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Post by Rastanfarian on Feb 5, 2016 23:01:17 GMT
One last question...what or who is "First Star"? I have english only and german only cards with that insignia. Thanks again for the info. First Star Software was the developer of Spy vs. Spy. But their most famous game is probably Boulder Dash. Thanks for the info! I could be wrong but I think I remember seing the insignia on more than just the Spy vs. Spy cards. I'll have to check to see if my mind is playing tricks on me. Curious why the insignia does not appear on the U.S. version. Does anyone know if it is on the cart versions released in Europe?
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Post by rupert on Feb 5, 2016 23:22:42 GMT
First Star Software was the developer of Spy vs. Spy. But their most famous game is probably Boulder Dash. Thanks for the info! I could be wrong but I think I remember seing the insignia on more than just the Spy vs. Spy cards. I'll have to check to see if my mind is playing tricks on me. Curious why the insignia does not appear on the U.S. version. Does anyone know if it is on the cart versions released in Europe? The insignia/ logo isnt on the cart version but it is mentioned on the back 'used under licence from Forst Star Software Inc'. This is also on the US Card version actually.
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Post by Rastanfarian on Feb 5, 2016 23:26:09 GMT
Thanks for the info! I could be wrong but I think I remember seing the insignia on more than just the Spy vs. Spy cards. I'll have to check to see if my mind is playing tricks on me. Curious why the insignia does not appear on the U.S. version. Does anyone know if it is on the cart versions released in Europe? The insignia/ logo isnt on the cart version but it is mentioned on the back 'used under licence from Forst Star Software Inc'. This is also on the US Card version actually. You are correct, I just checked my US card. It is however missing from the Euro/Pal multi language version buy does appear on the manual.
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Post by bkk on Feb 6, 2016 23:06:05 GMT
Quoting myself; There was generally ~3 months between Japanese and US releases, presumably due to the logistics of shipping etc. Wonder Boy released in Japan on 1987-03-22, so that seems to be the cut off for when the "SM" (and English only PAL) variants were produced. Distribution deals were generally done at CES in the US. Following Summer CES 1986 (June 1986) Sega released SMS in the US in October, Ariolasoft in Germany in October, and NBC Italia in Italy in November. In Germany the first 10,000 units included Hang On free, so I wonder if that was the minimum order from Sega for them to also bundle Hang On, and maybe localise the game covers and manuals. Italy didn't include Hang On, had English covers, and Italian manuals which were actually based off of the pre-production prototype manuals rather than the final production manuals. In the thread posted earlier it's mentioned that a sealed Italian Hang On included an English manual, so I think that it's likely that the local distributor produced Italian manuals (based off of their pre-production prototypes) in advance, and swapped them with the English manuals supplied by Sega. In 1986 "Sega Australia" took over from John Sands in Australia, so it would seem that it was a similar situation to the US, with Sega distributing directly at first. "Toltoys" were the distributor by April 1988. Interestingly Toltoys were a division of Kenner Parker, who also owned Tonka (who took over US distribution in July 1987) at the time. Later in 1988 Ozisoft took over Australian distribution. Wong's Kong King (WKK) were a Hong Kong manufacturer of Sega Hardware, who also distributed the SMS in Hong Kong. English only variants are quite common amongst SMS games found in Hong Kong. There's a warranty from WKK posted here with a date of 1987-04-01, so they were already distributing SMS then, and likely earlier. Dennis Bergström came back from Winter CES 1987 (January 1987) with the distribution rights to Sweden, and Proein released the SMS in Spain. I've seen an English only Wonder Boy on Ebay.es, so it's possible that these two countries also received English only PAL variants at first. Irwin also started distributing SMS in Canada around about this time. Summer CES 1987 (June 1987). Mastertronic signed up for the UK distribution rights here, releasing in August, with Master Games Systeme France releasing in September. By this time UK and France should have missed the cut off for English only variants, with Sega having already switched to "five language" variants. It's possible that Sega still shipped some old stocks of English only variants to the UK, or maybe these just occasionally show up in the UK due to emigration from Australia etc.
