Unlicensed SEGA Genesis games ...

[Yukio]

There was some texts about unlicensed games for SEGA systems. I believe that in the past SEGA wanted to prevent the spread of unlicensed games too ... The second form of the SEGA Genesis was developed in part to protect the system from unlicensed Third Party games.

Does anyone over here confirm the presence of the "SEGA" string into the cartridge code? Without the SEGA name, a cartridge would not display the produced or licensed by SEGA copyright screen ...

Some (unlicensed) games are rumoured to only be played into some versions of the SEGA Genesis console, particularly the first edition of the console!

[SnowKitty]

There was some texts about unlicensed games for SEGA systems. I believe that in the past SEGA wanted to prevent the spread of unlicensed games too ... The second form of the SEGA Genesis was developed in part to protect the system from unlicensed Third Party games.

Does anyone over here confirm the presence of the "SEGA" string into the cartridge code? Without the SEGA name, a cartridge would not display the produced or licensed by SEGA copyright screen ...

Some (unlicensed) games are rumoured to only be played into some versions of the SEGA Genesis console, particularly the first edition of the console!

iirc they added the TMSS code around 1991. i have a genesis without the lockout code that plays unlicensed games

[megasdkirby]

There were alternate methods to play those games...I remember playing Onslaught in some way that I don't remember...

[Yukio]

Actually, I do not remember about the header and SEGA name on games ... Except the Sonic games that does have SEGA hard coded in RAW WAVE form. If someone listen to the binary file there is a part that is a uncompressed 8Khz voice screaming SEGA !!!

Usually the voices in the DAC for the SEGA Mega Drive and SNK Neo-Geo CD were not compressed voices, just regular voices that are playable into RAW WAV players ...

Text strings.
Sure, it should be easy to find using a HEX editor since the header usually in on top of the file.If there is text coded into hexadecimal numbers, the HEX editor would display the ASCII text characters on another table ...

Original MSX cartridges has the 'AB' (41h,42h) string on the begin of the file, the next two bytes are the address of execution of the ROM and the rest of the header could be just filled with zeros. I do not know if Microsoft at that time has some sort of lock up, after all the MSX was a "open" architecture machine. Some nice games were later ported to SEGA Master System (even using the original MSX-MUSIC chip) and SEGA Mega Drive. Not sure about the disclosure of those topics either on public forums ...
Ascii Table

The Microsoft copyright notice was on the MSX-BASIC and even on the boxes of MSX cartridges (that were sold by different distributors and publishers).

[Zebbe]

They had the TMSS on later revisions of the first model as well.

[chrisbid]

zany golf wont play on a post 90 genesis, but it will work with a game genie

[Iron Draggon]

There were alternate methods to play those games...I remember playing Onslaught in some way that I don't remember...

Onslaught works with the help of the Game Genie

it was mostly early Accolade games that caused the lockout... which doesn't make alot of sense, cause those games were certainly nothing like Mystique games on the 2600... Sega was just pissed cause they weren't collecting any license fees from Accolade, so they specifically targeted their games for the lockout... I think Melf has the whole story on his site, or someone else here does... it began when they started using Sonic the Hedgehog for the pack-in

[swlovinist]

Thank you so much! I thought that my cart was fried....then I use the game genie and the game fired up right away. Thanks!

[Frankie_Says_Relax]

I was under the impression you could hot-swap and reset to bypass that lockout.

Put in a licensed game, let it get past the SEGA screen, remove the game with the power on, put the unlicensed cartridge in and hit the reset button.

Was this only for certain games like Populous or Zany Golf, or did it work for all of them?

[Baloo]

They had the TMSS on later revisions of the first model as well.

Yeah, I think those were the VA6 and VA7 motherboards if I'm not mistaken.

If you want to know more, there's a whole thread on motherboards, and a ton of scattered information on TmSS at Sega-16.

[old_skoolin_jim]

Was this only for certain games like Populous or Zany Golf, or did it work for all of them?

Aww, man! If I had known back in '97 that I could have used a Game Genie to play Populous, I wouldn't have returned it to the video store I bought it from. Dang! Maybe I'll find it at a flea market, but probably not boxed w/manual... Oh well.

[Push Upstairs]

"Budokan", a game known not to work on later system, will work with the use of a game genie. I got the game to play on a Nomad (not that someone would actually play it on a Nomad).

[todesengel]

I always wondered how the pirated games got around the lockout on the Genesis, did they just straight copy the TMSS code from official games or was there another way to bypass it? Just kinda popped into my head since I own a pirated copy of Bare Knuckle 3 and was thinking about how they bypassed the lockout.

[mobiusclimber]

On an only semi-related note, I was actually really surprised to learn that Wisdom Tree made games for the Genesis. Surprised because I've yet to run across a single one of these games "in the wild." Why is that? Were they considerably rarer? Was owning a Genesis already enough to damn your soul to hell and, thus, made playing one of these games unhelpful? Why is it??? I've gotten tons of copies of Spiritual Warfare for the NES but not a single copy for the Genny.

[Steve W]

On an only semi-related note, I was actually really surprised to learn that Wisdom Tree made games for the Genesis. Surprised because I've yet to run across a single one of these games "in the wild." Why is that? Were they considerably rarer? Was owning a Genesis already enough to damn your soul to hell and, thus, made playing one of these games unhelpful? Why is it??? I've gotten tons of copies of Spiritual Warfare for the NES but not a single copy for the Genny.

I have a copy, but I can't play it too far without the game crashing and a debug screen popping up.

[swlovinist]

These games were pretty rare, and even more so, finding them boxed in decent shape was even harder to find. They pop up every now and then, but complete copies are harder to find.