MSR *WILL* be finished, come hell or high water... hell more likely.

[MotherGunner]

Agreed! I am hoping MSR does NOT get grouped in with Diablo III and Duke Nukem Forever...

[spenoza]

Are PC Engine CDs completely non-standard/out of spec, or are they simply an antiquated or out of date standard?

[nodtveidt]

The data track is not ISO-9660 compliant... that is likely the issue.

[BlueBMW]

The data track is not ISO-9660 compliant... that is likely the issue.

That's because its ISO-OBEY compliant

[Mathius]

The data track is not ISO-9660 compliant... that is likely the issue.

That's because its ISO-OBEY compliant

...which means that their disc readers are probably blowing up in a shower of lights and sound! 

[TheOldMan]

Are PC Engine CDs completely non-standard/out of spec, or are they simply an antiquated or out of date standard?

Possibly, it's an out-of-date standard, although from my researches, they meet the iso standards (at least, ecma-119, as of sept 1998).
The real problem, however, is the same one that prevents you from playing turbo cds in a pc cd player: Micro$oft decided that data cds must have the data track as track 1 on a cd. Note that that is -not- in the standard. It's something imposed by micro$oft in their cd drivers, and adopted as a de-facto standard for cds.

The net result of this is that most places refuse to burn a cd-rom where the data track is not track 1, even though they may be iso compliant. The drivers on the pc's they use to run the pressing machines just cannot handle those cd's.

The data track is not ISO-9660 compliant... that is likely the issue

No. The issue, if there actually is one, is that a data track requires specific length gaps before and after it. It -may- also be a requirement the the audio tracks be seperated by 2 sec gaps, though I have not been able to verify that. Normal cds do -not- have this requirement, so I can't see why a data cd would. But it might be a problem.

With that said, there should be no reason they can't make a bit-for-bit copy of the master. If the cd-r master boots on a turbo/duo, a bit-for-bit copy should boot.
However, it appears they can't/won't make a bit-for-bit copy for some unknown reason.

[nodtveidt]

I do know that they try to verify the data, so they are more than likely looking for CDFS compliance. That's been one of their gripes from the start... that the data track is "full of errors", even though it's always been just fine. But since we can't ever get any more details from these boneheads, we can't confirm jack shit.

[Black Tiger]

I'd send another email requesting un update at this point. Of all the issues that have come up, this one is completely their fault and if they don't have answers for everything (like was that successful copy from a master of Insanity or MS?), they should at least give an update of some sort, since they charged $200+ for this.

[Arkhan]

I still think they are scrambling around.   Someone likely hit the "Oh shit, Oh shit" button because they just pressed the wrong disc.

[Mathius]

Has anyone called them???

[Keranu]

Still no email since I sent them the bad news last Thursday. I'll shoot them a reminder soon, I'm guessing their scientists are still trying to figure out what's wrong.

[KingDrool]

I'm just throwing this out there, but I think you guys need to be more assertive on this. Thursday is now pushing four entire business days with no response. For a f*ck up of this magnitude, that's unacceptable. And like others have said: stop with the emailing. You need to have these guys on the horn every day until they get their shit together. Or, simply, demand a refund.

Keranu, I've met you, so I know what a nice guy you are. But it's time to bring out the beast!

[SignOfZeta]

Yeah, its baffling that you wouldn't be talking on the phone about this. It's also kind of crazy that they "can't test" the game because they don't have the hardware. Just loan the guys a Duo or at least a copy of Magic Engine. They are idiots, certainly, but you need to understand that you are putting them in a hard situation when you ask them to print a disc in an obsolete format that their software (and everyone else's) doesnt support, they've never heard of, have no specs for, and can't even test. They are flying blind and certainly regret taking on this PITA project at least as much as you regret sending it to them.

[nodtveidt]

I have their number right here. I will sic my wife on them tomorrow... she has a knack for getting shit like this done. The company doesn't like dealing with PR though, so I dunno how well it's gonna work out.

[Keranu]

I wish we could have direct contact with their technicians, unfortunately we're stuck with customer service to serve as a messenger between our teams. We'll try calling them more frequently, though it's still going to take Brian time to get back to us.

Yeah, its baffling that you wouldn't be talking on the phone about this. It's also kind of crazy that they "can't test" the game because they don't have the hardware. Just loan the guys a Duo or at least a copy of Magic Engine. They are idiots, certainly, but you need to understand that you are putting them in a hard situation when you ask them to print a disc in an obsolete format that their software (and everyone else's) doesnt support, they've never heard of, have no specs for, and can't even test. They are flying blind and certainly regret taking on this PITA project at least as much as you regret sending it to them.

I thought about the idea of getting them to use an emulator, but I think it would be too much for them to figure out, nor would they be interested in fiddling around with unfamiliar hardware from three decades ago. But this is what the checkdisc is for anyways so we can make sure everything's working properly before approving a batch of 500 discs.