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Post by rupert on Feb 7, 2016 0:42:14 GMT
Quoting myself; There was generally ~3 months between Japanese and US releases, presumably due to the logistics of shipping etc. Wonder Boy released in Japan on 1987-03-22, so that seems to be the cut off for when the "SM" (and English only PAL) variants were produced. Distribution deals were generally done at CES in the US. Following Summer CES 1986 (June 1986) Sega released SMS in the US in October, Ariolasoft in Germany in October, and NBC Italia in Italy in November. In Germany the first 10,000 units included Hang On free, so I wonder if that was the minimum order from Sega for them to also bundle Hang On, and maybe localise the game covers and manuals. Italy didn't include Hang On, had English covers, and Italian manuals which were actually based off of the pre-production prototype manuals rather than the final production manuals. In the thread posted earlier it's mentioned that a sealed Italian Hang On included an English manual, so I think that it's likely that the local distributor produced Italian manuals (based off of their pre-production prototypes) in advance, and swapped them with the English manuals supplied by Sega. In 1986 "Sega Australia" took over from John Sands in Australia, so it would seem that it was a similar situation to the US, with Sega distributing directly at first. "Toltoys" were the distributor by April 1988. Interestingly Toltoys were a division of Kenner Parker, who also owned Tonka (who took over US distribution in July 1987) at the time. Later in 1988 Ozisoft took over Australian distribution. Wong's Kong King (WKK) were a Hong Kong manufacturer of Sega Hardware, who also distributed the SMS in Hong Kong. English only variants are quite common amongst SMS games found in Hong Kong. There's a warranty from WKK posted here with a date of 1987-04-01, so they were already distributing SMS then, and likely earlier. Dennis Bergström came back from Winter CES 1987 (January 1987) with the distribution rights to Sweden, and Proein released the SMS in Spain. I've seen an English only Wonder Boy on Ebay.es, so it's possible that these two countries also received English only PAL variants at first. Irwin also started distributing SMS in Canada around about this time. Summer CES 1987 (June 1987). Mastertronic signed up for the UK distribution rights here, releasing in August, with Master Games Systeme France releasing in September. By this time UK and France should have missed the cut off for English only variants, with Sega having already switched to "five language" variants. It's possible that Sega still shipped some old stocks of English only variants to the UK, or maybe these just occasionally show up in the UK due to emigration from Australia etc. This is excellent information and very interesting. Is this all your own research from various sources? Have you got all this written down anywhere else? Do you have any more information beyond this? Also, that is my WKK warranty (I am James Costello).
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Post by bkk on Feb 7, 2016 8:22:43 GMT
This is excellent information and very interesting. Is this all your own research from various sources? Have you got all this written down anywhere else? Do you have any more information beyond this? Yeah, mainly from research posted in this thread, which I used to edit some of the country and distributor pages on SegaRetro (I'm "Pirate Dragon" there). If you have any specific questions then I may be able to help. I'll also help contribute to a PAL variant list. Neat, that's a unique piece of SMS history!
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Post by barney on Feb 7, 2016 11:19:18 GMT
Nice info bkk , thanks for sharing. All Italian manuals state "Printed in Japan". They would also have had to swap the label on the back of the card/cart, as these are printed in Italian. Interestingly, the Italian Great Soccer manual is dated 1987, while both the English and German version manuals are dated 1986 (the same as the game itself). Have you any thoughts on why Ariolasoft didn't release Ghost House or Teddy Boy cards? Or why some US titles are found in Germany with poor quality black & white manuals (even when Ariolasoft had released some of these games, e.g. Choplifter)?
