Fake Games

[Turbo D]

imo its definitely worth buying !

[Keranu]

Well the interesting thing about the Sapphire bootlegs/second prints, as I've discussed with Helgeson before, is that it's an intriguing and good piece of news whether it was really a second print or a bootleg. If it was real, then it makes for a fascinating piece of PCE news and helps the community by making more copies available and at a lower price. If it was a bootleg, then the bootleggers did an epic job and also helped the community as they're bootlegs are not only fairly priced, but also seemed to have dropped the price down for the official copy as well. I told Helgeson that if these were bootlegs, then I hope they continue to make these finely made copies for other expensive games as well, like Dracula X.

[nat]

Yes, if you like shooters. It's in my top three favorite Turbo games.

[Tatsujin]

well, here some counter questions for you theorizers

1. it would be easy for hudson to give a proper statement on that matter. so why they can't?

2. what makes more sense: 1. hudson did this 2nd run to bestow all those people a copy of sapphire for a reasonable price, which missed out the 1st print back in '95? or 2. some clever fellows duplicated it to flood the market with pirate-copies and make big cash in the first period (until the world get noticed)?

3. why trader 2 put that specific "copy" into their show case of "proven counterfeits" to prevent people of buing it?

4. why you can't find that specific "copy" in any regular retro-stores in akiba offered nowadays, but a lot of the old "original" ones? if it's proven a legit 2nd run, then why stores don't offering it if they where such widely spreaded back in 1999/2000 all over japan (as some of the people all the time argue)? I never have seen one in the last several years, in contrary on ebay etc. you could find hunderts of them in the same time span!

5. back then, around when the said copy where released, absolutely nobody got noticed, that those coming from a legit source (e.g. hudson), nor was it publicized in any magazines or public media. so there never was an offical release of it, which is very untypical in japan. why?

6. and, who exactly ever sent a copy of that 2nd run to hudson to clarify it, and got the answer that hudson couldn't find anything wong with it?
i've readed this so many times on ebay auctions and when i asked the seller about that matter, he couldn't give me a proper answer for that. therefore i think, this is just an invented story made up by some guys who wanted to sell saphhires still for a good price (or not to get banned by ebay), after the world got noticed about those pirates once.


so there are a lot of arguments which speaking for a counterfeit, but very small evidence for a legit 2nd run from hudson soft.

[nat]

I think Tatsujin made the counterfeits. He's Swiss, right? And they came from Switzerland, right? It's GOT to be him! There's no question in my mind.

[Tatsujin]

oh yes..that's an old theory which also would speak for that hudson isn't the initiator of those copies O:)

[Necromancer]

The Sapphire reprints are obviously bootlegs.  Of course Hudson won't give a definitive answer - they don't care, but did they ever go outside of Japan to find a print house for any other games?  I think not.  As for the reply card, the pirates were trying to make it as realistic as possible.  They could've just as easily substituted a cheap single fold manual, but they didn't for the same reason.  Perhaps it was going a bit overboard, but it's not like it really cost them much.

[Tatsujin]

my words

[Sinistron]

I'd love to get my hands on a Sapphire bootleg.

[Necromancer]

I'd love to get my hands on a Sapphire bootleg.

You and me both.

[nat]

I bought one for $40 new.

The guy that had a huge lot of them that was selling 'em finally just ran out.

[lkermel]

I also confirm that the Sapphire bootlegs are totally worth buying. I would never have paid $400 for the legit game but my $40 were well spent. This bootleg is incredibly close to the original game, it even has a registration card and a spine if I remember well...
About other pirates/bootlegs, I've been collecting them for a while and they usually look different than original HuCards. Here is a page where I reviewed some of them, but I have a lot more in stock. I've never seen other CDRom bootlegs though...

[schnuth]

I'd love to get my hands on a Sapphire bootleg.

You and me both.

I got one right before the dude selling them sold out.  I kept putting it off and was glad I finally got one when I did.  Having never seen an original I'm really surprised at the work that went into this reproduction.  It looks fantastic.  Plus it's a pretty cool game.

I absolutely love Sapphire's soundtrack.  I ripped it to MP3 and rock out to it at work. 

[Sinistron]

$40.  Jeesh.  That's the sweet price.  That's movie date money if fast food's involved.  lkermel- very familiar with your site.  It's been the most instrumental page for me in bulking up my collection.  Thankee sai.

[Necromancer]

Thankee sai.

Nice.