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https://www.etsy.com/listing/6602000...ng_top-3&frs=1
Anyone purchased from this company before? I thought the prices was extremely low until I saw the other options. I'm probably going to buy a Pseudo Saturn soon. And I do own some of these games already but it would be nice to play some in English.
What's a pseudo Saturn?
Pseudo Saturn is a firmware modification for Action Replay cartridges for Saturn, that functions similar to a mod chip. You can play burned games with such a cartridge.
The translation package being sold is $10, which is a fair price for the effort of printing the case inserts and manual, as well as putting everything together.
So there's been some recent drama from this sale in particular:Quote:
Originally Posted by Da_Shocker
http://aishsha.blogspot.com/2019/05/...ness-shit.html
Basically it's being sold and using the work of the Translation Patch maker, without giving them credit or anything. They even are using his Manual Translation. We recently had an issue on SegaXtreme as well where people were selling homebrew things such as vbt's Port of Wolfenstein 3D as well as Another World as repro's of rare prototypes. It caused a lot of tension as it was people's homebrew software being sold without their knowledge or permission, and people buying them thought they were old prototypes from the 90's that were never released.
tl;dr, I wouldn't buy those kind of repros. Just burn your own disc.
The only ones I've seen that to me seem good enough quality and so far don't seem to be doing dick moves like those others are the ones this guy makes:
https://www.facebook.com/SegaSaturnDave/
I'm still getting a mod chip for my Saturn. It seems a more firm and long-term solution than that Pseudo Saturn.
Also if you ask me, theres nothing wrong with getting repros. Its not fair that purchasing 1 Japanese shoot-em-up on eBay will cost you as much as a brand new PS4.
I mean at that point you may as well just burn your own copy.Quote:
Originally Posted by Yharnamresident
But you'll end up with a CD-R that has the game name written on it with a sharpie, wheres the novelty in that?Quote:
Originally Posted by TrekkiesUnite118
Also I assume the people creating these repros actually have the proper equipment, similar to people who create Dreamcast homebrew games. If they're just using computer CD drives to burn the games then its not worth it.
Thanks for the link. I know I could burn them but I have a bunch of PCE games burned and while they are easy to do something about a more professional look really gets me going. On one hand your guy has the real US looking stuff on the other hand that shit takes up SOOOOOO much space. :rofl::rofl::rofl:Quote:
Originally Posted by TrekkiesUnite118
I still got a huge batch of burned PS1 games that I received a decade ago, and they're hideous. CD-Rs with the game name written on them with a sharpie is not aesthetic. So thats the appeal of these repros.
Imagine not having a Lightscribe drive. The only real long term solution is an ODE. All laser diodes have a finite operational lifespan, and it is dismally short in consumer devices. I've resurrected a few systems by replacing their laser assemblies, but spare parts aren't common or eternal. They only delay the inevitable.
The fact that many repros need a modded Saturn even to start, let me think that they are just burned with a normal PC drive with no special tools.Quote:
Originally Posted by Yharnamresident
Yeah, I'm guessing if anything they are maybe getting a good label printed on a blank CD-R, and then burning to that disc. I highly doubt they have access to a proper CD mastering facility in which they are having these discs pressed for them.Quote:
Originally Posted by Virtua Hunter
Yeah, this is pretty much endemic in every console with fan hack/translations. The PCE scene was also really burnt by it and a number of people stopped/quit projects (thanks Tobias). Repro sellers say they are doing it "for the love of it" but we really know that except for a few it's mainly for the CASH.
I don't think anyone has ever figured out how to create discs that a system's copy protection will accept. They've done it with cartridge-based systems but thats a much different situation.Quote:
Originally Posted by Virtua Hunter
I have a Pseudo Saturn cart for sale if anyone’s interested...
It's kind of sad that the repro sellers are using someone else's free work to make a profit, but worse yet that the original translators of a Japanese-only game can't profit off of their own work period. What I would do honestly is start shopping the free translations around to the original companies and see if they'll package it into an emulator or something into a Steam release for cash if that is really the way that you feel. It's all such a gray legal area that it's hard to say who's in the wrong here, because if it wasn't simply for fun the fan translations would be just as illegal as well, arguably still so due to the fact that you're undercutting the copyright-holder's ability to translate the game far down the line and release it and make money. So who is right?
Certainly doesn't warrant that visceral reaction from the fantranslator though.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Virtua Hunter
I think it would be fine if the repro creators gave the translators credit, say on the sale page they wrote, "this repro uses a translation created by xyzxx. This is their website: www.xyzxx.com"Quote:
Originally Posted by Baloo
These repro creators aren't as shady as everyone thinks, like a lot of them refuse to sell repros that don't have "REPRO" written on the disc and case.
^^totally agree. On their site the translators insist that they're not doing it for the money so if they don't want to try selling them then maybe just ask the repro makers to start including links/credit to their work. If the translators aren't happy with that then oh well, I think that's on them. I enjoy spending $20-30 on some of the repros because yeah, just burning my own games and writing on them with a sharpie looks cheap (my hand writing looks like garbage anyways) so it's not like they're charging eBay prices for it and most of them definitely put reproduction either on the disc/manual/label or all of the above.Quote:
Originally Posted by Yharnamresident
The defense used by fan translations isn't so much that it's "just for fun", but that by only distributing patches, you're encoding the differences between the unaltered and fan-translated versions of a game, without actually distributing any copyrighted content yourself.
In other words, the patch contains no copyrighted material, at least in theory (I think IPS sometimes messes this up, but BPS and XDELTA don't). It's not even a derivative work, since there's no "work" in the patch itself -- there's nothing there to play or view, it's meaningless information except in a very specific context.