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Post by bkk on Feb 7, 2016 15:40:11 GMT
Nice info bkk , thanks for sharing. All Italian manuals state "Printed in Japan". They would also have had to swap the label on the back of the card/cart, as these are printed in Italian. Interestingly, the Italian Great Soccer manual is dated 1987, while both the English and German version manuals are dated 1986 (the same as the game itself). The pre-production manuals also have "Printed in Japan" on the back, so it could just be down to the distributor simply copying the back cover without altering it. I presume that the Italian card/cart stickers were done by Sega, as they were just a one time translation which could be used on all games. The Great Soccer manual is an interesting anomaly, is it just a translation of the English manual (I don't think that there is a known pre-production variant of it)? This probably deserves it's own thread, but here goes. Ariolasoft catalogue (from rupert); These games are listed as available; Hang On Choplifter Fantasy Zone TransBot My hero F-16 Fighter World Grand Prix Black Belt Action Fighter Pro Wrestling Great Soccer Marksman Shooting / Trap Shooting / Safari Hunt Astro Warrior/Pit-Pot Those were all available either bundled with hardware, or in German covers, but with the "The Sega Card / The Mega Cartridge" on the front cover. These were presumably the launch titles. These games are listed as upcoming; The Ninja Miracle Land (Alex Kidd in Miracle World) Great Ice Hockey (Cancelled) Space Harrier Great Tennis (Super Tennis) Out of the four that were released in Europe, three have German variants, this time with the front cover also translated into German ("Die Sega Card / Die Mega Cartridge"). The one exception is Space Harrier, which doesn't have a known Italian variant either. The US release; This was the first "Two Mega Cartridge", so maybe they had chip shortages at first and didn't release in Europe until later, or maybe the first shipment was so low that it's just really rare. I have an English only PAL variant on the way from Hong Kong, so it did initially get a limited PAL release at least. Now this is where it gets odd, with the mentioned US versions with cheap black and white German manuals. They often have a yellow sticker on the box "Mit DEUTSCHER Bedienungs-Antleitung" ("With GERMAN user manual"). It seems that Ariolasoft imported these from the US and then printed their own German manuals. Whether or not this was with permission of Sega, who knows? But Ariolasoft lost out on the UK distribution rights due to a disagreement on pricing policy; And it seems that the releationship between Ariolasoft and Sega wasn't too great; They did this all the way through to when they lost the distribution rights to Virgin in 1988, with 1988 titles like Aztec Adventure and After Burner getting released in this format. A dedicated thread would be useful for documenting these. The only two games to get released with German variants after they started importing US versions were Bank Panic, and Spy Vs. Spy. Neither of these had been released in the US (Spy Vs. Spy eventually got released in the US in October, 1988). These two also translate the game's title on the manuals. So my theory is that by the time that they got around to releasing Ghost House and Teddy Boy, they had changed their policy to importing US versions when available ... I guess that worked out cheaper.
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Post by Rastanfarian on Feb 7, 2016 16:52:52 GMT
Firstly, thank you bkk for all the great info! Second, it does not bother me at all that this thread has gone slighty off topic. This is all stuff we need/want to know. I can't split threads myself, I assume the administrators can??? Best I can do is rename the thread to say "early game releases and info". If you guys think I should, I will, I'm open to other naming suggestions as well. Otherwise I'll leave it as is. Thanks again for your research!
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Post by barney on Feb 7, 2016 17:10:29 GMT
Nice info bkk , thanks for sharing. All Italian manuals state "Printed in Japan". They would also have had to swap the label on the back of the card/cart, as these are printed in Italian. Interestingly, the Italian Great Soccer manual is dated 1987, while both the English and German version manuals are dated 1986 (the same as the game itself). The pre-production manuals also have "Printed in Japan" on the back, so it could just be down to the distributor simply copying the back cover without altering it. I presume that the Italian card/cart stickers were done by Sega, as they were just a one time translation which could be used on all games. The Great Soccer manual is an interesting anomaly, is it just a translation of the English manual (I don't think that there is a known pre-production variant of it)? I'm not aware of anyone finding a pre-production Great Soccer card - the Italian manual does seem to be more-or-less a translation of the English version. Firstly, thank you bkk for all the great info! Second, it does not bother me at all that this thread has gone slighty off topic. This is all stuff we need/want to know. I can't split threads myself, I assume the administrators can??? Best I can do is rename the thread to say "early game releases and info". If you guys think I should, I will, I'm open to other naming suggestions as well. Otherwise I'll leave it as is. Thanks again for your research! I was conscious that we were going way off the original topic - I'd vote for renaming the thread as there's a lot of useful information being gathered here.
