Knock-off 2600 and 7800 games?

[DhaemonX]

I am a collector of all things Transformers and I know about the Chinese knock offs. Some are better than the original G1, by removing old faults in the toys.

 

But back to my question, what stopping someone from getting a hold of say H.E.R.O. and a 3d printer and making exact copies of HERO and flooding the eBay market with it?

 

Morality question:

With games like HERO which are a finite amount, is it a good thing more people can buy it?

 

Anyway, not that it has happened yet, but with homebrew games around, you would think it would be on the horizon right? 

Edited August 18 by DhaemonX

[Maztr_0n]

i'm guessing its simply just a bit more obscure to make than a game boy cartridge.

i mean you can find game boy bootlegs for $5 whilst game gear repros are $40 or so, there are a lot of reproductions but places like AtariAge require some form of disclaimer that said cartridge is not from the 70's, 80's or 90's. And 7800 especially is really obscure these days and i think only with time will start to get more reproduction carts, i mean, personally i was really looking into making my own Ikari Warriors 7800 cart, but i still have no idea how i'd even be able to do so.

2600 is most possible but i'm not sure what games would be bootlegged in the way that something like Famicom games were, maybe Commando would be re-badged as COD: Modern Warfare II, Double Dragon or Bank Heist as "Grand Theft Auto" and some kind of angry birds demake, but i do not know what group would risk doing that.

[pacman000]

The Game Boy is having a nostalgia boost right now; Atari's nostalgic peak was 20 years ago. Without the nostalgia boost, the demand is too low. Why make Atari carts when you can sell more Game Boy carts,making more money in the process?

 

(Note: this is not to condone software piracy; I'm just trying to put things in an economic perspective.)

 

On a side note, I wish someone would sell blank Game Boy carts; the pirated games are usually produced on flash carts. They'd actually be useful for homebrew games if you didn't have to worry about the illegally copied code on them! (Assuming the carts designs don't violate some other IP laws. This stuff can get complicated.)

[tradyblix]

12 hours ago, pacman000 said:

The Game Boy is having a nostalgia boost right now; Atari's nostalgic peak was 20 years ago. Without the nostalgia boost, the demand is too low. Why make Atari carts when you can sell more Game Boy carts,making more money in the process?

 

(Note: this is not to condone software piracy; I'm just trying to put things in an economic perspective.)

 

On a side note, I wish someone would sell blank Game Boy carts; the pirated games are usually produced on flash carts. They'd actually be useful for homebrew games if you didn't have to worry about the illegally copied code on them! (Assuming the carts designs don't violate some other IP laws. This stuff can get complicated.)

So this is pretty interesting to me. Why do you say that the Atari's Nostalgic peak was twenty years ago ? I mean, I am inclined to agree that that's when the home brew games from bob, the ones that are really good, were generally made, around the mid two thousands and early 2010s.

 

But if you think about the age of folks who actually played these games, they were only in their early thirties, at that point, at least I was, And I think I had gotten a xbox 360 in 2007, and probably didn't care too much about Atari at that point. I am much more nostalgic for it now that I am almost fifty.

 

If anything I would think that now would be the time where most people were really nostalgic for Atari, ifnthey were Grn Xers and not Boomers. but I guess there was a generation of people ahead of me about ten years and maybe even older folks who are now shuffled off this mortal coil or almost. Or maybe don't have the free money to spend on this frivolous pursuit.

[+Fred_M]

On 8/18/2024 at 4:51 PM, DhaemonX said:

I am a collector of all things Transformers and I know about the Chinese knock offs. Some are better than the original G1, by removing old faults in the toys.

 

But back to my question, what stopping someone from getting a hold of say H.E.R.O. and a 3d printer and making exact copies of HERO and flooding the eBay market with it?

 

Morality question:

With games like HERO which are a finite amount, is it a good thing more people can buy it?

 

Anyway, not that it has happened yet, but with homebrew games around, you would think it would be on the horizon right? 

 

I guess most Atari collectors like to own an original copy. Reproduction cartridges are made for the 2600, even today. On the project site of PCBway you can find various cartridge PCBs which they can produce for you. You can even let them do all the soldering. All the buyer needs to do is burn an eprom with the roms and put it in the PCB. Some people buy these in bulk and offer them online. I see them often pop up for sale on various European online marketplaces. Sadly for the 7800 it is more difficult as good cartridge PCBs are not publicly available.

 

Most Atari fans (who have been that for years/decades) probably do not buy a reproduction carts with a few games. They buy a cartridge with for example a SD card to play (almost, not all!) every game they want. Examples are the UNO cart, PLUS cart, Harmony cart and so on. Rom-files can be found everywhere on the internet. The UNO cart can even be bought on Aliexpress. Sadly most of these cartridges will not work (or work as they were intended to work) on the 2600+ (or the 7800+) because it is an emulator system with a dumper.