As soon as pre-patched versions of games start getting around, that argument is badly undermined. And full-fledged repros of fan translations paint a target on the translators' backs: not only do they get no compensation for their work -- while others do make a buck from their work -- but if the IP owners start looking for a scapegoat, the translators are likely targets.
And fan translators can't "try selling them" themselves, because that's a pretty straight shot to a copyright infringement lawsuit (or worse), with no defense. There's no difference between that and being one of those people who sold PlayStation games on cheap CDRs in the late 1990s -- which is basically what unauthorized repro makers are, just with better packaging. People like Piko have had some luck getting a few companies to authorize official releases, but that takes a lot of time and money.
That's why ROMHacking.net is so adamant about only hosting patches, and why many people there get annoyed when pre-patched ROMs and ISOs are distributed. That said, the process of patching CD games can be a horrendous pain in the ass, with Windows-only patching programs that are super-picky about the ISO you use. I've almost always looked to ROM sites for pre-patched ISOs for anything on disc-based systems.
BTW I'm personally much more interested in reproduction manuals than repro carts or discs. I don't really see the charm of a fancy-looking CDR, since I can burn one myself, and chances are I'm using better-quality media than the repro maker anyway. If it's an actual glass-mastered CD (as is the case with some pirates and a few fan reproductions), I guess that'd be different.
You already saw my responseQuote:
Originally Posted by Hairlesswookiee
I almost get the vibe that you got into a fist-fight with a repro seller.Quote:
Originally Posted by goldenband
Me? Hardly, I don't particularly give a shit about the whole thing. I've done a couple (very minor, very niche) translations, and if someone sold them as a repro, I'd be flattered, frankly. And I own a half-dozen repro carts, mostly gotten for free.Quote:
Originally Posted by Yharnamresident
I'm just trying to explain what the general stance of the translation community is. If you don't care, that's fine, but I can tell you that "I think it would be fine if the repro creators gave the translators credit" is false: most of them are adamantly against their work being sold at all, credit or no.
Even if they do say that, then its likely damage control because they want to stay out of legal issues. Its the same way emulators say "dump a BIOS from your console and don't download it from the internet" even though they sure as hell know no one is gonna do that.Quote:
Originally Posted by goldenband
The reason these repro sellers charge money is because of the manufacturing process, not because of the software on the disc.
And they're doing someone thats morally right. Right now as it stands, the average gamer either has to spend $250 for a copy of Battle Garegga, or not play the game at all. Thats not graceful.
They're not really manufacturing the discs though. They're just burning the images to blank CD-Rs. Honestly I'd say the best way to make both sides happy is just sell a repro Case with Manual and art, and then a nice blank CD-R that has art printed on it for the consumer to burn their own image to. This way no real piracy of the software is happening, and it's up to the consumer to get a hold of the disc image to patch and burn to their new disc.Quote:
Originally Posted by Yharnamresident
With the Grandia translation I'm kind of torn on the subject. There's some people making repro cases and such that are really high quality and they're truly just doing it for the love of the game and for fans to have a nice looking case and manual. Others however are already taking pre-orders and are producing a very shoddy looking product and are clearly in it just to make money. The former I find flattering, especially since those people are adamant about waiting until a final patch is released. The latter I'm little annoyed by and I fear they might just start selling repros as soon as they feel the patch is "good enough" even if it's not in a state I'd call final yet. It's sort of why I've slowed down on patch releases for things that aren't fixing game-breaking bugs.
Well, there are at least three other options:Quote:
Originally Posted by Yharnamresident
- downloading and burning your own copy, which anyone can do with an old PC and a decent blank CDR;
- getting a Rhea or Phoebe,
- or playing on an emulator.
Whether you buy a repro or you make your own, you still have to find a way to boot CDRs on a Saturn. The repro makers can't help with that -- unless they've started pressing silver discs with the Saturn copy protection, which I highly doubt.
Like I said, I can see the appeal in getting the artwork and manual reproduced in high quality. But I want to make sure that we're crystal-clear about this: no repro maker has a way of making their discs self-bootable on Saturn. (Or PlayStation, for that matter.)
The CDR you burn at home is no different from the ones you buy off Etsy -- either way you need a modchip, a Pseudo Saturn, or the swap trick. You're just paying for the convenience, and to have someone print a design on the disc.
And yeah, of course the translators want to steer clear of legal issues, but they also don't want anyone making money off their work either. That's not as much of an issue with CDRs, but some repro sellers are charging $30+ for a translated SNES ROM on a recycled cart, and that earns them a pretty tidy profit without the original translator seeing a dime.
BTW I see no problem at all (in the moral sense) with repros of prototypes. I've got a bunch of CIB Intellivision releases of prototypes -- hadn't even thought about those in ages, but they're basically repros.
EDIT: Trekkies makes a good point -- it can be irritating for fan-translators to see old/buggy/WIP versions of their patches getting sold by repro makers. And believe me, there are sketchy repro sellers who will jump on the first plausible alpha and start selling it.
The price isnt bad for what looks like a decent copy printed disc and case
Because all of the PCEngineFX escapees and Neo hyphen Geo dot com crowd have no backbone. I think all those people were truly in it for the $$$$$$$. Our buddy Nightwolve1975 once tried to make people give him their credit card information in order to get a fan translation patch for some old ass Windows 2000 Ys game. So don't be pointing fingers at PCE Works. All these morons spent more energy trolling on forums and social media anyway. I guarantee one guy cried like a baby on PCEFX because he thought Tobias was giving him a real copy of Sapphire....lolQuote:
Originally Posted by xelement5x