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Post by Rastanfarian on Feb 7, 2016 17:44:10 GMT
No worries barney. It's not that far off topic really. It is all about early release games, the lack of a UPC is a small detail. Are you okay with the idea of my rename? Or do you have another/ better suggestion? My computer is again on the fritz, so I am stuck using my mobile. Which limits what I can do right now. I can rename the thread once I get my PC back up and running.
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Post by Rastanfarian on Feb 11, 2016 0:08:49 GMT
The "Games without UPC" thread has now been renamed. If anyone has a better suggestion for a rename, let me know. Lots of great info in here thanks to bkk!
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Post by rupert on Feb 11, 2016 19:16:16 GMT
The "Games without UPC" thread has now been renamed. If anyone has a better suggestion for a rename, let me know. Lots of great info in here thanks to bkk! I am part way through creating a list (70% done) of all variations of Euro releases from 1986 through to 1990 (so this captures all games with 'sm', ®, no ®, different numbers of languages etc). The list will show all the variations I know of i.e. Own or seen photos/ scans. Then it will question which others exist based on what is likely to exist that I dont know of, i'm guessing lots! And confirming which don't exist. I'm going to aim to have finished this list by Saturday and post it up in a fresh thread with the aim of you guys contributing evidance to complete the list. Evidance would ideally be scans submitted to SMSPower, however a photo would do if you dont have access to a scanner.
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Post by Rastanfarian on Feb 11, 2016 20:28:32 GMT
I'm starting the new job on Monday and my pc is in for repair -again I will certainly help with scanning anything I have once I get the computer back and have a few free minutes.
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Post by bkk on Feb 19, 2016 0:34:17 GMT
Quoting myself; There was generally ~3 months between Japanese and US releases, presumably due to the logistics of shipping etc. Wonder Boy released in Japan on 1987-03-22, so that seems to be the cut off for when the "SM" (and English only PAL) variants were produced. I found a picture of an "SM" Great Baseball, so that solves that mystery, every game released up until June 1987 in the US has an "SM" variant. The PAL English only variant of Space Harrier that I got from Hong Kong has an ® instead of "SM". Two other English only (excluding later released RPGs) PAL games are also known to have ® instead of "SM"; Bank Panic and Spy Vs Spy. The ROM chips generally have the ROM production date on them in the format YYWW. It's easy to see on cards (although not all of them use this format), for cartridges you have to open them up. Here are the dates on the two English only NTANL® cards in barney's Italian games thread, and the date of my Space Harrier; Spy Vs Spy (IT) 8714 (April, 1987) Bank Panic (IT) 8720 (May, 1987) Space Harrier (HK) 8720 (May, 1987) That fits well with the last "SM" game (Wonder Boy) getting released in Japan in March 1987 (and in the US three months later). Rastanfarian, do you feel comfortable opening the cartridge of your PAL "SM" Wonder Boy and reporting the date on the chip(s)? PAL Space Harrier is actually a different ROM and number (7080) than the US/Canadian release(7001), which shares the JP ROM. World Grand Prix also has different ROMs and numbers for 60Hz and 50Hz countries. So it looks like they switched from "SM" to ® around about April 1987, and then on or after May 1987 switched to 5 language covers. I'm not aware of anyone finding a pre-production Great Soccer card - the Italian manual does seem to be more-or-less a translation of the English version. Thanks, so looking at several Italian Great Soccer cards, they all have a date of "8714" (April, 1987). So it seems that it was indeed released later in Italy. Good spot, it actually does appear that the Italian manuals were manufactured by Sega rather than the local distributor. It's odd that the earlier games have translations of the pre-production manuals.
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