Pier Solar: Official Thread

[CurlyPaul]

Not yet, its the official soundtrack boxset thingy that has been delayed, it was supposed to be shipping 1st Apr, then the 15th and they've missed that as well.

I dont mind though, the free gems are a bonus plus I wont have to pay tax as they are posting them from in the UK now

[SEGA.GENESIS1989]

Okay, it looks like I have some bad news to report. This evening I came across a video which states that someone has dumped the Pier Solar rom. The video also shows how he was able to play Pier Solar on the Wii virtual console:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h21KBUFpKIE

After watching the video and locating the source of the information (which I will not post here), I couldn't help but feel sad for the Watermelon team.

[Zebbe]

Okay, it looks like I have some bad news to report. This evening I came across a video which states that someone has dumped the Pier Solar rom. The video also shows how he was able to play Pier Solar on the Wii virtual console:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h21KBUFpKIE

After watching the video and locating the source of the information (which I will not post here), I couldn't help but feel sad for the Watermelon team.

Dude, that's the beta ROM he is playing. It's publicly available for anyone.

[SEGA.GENESIS1989]

I'll message you shortly.

[CurlyPaul]

I really hope that this isnt true, WM deserve as many sales as possible and this is bad news for them and even their new projects

[Barone]

There's a "full rom dump" floating in the Internet since April 13th but it doesn't work with any emulator or flash cart, as expected. However, several Russian guys are trying to break the lock system. I hope that WM have used some sort of hardware lock 'cause Russians usually are good in such tasks...

Initially they just got a red screen but now they went a bit further already:


However, looks like that the game uses some non-emulated instructions to decompress the graphics, thus causing garbled image. At least this is what I could understand from the Russian talk.

[QuickSciFi]

I don't understand the fear. Watermelon will continue to sell their hardcopies as long as they continue to make their hardcopies. The exact same market who bought Pier Solar is still there and will always be there. If Pier Solar was a downloadable only title to begin with, we wouldn't be talking about it on sega-16. There might be a small percentage out there who strictly (or mostly) use Flash cartridges and the like who might benefit from a ROM dump if done properly, but I doubt that even 10% of those individuals have ever been Watermelon potential consumers anyways (those are the only ones who Watermelon should be worried about loosing as potential customers). The ones who plan to play this on their computer through strict emulation weren't going to be Watermelon customers anyways. The niche of Watermelon (as far as Pier Solar goes) is the Sega Genesis/MD (IN HARD COPY FORMAT). I'd suggest they don't stray too far away from this particular niche, but I know they're itching to also make this a downloadable title anyways.

At any rate, as long as more games are being made in Hard Copy format for the Sega Genesis, the niche market that demands these games will still be there to buy them.

[Barone]

IMO, QuickSciFi, it could hurt more than 10%. I really don't care about it running on Kega since it sucks to play on emulators especially a "atmospheric" game like this and I have the hardcopy. But more than preventing people from buying the actual copies a working dump could cause some sort of let down in some collectors as well as some less general interest "since it will be dumped soon or later" (it's stupid thinking but some people do it).

There's also a good amount of PS copies and the now "Project Y" ones that were/are bought by resellers. People expecting to make some big money with their copies on eBay and such "profit expectation" would be lowered if a working dump of PS really materialize (At least one of our Sega-16 mates is a big reseller on eBay and maybe it would be good to hear something from him but I really doubt that he will do it since it's not his "style".). PS was not only bought by regular collectors and Sega fans, QuickSciFi. Several guys that usually don't buy any Genesis/Mega Drive game but still have the console and controllers bought the game from resellers, and even people that don't own the console bought it thinking about a big profit in the next years... This "crowd" would be affected IMO.

[QuickSciFi]

Which crowd? The crowd that bought Pier Solar to sell it for an extra profit (that wouldn't benefit Watermelon) to the same potential customers I just spoke about who simply didn't get the chance to buy Pier Solar in the first place (but would've anyways had they had the chance to buy it directly from Watermelon at a much lower price)? That crowd?

[Barone]

Yep, that crowd that you're insisting to see just as collectors like you.

If things are as you say, why Playmore did go after sites like SpekSNK asking them to not encourage the emulation of their most recent releases when they bought SNK?
SNK business was always based on a niche market and even more during the first years of 2K, so they shouldn't have been concerned about emulation.

[QuickSciFi]

You're comparing a $250-$600 per game versus a $45 game. As niche as it gets, AES titles were just too darn expensive.

[Barone]

I'm just trying to say that it's bigger than you think. Heck, why WM did mind about locking PS's rom for emulators and flash carts?

Any plans of an online release in services like VC or PSN would be directly affected by emulation. I'm not saying it will ruin the whole thing, but it will reduce profits for sure.

[QuickSciFi]

Dude, stick to your original stance. Now you're just repeating what I said in the first place.

[The Jackal]

Forget emulation, if a ROM dump of Pier Solar ever does turn up, that would mean anyone with the right equipment could make their own hardcopies of it.

[QuickSciFi]

I'd still buy the official copies, though.