From: "david shadoff" <david.shadoff@canrem.com>
Subject: rec.games.video frequ
Reply-To: "david shadoff" <david.shadoff@canrem.com>
Organization: Canada Remote Systems
Distribution: rec
Date: 15 Oct 92 00:16:27 EST

In message <1992Oct10.072722.19024#blaze.cs.jhu.edu>,
arromdee@jyusenkyou.cs.jhu.edu (Ken Arromdee) writes:

>>Not true.  The TG-16 contains this sequence as a 'protection'
>>mechanism.  No such protection is designed into PC-Engine cartridges
>>(to the best of my knowledge).

>OK, I'm still confused.
>If this is executable code, it's sort of like the Genesis/Mega Drive
>difference.  (It so happens that that _does_ involve a jumper, though of course
>there's no reason TG-16/PCE must also.)

>It also sounds like a PCE game could be written that won't work on the TG-16,
>and the only reason there aren't such games is that nobody decided to do it.
>Yet.

Correct.  However, I believe that virtually no Japanese developers are
willing to take the U.S. market seriously because the PC-E market is
simply just so vast, and the U.S. market is piddly - even after a
couple of years.  So, nobody (so far) has gone to the trouble of
finding out NEC's protection mechanism and used it in their own games,
probably because they saw no need to.  Not to mention that the legal/
ethical guidelines for 'borrowing' materials (including copyrighted
ones) seems to be much less enforcement-crazed over there.  So again,
they have nothing to 'protect'.  Also, realize the fact that they
know the U.S. market will buy a few copies of their game in PC-E
format; but getting it marketed in the U.S. (by someone else willing
to take the fall) is tough.

>And a CD game should be able to refuse to run.  But if so, why do American CDs
>play on Japanese machines?  It doesn't make sense that NEC would want to ban
>cross-country game exports for carts, but allow it for CDs.  (Particularly
>since CDs play without an adapter.)

Well, go figure.  The controller card, if I remember correctly, is
'protected'.  Actually, several of their CD-ROM's are simple
re-pressings of the Japanese ones, without even changing a byte.
(I also believe that others are overdubbed and precisely timed in
order to take up the exact same amount of space, in order to have
large portions of the disc identical for reduced re-mastering costs.
I also believe that their U.S. operation is handicapped in the CD-ROM
area, in technical aspects.)

>It also sounds like someone could make a "bilingual" game like the well-known
>Mega Drive ones.  (For that matter, maybe some games are already like that.
>Nobody would ever know unless they tried a game on both machines.)
>Am I right?

I can only agree with you on that one.  But as I said before, I
don't believe that anyone has felt like doing that yet.  Nice idea,
if you want to start up a development house.  ;-)

 - Dave
 
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|    David Shadoff       |  Usenet:  david.shadoff@canrem.com         |
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