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https://www.etsy.com/listing/6272367...a-sega-saturn#
Its only a matter of time before reproductions get so good that you can't tell them apart from the real thing...especially on cart games. VGA grading, hardcore collectors and a feeding frenzy for classic games in the last ten years or so caused this.
How is this guy making any money?
He's probably spent at least $5 on the discs and I wonder how much he's spent on the cases.
He is selling each part separately. $29 for the CD's, $22 for the manual. Only the case insert is $11.
I have a replica manual & back art for Burning Rangers that I bought from a guy on Ebay, and while it's very high quality, it's printed entirely on photo paper while originals are printed on card stock, with thinner paper used for the inner pages. Also, most Saturn manuals have a perforated registration card which is not replicated in the reprints. Still, I can see how reprints may fool people, and sellers may sell them as original knowingly or unknowingly.
Yeah, thread title should be updated to $67.
I thought CD roms don't work on a Saturn. How do you get them to work?
There is a cheaper option on Etsy for nearly the same look and quality...
https://www.etsy.com/listing/6700591...active_1&crt=1
the long boxes are a new option as they previously used different multi-CD cases that were shaped more like old DVD rental cases or something. Still, hard to argue with that price if you just want to play the game and don't have the means to pickup a Rhea or Phobe for your Saturn.
As for playing backups, that is easily done with modified Action Replay carts now though of course there are still physical mods available to do this.
You have to have a modded Saturn.Quote:
Originally Posted by SegataS
Yeah, it makes me kind of nervous being in the market for expensive Saturn games, with these things floating around out there. Someone printed off a back cover for a Shinobi Legions that they sold to me for like $90 once as complete. I sent that shit straight back. So far, you can still tell in person if looking closely, but not so much in pictures with the artwork. The repro discs however, look like trash and are obvious. I really wish these people would be responsible enough to print "reproduction" somewhere on it.
I just don't see the point in repros, they will never look as good as the originals, and if you only want to "play the game" then you only need a 50 cent CDR, plus a screwdriver and a piece of tape to do the cd swap.
I wouldn’t suggest doing that. You can get one of these for $50.Quote:
Originally Posted by zyrobs
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Sega-Pseudo...4383.l4275.c10
Quote:
Originally Posted by gamevet
Are they any good? Or let me ask is the save feature like the official Saturn backup cart or is it like the Action Replay which sucks.
According to this article, you lose the save feature, but I'd only use it for playing burned games.Quote:
Originally Posted by Da_Shocker
https://hackinformer.com/2017/04/10/...-backup-games/
What's the problem with the Action Replay?Quote:
Originally Posted by Da_Shocker
The Pseudo Saturn is overpriced and underperforming. Get a 25$ modchip, which will have 100% compatibility, won't depend on the whim of the cart slot connector functioning, and it keeps the cart slot free for any other expansions.Quote:
Originally Posted by gamevet
Action Reply can't save in-games, only in its own menu. And a connection error at the wrong time can cause it to overwrite its own firmware, bricking the card. You can restore it with a firmware flasher, but you need to be able to run CDRs for that.Quote:
Originally Posted by WarmSignal
Amazing what people can get away with on Etsy. I make most of my money there and have had to remove listings for the smallest things, making a necklace out of Legos for example. It makes me a bit furious. I guess I just have bad luck.
Yes, but it is a better option than using tape and doing a hot swap of discs, like you were suggesting earlier.Quote:
Originally Posted by zyrobs
It's a decent option for someone that doesn't have soldering skills and doesn't want to jack up their Saturn hardware by doing a bad mod job. The Saturn's internal memory will cover most of the stuff like fighters and shooters that don't need a lot of space, and if you feel the need to play a burned RPG, you can make a backup copy to your regular save cart, should you feel the need to play another game that will take up that space.
For the record, there actually is a guy on eBay (a different one) selling PDS instruction manual repros for literally $73 - for just a manual he printed off and stapled together. Sadly, a few of them have sold. That's freaky, considering how much people pay for that damn game now. Imagine getting a repro manual after blowing that much money.
You don't even need to solder with the Saturn mod chip if you really don't want to. You can get the wires presoldered on and the board jumper preset. Then just hook it in with the ribbon cables and stick the power cable into the proper connector on the power supply. The pressure of the pins will keep it in place just fine. Yeah soldering would be better overall but it's not necessarily required.Quote:
Originally Posted by gamevet
Secondly, I don't see these reproductions being of any concern as until they can reproduce the security ring it's extremely easy to tell the disc is a fake by just flipping it over.
Yeah there's no reason to hot swap and damage the aging Saturn drives. I love my Phantom chip, installation was dead easy and it works great.
Unscrewing the console and putting a rubber band or a piece of tape on the sensor is not a complicated mod job you can jack up the console with.Quote:
Originally Posted by gamevet
And adding a modchip is the most basic, easiest soldering job ever. You only have to solder 2 cable ends.
