed discs. They are out there, and are nothing big anymore.

Ive seen screened covers of a few PSOne games that though are for the same game, their colors dont completely match, Its all about where in the run that screen was done, later runs can look a little different.

Its very possible to get those BB labels off (or Hollywood video, or Wherehouse Music ect ect) Ive done it before. BUT you need to work from the inside out, and understand that you have to go S-L-O-W. (Last one of those that I did took over a Half hour on the label alone) Then once those things are off, its all about gettin the glue off, cause well its still there in massive quantities. Its all about rubbing alcohol, cotton balls, and rubbing. (BE careful cause you can pull off some of the color) Ive got a Jupiter Strike thats still not completely unsticky that ive spent probably an hour on (just the glue).

[autobotracing]

like flack said you will not get a unmodded playstation to play a bootleg by just putting the disk in.And like they said above just about any game will be destroyed and the label removed if you take the bb clear sticker off.


I doubt its a pirate.and just because someone works at a sony store does not make them a expert on everything sony.Because they made you ruin that game :roll: .

[dogbowl2]

Flack, IIRC the original release of the playstation could play copied CDs without a mod chip or swap disk.

I'm not a huge playstation follower so I can't say for sure though. Can anyone test this?

[Chunky]

i don't think thats right at all either. I and 3 friends had launch PSs and the mod chip was some sort of a dream back then to us broke people. there is no way the launch ones could play copied CDs if only for music.

[Oobgarm]

i don't think thats right at all either. I and 3 friends had launch PSs and the mod chip was some sort of a dream back then to us broke people. there is no way the launch ones could play copied CDs if only for music.

Dr. Science knows all, heed his knowledge! :D

[The Unknown Gamer]

There were knock off copies of Sony's discs, in the days before Sony offically released them. By the way the label is paper. I use a device that plugs into my Parallel port. It's a Gameshark knock off/mod chip in one, all I have to do is wait for the disc to stop spinning (It came with a spring) and swap the disc. By the way this is also how I play my imbNES disc.

[Captain Wrong]

There were knock off copies of Sony's discs, in the days before Sony offically released them. By the way the label is paper. I use a device that plugs into my Parallel port. It's a Gameshark knock off/mod chip in one, all I have to do is wait for the disc to stop spinning (It came with a spring) and swap the disc. By the way this is also how I play my imbNES disc.

Well, at the risk of sounding insulting, did you have to do all that to get the game to run? Have you tried it without your Gameshark? If it loads without all the extra stuff, that would have been the easiest way to figure out if it was pirated or not.

If the label is paper though, that should have been a dead giveaway.

To go over what everyone else has said...there's NO way to copy a PSX game so it will play in an unmodded/unGamesharked machine. NONE. NADA. Also, there's no such thing as a CD-R that goes bad in 3-10 days. A burnt PSX game is just a CD-R and all the regular theories about longevity apply.

[Daria]

Flack, IIRC the original release of the playstation could play copied CDs without a mod chip or swap disk.

I'm not a huge playstation follower so I can't say for sure though. Can anyone test this?

No they can't. They were just easier to mod or something like that. But they couldn't flat out play burned discs. Maybe there was a modding device, like the action replays, that plugged into the port in the back that they removed for the latter models.
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[Professor Hector]

Actually, any Playstation (even the later models) can be made to be played copied CDs without a mod chip, gameshark, swap disk, or any other device. The thing is, to pull this off with the later models you have to go through a very difficult swap trick method where you force the lid sensor down (I use a piece of a toothpick) and swap out the disc with a random game repeatedly whenever the CD motor speed increases until the foreign/pirate CD loads. The earlier models do require a swap trick as well, but from what I understand it is much easier to pull off, since you can can use an audio CD to bypass the white bootup screen so only one swap is required.

Nevertheless, I have never heard of and simply cannot imagine being able to place a pirate CD in your Playstation and having it play magically without some kind of outside interference because the actual software on the CD would have to be able to bypass the system's built-in geographical/copy protection, which as far as I know is impossible, regardless of what your system's model is (SCPH-7501 is a later model, FYI). So my guess is that your copy of Gex 3 is (was) legit.

[esquire]

I've been able to remove rental stickers that cover the entire surface of a PS1 game cd without destroying screened image on top. Sounds like your cd is pirate.

As for the Playstation's not being able to play backups with out a modchip installed, there are HK Silvers (Hong Kong Silver bottomed pirated PS1 game CDs) that are made in factories (as opposed to burning onto a CDR dye) that can be played without a modchip. The image on the top of the CD is usually blurry or grainy like you mentioned. However, you stated your cd was dark, is that correct? If you access to a digital camera please post some pics.

BTW, doesn't Blockbuster give you a warranty on their used and preplayed stuff? Gamestop and EB have at least 90 day warranties on their used stuff. Why not just take it back for a refund or an exchange?

[Flack]

Couple of quick points.

Launch PSX's could not play copied games any easier than later releases. The major releases included the 100x, the 550x, the 700x, the 750x, and the dreaded 900x, as well at the PSOne. Due to different motherboards as well as different chips, different mod chips are needed for different revisions, but the copy protection is essentially the same in each one.

Later PSX games used a different method of checking discs to see if they were copies. This was in the games themselves and not in the PSX unit. I remember playing Spyro the Dragon one time and all of a sudden the game informed me that it was a copy and things were going to get a lot harder. Stealth mod chips fix that problem.

And yes, Esquire is right. The country code information cannot be burned by conventional CD burners but it can be "pressed" in a factory. Those CDs are seen as originals by the PSX and should play on either a PSX or a PS2 with no problems.

The swap trick Professor Hector is referring to is theoretically possible, but I could never get it to work. I spent a couple of hours trying to time it and never had it work right.

Early mod chips for the PSX required 4 wires. Later models, depending on PSX version and chip capabilities, required 5, 8, or 9 wires. The first PS2 mod chips required 49 I believe.

[The Manimal]

Couple of quick points.

Launch PSX's could not play copied games any easier than later releases. The major releases included the 100x, the 550x, the 700x, the 750x, and the dreaded 900x, as well at the PSOne. Due to different motherboards as well as different chips, different mod chips are needed for different revisions, but the copy protection is essentially the same in each one.

Later PSX games used a different method of checking discs to see if they were copies. This was in the games themselves and not in the PSX unit. I remember playing Spyro the Dragon one time and all of a sudden the game informed me that it was a copy and things were going to get a lot harder. Stealth mod chips fix that problem.

And yes, Esquire is right. The country code information cannot be burned by conventional CD burners but it can be "pressed" in a factory. Those CDs are seen as originals by the PSX and should play on either a PSX or a PS2 with no problems.

The swap trick Professor Hector is referring to is theoretically possible, but I could never get it to work. I spent a couple of hours trying to time it and never had it work right.

Early mod chips for the PSX required 4 wires. Later models, depending on PSX version and chip capabilities, required 5, 8, or 9 wires. The first PS2 mod chips required 49 I believe.

What is dreaded about the 9000 series? Also, what are the differences of each.


I was just aware of

one with expansion port and RCA ports
one with expansion port and NO RCA ports
one with dual shock and no expansion port or RCA ports

???

I still want to pick up a PS1 or two in the future sometime (not the PSone, which I already have).