Prototypes/unreleased that got on pirate carts

[Guy Bramsworth]

I'm just wondering exactly how many unreleased or betas of games got leaked by pirates? So far this is what I know of:

Sonic 2 beta - Genesis
Shinobi 2? - Genesis
Fido Dido - Genesis
Time Driver Eon Man - Famicom

I think I recall a topic here with some guy selling the Shinobi one for a ridiculous price or something, but can't find it anywhere.

I've been trying to find specifically the Sonic 2 beta one, boxed, as pictured on this page:
http://sost.emulationzone.org/oldsos...ic_2/s2p3.html

You'd seriously think a pirate like this would have turned up more than one time on some guys site like a decade ago by now.

[pfp]

I know of a few others:

California Raisins (NES) have been floating around eBay for some time
Starfox 2 SNES - there's a couple copies if you do a completed search on eBay, each of which has a different label - I don't think this was ever even processed into cartridge form.


One of the people who used to post here made "realistic labels for games that never were", but pulled them off his site when he started seeing them on carts on eBay - can't remember who it was.

[BeaglePuss]

I know of a few others:

California Raisins (NES) have been floating around eBay for some time
Starfox 2 SNES - there's a couple copies if you do a completed search on eBay, each of which has a different label - I don't think this was ever even processed into cartridge form.


One of the people who used to post here made "realistic labels for games that never were", but pulled them off his site when he started seeing them on carts on eBay - can't remember who it was.

These two were reproduced from prototypes that were found, not released on pirate carts. I know Time Diver Eon Man was repro'd from a prototype as well, but I don't know of it being found on a pirate cart.

[Baloo]

Tetris on Genesis was definitely on pirated carts, as was Ninja Gaiden for Genesis.

[BeaglePuss]

Tetris on Genesis was definitely on pirated carts, as was Shinobi for Genesis.

Um, ok. But Tetris was a legitimate non-US release. This thread is about prototypes/betas that made their way onto a pirate cartridge, not just games that happen to be on a pirate cart.

I don't know of any game that made their way from a beta/prototype onto a pirate or multi-cart. The responses so far have been either games that were reproduced from a discovered prototype, or obscure games that happen to be on a pirate cart.

Guy, do you happen to have a picture of the Time Driver Eon Man cart you referenced in your initial post? Are you sure it isn't just a typical repro that you'd find on http://www.nesreproductions.com/ or a similar website? I would be interested to see if an actual pirate exist.

I guess it comes down to what you consider a pirate versus what you consider a repro. If you're talking repros, then their are TONS of NES games that have been reproduced from discovered prototypes. I always considered a pirate to have been somewhat mass produced by a game company, similar to SuperVision and Hong Kong Game Cartridge Co., etc.

*EDIT: Tetris for the Genesis could be considered (to an extent) because of how low the original release was. A production game with less than 10 carts released is bordering on prototype territory I suppose.

[megasdkirby]

Was Ninja Gaiden for Genesis one of them?

[portnoyd]

I know Time Diver Eon Man was repro'd from a prototype as well, but I don't know of it being found on a pirate cart.

Time Diver was originally found on a pirate cart by a company called Nitra. The logo said Time Diver: Avenger or something like that. However, and my memory sucks, it did pop up in true proto form in the armyx proto lot though.

[DreamTR]

Wow, there's a lot of confusion here....

Ninja Gaiden (found on a pirate cart, I have an original prototype, probably the one the pirates made since the place I got it from was under lockdown from the US Marshals for the Resident Evil 2 fiasco back in the day)

Time Diver Eon Man (originally found on a pirate cart, I have a true proto of it from the armyx proto finds)

Starfox 2 (only Japanese ROM was found, no cart, ROMS were uploaded onto the web, not found on a pirate cart)

California Raisins (at LEAST one proto is out there, and the ROM came from that one) RedEye would know about any others.

Tetris is easily one of the most pirated Mega Drive games out there, but it was basically gobbled up and is similar to the Video Life Atari 2600 thing with only X number made, but it is a special case. Even bootlegs go for $75-100 these days...

Fido Dido (2 true prototypes exist, I have one and the extra one I sold to a collector, both are different versions that the one on the web)

[TheRedEye]

California Raisins (at LEAST one proto is out there, and the ROM came from that one) RedEye would know about any others.

Let's see. There was Brandon Murphy's cartridge, and POSSIBLY one that is owned by a "friend of a friend" (and friend #1 is a reliable source). The original programmer of the game kept a final build binary, but I don't think he has a physical cartridge.

Time Diver: Eon Man is really interesting, I actually think "Nitra" might have been a semi-legitimate Taito offshoot (as opposed to a bootleg outfit). I've seen exactly one other NItra cart, which I believe I might have sold to DreamTR as part of a larger lot. It too was a Taito game with an altered title!

For the record, the "bootleg" version is more complete than the legitimate prototype, though they're pretty close.