Swapping only damages the drives if you slam the trays so hard that they fall out of position over the years. And using CDRs to begin with will cause more damage to the drive than using originals, regardless of whether you use modchip, swap, or phantom.Quote:
Originally Posted by Blades
Using the power supplies pin is not recommended though, it doesn't always work. For the best results you should solder to a +5v point on the CD drive.Quote:
Originally Posted by TrekkiesUnite118
I’m certainly not talking about me. I’ve soldered tons of stuff dating back to when I was going to school for a degree in the applied science of electronics. Some people just aren’t comfortable with it and the cart is a better option for them.Quote:
Originally Posted by zyrobs
Had to look this up to see if it's true - and it is... Although I think most of the ones sold were sold as Best Offers, so the actual sale price could have been much lower.Quote:
Originally Posted by WarmSignal
And I have a sneaking suspicion that the people buying it are only doing so to turn around and sell a 'CIB' version without saying that it's a repro manual.
You can't save directly to the cart.Quote:
Originally Posted by WarmSignal
You are the legendary zyrobs, but the bit about CD-Rs is completely false and a myth. The Saturn is too old to have automatic gain controls, as you know very well. If anything, a properly burned CD-R will be easier to read than a scratched 20-year-old pressed CD. Either the laser gets a reflection from the CD or it doesn't, CD-R or otherwise. The only source of wear is the drive having to re-read certain parts of the CD-R due to low reflectivity, what else is there?Quote:
Originally Posted by zyrobs
Also, I used the swap trick on an old PSOne console and eventually the spindle fell apart into tiny pieces, so I'm anti-swap-trick.
CD-Rs are harder to read, that means the pickup has to do more re-reads to get the right result, which increases wear on them, which results in even more re-reads required, and so on.
PSOne drives are literally made to fail so you can buy another. There are even some games that put more wear on the drive than it is rated for (read those posts about the making of Crash Bandicoot).
I’ve found load times lower on good CD-Rs than some original pressed CDs on my Saturn. Of course poorly burned CD-Rs read like garbage but that’s expected. I've experienced the same thing on my Sega CD. Maybe I just have an amazing burner I don't know.Quote:
Originally Posted by zyrobs
Those Crash articles are fantastic btw. I'd love to see a similar series on Spyro.
I think part of the problem is cheap crap CD-R's people use to burn the image on, that can never help mattersQuote:
Originally Posted by Blades
All you have to do is put the game in an unmodified Saturn, and if it doesn't work it's a bootleg.Quote:
Originally Posted by WarmSignal
And I have an original disc that went from perfect to unreadable in the span of a half year after being untouched for a decade (I have rip logs showing how it deteriorated in one position over the months), and I also had my original copy of Panzer Dragoon Saga, absolutely mint discs with no scratches on them, scan to thousands of C2 errors. Meanwhile, one of my Saturns can read *broken* discs. There is no absolute rule here.Quote:
Originally Posted by Blades
I've bought quite a few reproduction manuals and rear artwork from an Ebay seller named baalzamon88. His work is excellent quality, and he charges only $10 for both. I bought some loose Saturn discs pretty cheap when I used to work at Gamestop, and these reproductions are quality placeholders for me until I come across originals for the right price. Right now I have his repro art & manuals for Burning Rangers & VF Remix longbox. He now marks his works as reproductions, though he doesn't replicate the registration card, so that's probably the easiest way to tell a repro from an original if you're looking at a particular listing that may be questionable. Plus, the rear cover of books that have registration cards aren't as wide as the inner pages. Of course, some later releases didn't have the registration cards, so it's not a foolproof method.
My North American launch Saturn would read some discs just fine, while absolutely refusing to work with others. I'd thought that the laser was failing, so I'd bought another 1995 Saturn off of ebay. I later found out that I just needed to grease the rails of the CD drive and it fixed all of the read problems.Quote:
Originally Posted by zyrobs
My point was that CD-Rs causing Saturn laser damage simply because of their CD-R nature is a myth, as you just pointed out.Quote:
Originally Posted by zyrobs
I've found that in general JVC Optima pickups respond very well to CD-Rs (in Sega CDs, Saturns, and JVC audio CD players), probably best of all pickup manufacturers back then.
It's not a myth. Most CDRs have weaker reflection properties, so they are more likely to age the drive.
Of course you can come up with very good CDRs and very bad pressed discs where it's the opposite, but generally it is the CDRs that have it worse.
Does bother me knowing how the production of the game went that these are being sold.
I just bought an "All-In-One" Psuedo-Saturn cart that has 1 & 4M RAM expansions, plus an 8M save backup for $43. It has a slider to select which option you need for the game you're playing.Quote:
Originally Posted by gamevet
RIP Takeshita Iwade