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Post by bkk on Apr 18, 2016 13:06:27 GMT
My copy of Carmen Sandiego, which I got in a UK bundle has "sega for the 90s" stickers, looking on Ebay UK, others have these too, so it suggests that these were imported sometime after the games' original 1988 release.
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Post by bkk on Apr 17, 2016 22:30:53 GMT
Thanks, I'm not sure that enough people would find it as interesting enough as I do in order to make a book worthwhile I'd like to have a world history of the SMS though. There's still so much not documented, at least not in English, and not in one place. For example, the former Eastern Bloc countries ... there's practically nothing written about SMS getting released in those countries, but I've started to find out quite a bit about that recently. It amazes me just how widely SMS was officially distributed around the world, I think that it was even more widely available than the NES ... probably due to it not getting cloned.
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Post by bkk on Apr 17, 2016 20:42:13 GMT
Ever wonderered why RGB SMS1 models specify that they're French? "POWER BASE RGB FR."? I didn't think so, but I did It turns out that there was a Swiss model too "POWER BASE RGB SW.". Actually, I now see that this has been discussed before on French forums, but region code "26" hasn't previously been documented. "B" and "C" variants also exist.
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Post by bkk on Apr 17, 2016 17:27:43 GMT
Carmen San Diego is another one which shows up in the UK so often that it must have had widespread distribution, it was also one of the games still in stock at sega-parts.com into the 2000s, so clearly a lot of stock of that game left over. There's also a lot of US releases in Germany with cheap black German manuals, along with a yellow sticker on the covers saying "with German instructions" (in German ). I had previously thought that these were probably from when Ariolasoft was the distributor (1986-1988), but maybe those were just old SoA stock imported a long time after by Virgin or SoE. Looking at the pictures of these that I have, I don't see any with Ariolasoft stickers on them. As for Power Strike, why didn't it get a colour cover in US? Maybe they came with PAL covers by mistake, so SoA just offered it as mail order and swapped covers with their home made ones when people ordered. If SoA still had quite a bit of stock left after their mail order offer, then that could explain those PAL covers with US manuals which show up in the UK. That's a lot of speculation though.
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Post by bkk on Apr 17, 2016 15:44:13 GMT
Interesting, I haven't seen those Giochi Preziosi translations before. They were the official distributor in Italy, so I think it's more likely that this was a case of SoA clearing excess stock after they discontinued the SMS. A similar thing looks to have happened in Mexico, which like Canada first received PAL versions, then later also got US games, which are all either 1990/1991 releases, or older titles with "Sega for the 90s" stickers (which in turn were old stock rebranded in 1990). For some games both versions exist, you can roughly tell when the games were imported as they have importation stickers with the address of the exporter (SoA) which changed in the second half of 1991. Here's a Mexican "PAL" Power Strike with SoA importation sticker with the new address where they moved in second half of 1991. PAL Fantasy Zone with old address; US Fantasy Zone (Sega for the 90s) with new address; SoA eventually sold all of their old stock to a company called "Service Concepts" who ran "Sega-parts.com", they were then the official authorised dealer for legacy systems who SoA would link to from their main site. They were still selling their last few SMS games in 2005. In 2001 the list of games was quite a bit bigger. So there was still a lot of stock left a long time after SoA discontinued SMS.
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Post by bkk on Apr 12, 2016 21:47:25 GMT
Edit: I managed to come to an agreement with the seller, so no need for help now, thanks anyway!
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Post by bkk on Apr 10, 2016 20:33:25 GMT
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Post by bkk on Apr 2, 2016 11:47:39 GMT
Big update, SMS II added, about 800 serials now ... don't let that put you off submitting your own A couple of new model number and region code discoveries; Turkish SMS II model number "3006-33", PAL-G. Saudi Arabian SMS II model number "3006-39", NTSC.
