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Mega Drive/Genesis / A Quest
« on: September 05, 2014, 03:12:34 PM »
Ay up,
I come from the land of Sega Retro, and apparently I get a kick out of self-harming, as I've spent the last few weeks on a project widely considered impossible. I am, among other things, attempting to document every single Sega-related bootleg in existence.
Yes, really.
Here's the thing - many eons ago I spotted some preliminary attempts at cataloguing knock-off Famicom cartridges. Granted, there was some genuine merit to this, as most of the ROMs weren't dumped (and thus it would act as a way of tracking down specific cartridges), but interesting side effects included being able to discover which companies were responsible for development and production, and by extension, pinpoint where these cartridges actually came from. Turns out piles of plastic tat actually had a story attached to them, who knew.
We're trying to do the same for Sega consoles, although by that I mean "mostly the Mega Drive, sometimes a bit of Game Gear". Statistically you'd expect far fewer Mega Drive bootlegs than Famicom ones, and as Sega Retro focuses on documenting the Sega story across the world, it's unfair to ignore markets comprised of this unlicensed tat. You could have developed a childhood love of the Mega Drive without touching any licensed produce - turning a blind eye isn't a great option, hence this stupid task.
This is how far I've got - it's the biggest collection of Mega Drive bootlegs in existence! (and missing hundreds - it takes a while to crop up crappy photos) I'm also working on multi-carts and, when I can stomach it, tat from Russia (because that's recent!). However, I don't know a huge amount about these subjects, and there isn't much appetite for this sort of thing from my neck of the woods, hence why I've traveled here.
So, has anyone attempted something similar to this before, so I can build up a more competent picture of the situation? I've found a few patterns, but vast chunks of these things have no external clues at all. This is the only place on the internet I can think of were people might actually care.
I come from the land of Sega Retro, and apparently I get a kick out of self-harming, as I've spent the last few weeks on a project widely considered impossible. I am, among other things, attempting to document every single Sega-related bootleg in existence.
Yes, really.
Here's the thing - many eons ago I spotted some preliminary attempts at cataloguing knock-off Famicom cartridges. Granted, there was some genuine merit to this, as most of the ROMs weren't dumped (and thus it would act as a way of tracking down specific cartridges), but interesting side effects included being able to discover which companies were responsible for development and production, and by extension, pinpoint where these cartridges actually came from. Turns out piles of plastic tat actually had a story attached to them, who knew.
We're trying to do the same for Sega consoles, although by that I mean "mostly the Mega Drive, sometimes a bit of Game Gear". Statistically you'd expect far fewer Mega Drive bootlegs than Famicom ones, and as Sega Retro focuses on documenting the Sega story across the world, it's unfair to ignore markets comprised of this unlicensed tat. You could have developed a childhood love of the Mega Drive without touching any licensed produce - turning a blind eye isn't a great option, hence this stupid task.
This is how far I've got - it's the biggest collection of Mega Drive bootlegs in existence! (and missing hundreds - it takes a while to crop up crappy photos) I'm also working on multi-carts and, when I can stomach it, tat from Russia (because that's recent!). However, I don't know a huge amount about these subjects, and there isn't much appetite for this sort of thing from my neck of the woods, hence why I've traveled here.
So, has anyone attempted something similar to this before, so I can build up a more competent picture of the situation? I've found a few patterns, but vast chunks of these things have no external clues at all. This is the only place on the internet I can think of were people might actually care.