Edited August 23 by Fred_M

[tradyblix]

16 minutes ago, Fred_M said:

 

I guess most Atari collectors like to own an original copy. Reproduction cartridges are made for the 2600, even today. On the project site of PCBway you can find various cartridge PCBs which they can produce for you. You can even let them do all the soldering. All the buyer needs to do is burn an eprom with the roms and put it in the PCB. Some people buy these in bulk and offer them online. I see them often pop up for sale on various European online marketplaces. Sadly for the 7800 it is more difficult as good cartridge PCBs are not publicly available.

 

Most Atari fans (who have been that for years/decades) probably do not buy a reproduction carts with a few games. They buy a cartridge with for example a SD card to play (almost, not all!) every game they want. Examples are the UNO cart, PLUS cart, Harmony cart and so on. Rom-files can be found everywhere on the internet. The UNO cart can even be bought on Aliexpress. Sadly most of these cartridges will not work (or work as they were intended to work) on the 2600+ (or the 7800+) because it is an emulator system with a dumper.

I had a different experience. I used to have a harmony cart but once I moved over to this platform, i've just bought real carts.

 

The reason for this is that the harmony cart only worked in single game mode, and when i tried to use that i found that it no longer worked properly,

 

The support that I got here for it was poor at best, and it requires a legacy cable That I no longer have, (mini usb), Tried buying a new one and it didn't work with it, and I can't get it updated to work right, and I just kind of gave up on it. I used to use it with my light sixer but honestly, because of the menu system it prevented me from seeing and playing games that otherwise I would have played if I had just had carts.  I used to have six thousand games on it but I played far less games than I do with just sixty curated games.I really want to play.

 

I've enjoyed the physical cart experience far more. It's much nicer to have all the different art on the carts and plug them in. I enjoy that experience.

 

There is a downside to that, and it is obviously the money that it cost, but also the storage is not insignificant. But in general, it's much more fun now then, it was when I had a harmony cart for years.

Edited August 23 by tradyblix

[+Fred_M]

1 hour ago, tradyblix said:

I had a different experience. I used to have a harmony cart but once I moved over to this platform, i've just bought real carts.

 

The reason for this is that the harmony cart only worked in single game mode, and when i tried to use that i found that it no longer worked properly,

 

The support that I got here for it was poor at best, and it requires a legacy cable That I no longer have, (mini usb), Tried buying a new one and it didn't work with it, and I can't get it updated to work right, and I just kind of gave up on it. I used to use it with my light sixer but honestly, because of the menu system it prevented me from seeing and playing games that otherwise I would have played if I had just had carts.  I used to have six thousand games on it but I played far less games than I do with just sixty curated games.I really want to play.

 

I've enjoyed the physical cart experience far more. It's much nicer to have all the different art on the carts and plug them in. I enjoy that experience.

 

There is a downside to that, and it is obviously the money that it cost, but also the storage is not insignificant. But in general, it's much more fun now then, it was when I had a harmony cart for years.

I understand your position about multi cartridges and as a collector I share your feelings.

 

My post was a reply to DhaemonX's question why no one is flooding Ebay with reproduction cartridges.

 

I think many people who enjoy playing Atari games before the 2600+ was released, bought a Harmony, Uno, Plus and so on cartridge. Most of them will probably not be collectors and want to just play the roms they downloaded from the internet on their original 2600. So I think there was not enough demand for reproduction cartridges in the last decades.

 

We all know that Atari is defending their properties very well and now the 2600+ is released I am sure Atari will act on Ebay sellers even faster. That is understandable especially because Atari/Plaion want to sell their own cartridges.

 

The physical experience is very important for me too, about 10 years ago a record player returned to my living room 😀 (I never got rid of my old records)

[Zonie]

There is something about getting a new physical cart. Sometimes it's better than playing the game. I think the A+ models will drive another surge.

[Maztr_0n]

I do still await the atari bootlegs of Call Of Duty: Ghosts as said b4.

[tradyblix]

On 8/23/2024 at 11:56 AM, Fred_M said:

I understand your position about multi cartridges and as a collector I share your feelings.

 

My post was a reply to DhaemonX's question why no one is flooding Ebay with reproduction cartridges.

 

I think many people who enjoy playing Atari games before the 2600+ was released, bought a Harmony, Uno, Plus and so on cartridge. Most of them will probably not be collectors and want to just play the roms they downloaded from the internet on their original 2600. So I think there was not enough demand for reproduction cartridges in the last decades.

 

We all know that Atari is defending their properties very well and now the 2600+ is released I am sure Atari will act on Ebay sellers even faster. That is understandable especially because Atari/Plaion want to sell their own cartridges.

 

The physical experience is very important for me too, about 10 years ago a record player returned to my living room 😀 (I never got rid of my old records)

yes record players also are totally different experience. putting a record on, drifting off to sleep, awakening to flip the side. Stuff even sounds different to me listening this way compared to using a music service and mostly jumping track to track, it's just a more zen vibe in general.