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Post by bkk on Mar 29, 2016 13:53:29 GMT
From Ebay UK. SMS II Sonic + Master Games pack; SMS II Plus Alex Kidd + Rambo III pack;
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Post by bkk on Mar 29, 2016 13:21:46 GMT
So, the Chinese (Hong Kong) AKIMW that Stan talks about has a standard English box cover? There's no actual difference with a PAL release? The Alex Kidd box above is a Korean bootleg. I know, it's mine. I have both official Korean and bootleg. Portuguese manual, probably from the built-in version. Yes, this must be from built-in version of SMSII: olx.pt/anuncio/master-system-com-manuais-IDyc6sh.htmlAnd there's a blue shade manual from cartridge version that needs to be added to our Portuguese release list: I have a folder of pictures of SMS games which came from HK, apart from Mah Jong they're all just standard PAL releases, generally early English only or 5 language "Now There Are No Limits" variants. Here's an AKIMW from HK; I don't know what version Stan talked about, maybe the Taiwanese version I posted above? Nice to own those Korean versions Here's the Swedish manual; TecToy Brazilian variants, and Argentinian manual (built in version).
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Post by bkk on Mar 24, 2016 19:37:57 GMT
PAL-N Spanish Master System III Compact from Uruguay. I don't know if this was also sold in Argentina, I've only seen Spanish TecToy Master System II from there. There's probably a Spanish Master System Super Compact box for Uruguay too, as there always seem to be loose ones on mercadolibre.com.uy. Attachment:
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Post by bkk on Mar 24, 2016 14:26:14 GMT
Thanks, added to first post.
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Post by bkk on Mar 24, 2016 1:16:22 GMT
Portuguese manual, probably from the built-in version.
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Post by bkk on Mar 23, 2016 18:56:36 GMT
The Alex Kidd box above is a Korean bootleg. Hong Kong SMS was just just the standard PAL model in an English box, same as the games (except Mah-Jong). Hong Kong region code was "07" and used "PAL-I". The SMS linked to above was for China, region code "15" and used "PAL_D". It's unusual as it's a PAL model (No FM, Rapid Fire, or 3D adapter port), but with a Japanese cartridge slot. It must have a different bios in order to run Japanese games, it's probably the model that Bios 2.0 was intended for before they included Hang On built in. www.smspower.org/forums/9642-MasterSystemMahJongMakJongVariations#77892blogs.yahoo.co.jp/rig_veda/56747243.htmlWKK who manufactured SMS in China and distributed it in Hong Kong also had a consumer business in China where they distributed the SMSII with Alex Kidd built in. That came with a manual in Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, English, and Japanese. www.smspower.org/forums/6802-AsianSegaMasterSystemIIThe only non built-in Chinese language Alex Kidd in Miracle World that I'm aware of is the Taiwanese Aaronix release. Aaronix released the SG-1000II and later the Mark III in Taiwan, the SG-1000 seems to have done ok there, but Mark III not so well, as only the earliest games were released there, and unlike Japan, it didn't get re-released as the SMS there. They're the same design as Japanese (and early Korean) games.
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Post by bkk on Mar 5, 2016 1:53:18 GMT
Ha, no worries, I'm not asking because of that. It's been confirmed for a long time that there are two different ROMs of Space Harrier, one for 50Hz and one for 60Hz ... the same with World Grand Prix (they both also have different product codes for Europe and North America). There doesn't seem to be any explanation why, so I'm just interested to run both side by side at 50Hz and 60Hz and see what differences there are. It's just a hobby, so no need to rush if you're busy, it's been thirty years since the game first released after all, so a few more weeks or months doesn't matter I was going to buy one from Ebay for a couple of dollars, but Ebay's ridiculous overseas shipping option (so many US sellers use this now) which charges taxes and everything made it uneconomical. That's why I thought that it would probably make more sense to exchange loose carts on here with somebody in the US who was after a PAL cart. That's probably still not the most economical method (just one cart), so I'm open to other options such as CIB or more than one game.
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