Capcom USA still fixed boards atleast 5 years ago. And since HSF2 came out in 2003, I'd hope they still offer to change the battery and reprogram the encryption key. Who else besides Razoola has made "Phoenix edition" cps2 roms or whatever they want to call them?
I don't know about the US, but Capcom JP still fixes Japanese PCBs from what I understand. Free, as well, if I'm not mistaken. Regardless of whether Capcom is write/wrong in doing so, doesn't mean someone else legally should be doing it either. Yeah, it's a stupid function and is only one of many, many reasons why Capcom sucks gigantic cocks, but still doesn't change the fact that hacking the roms is illegal.
I have a contact at Capcom Japan who assures me that they will still repair CPS2 boards and CPS3 carts at the Japanese HQ. He stated that they will repair any region board/cart from any location in the world, so long as you cover the cost of return shipping in addition to the fee for the repair itself.
yep, thats me. ive created my own roms for dimahoo, progear and battle circuit. i did this because i wanted to have suicide-free games that play just like the original encrypted ones, but without any of the phoenix bootscreens, hacks, and region selection menus. also thought about selling these just like razoola, but later decided against that for various reasons. heres a link to the original thread: http://www.killercabs.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=7927&start=0
Sven, check your PM! Costs for CPS-II/III repair vary on the repair work that is needed, but are estimated to be anywhere between $50 and $150 (US). Not cheap, I know, but at least they still offer support for ten-year-old hardware, which is a lot longer than most companies would!
I'd rather pay the shipping and have it de-suicided. But yeah, that Phoenix bootscreen... no thanks. d4s, are your roms distributed?
they arent, i just made them for myself. i'm thinking of releasing one set as a proof of concept, though.
So did you have to decrypt them yourself? I own a whopping one CPS2 rom, and it's quite playable in MAME, so I'm not going to get my panties in a bunch if it suicides on me. I always wonder though, what is a more stupid idea: a suiciding product, or so many renditions of Street Fighter.
CPS Suicide is stupid. The only reason to kill the decryption key data would be if someone made an attempt to read it out to try to decrypt it and then bootleg it. But legitimate owners suffer because of this and basically have to turn to bootleggers for help fixing this. CPS1 games have hacks to fix their suicide battery issues. While authentic hardware is great, I'd rather have it hacked so it never kills itself than to have it in original suicidial order. Having the suicide inplace doesn't affect playing the game in any positive way, so the hacks to remove those worrys are nice.
Legitimate users leave the game switched on all day, the game will not be generating income way before the battery dies. Unless of course you have the invoice from capcom to prove you bought it from them? smf
Why do you assume you have to have bought the game from Capcom directly to be a legitimate user? If you paid the money to buy the board no one can tell you that you don't haev a right to it, you bought it. I see your point that Capcom clearly doesn't give a shit because mostarcade operators would have ditched the game before it died anyway, but it's short sighted and irresponsible. I hate people who make things that they consider to just be disposable. You can't keep throwing shit in the trash forever, eventually you won't have anywhere else to throw it. You should build things that last. But who cares, now just like many other games you'll just reprogram the rom chips to fix it. Or you'll emulate it, whatever.
I don't believe Capcom requires any proof of purchase to fix the board. I'm sure my Progear is going to die sometime soon... Might have to send it in.
At which point capcom have no responsibility for the game. Why do people assume that just because you paid money for something that you have all rights to it? Buy an xbox devkit in the marketplace and then try phoning Microsoft about it. I very much doubt they care who has it, as the warranty has run out and they'll charge you more than it's worth to repair it. smf
While there will always be people arguing the pro's and con's of the practice of decrypting roms, this : http://www.killercabs.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=8727&sid is pretty much the clincher for me.
Well, from a legal standpoint in the US, these games were sold to the consumer, not licensed or rented as is the case with your Devkit example. Capcom intentionally installed a mechanism which could be seen as breaching the implied warranty of fitness for a particular purpose by eventually and randomly causing the item to stop functioning. While many of us know about the suicide battery, to the best of my knowledge this is not something that buyers were originally made aware of. Remember that these are not gray market items.
