Arcade Circuit boards for amusement and coin-op are far different than dev kits. You can't compare them and make any sense.
Do you have proof of that? Can you re-sell warranties in the US? In the UK the warranty can't be transferred. In america an implied warranty lasts longer than the battery on a cps2 board? As they are lasting many years longer than xbox 360's, I find that hard to believe. Leaving a cps2 board turned off is the surest way to kill it. I'd hate to work in the US, everyone seems to want to be able to kick you in the ass and then get compensation for hurting their foot. I really wish someone would have the balls to make EULA's legally enforceable over there. smf
Honestly, I really do not know why this is such a sore point for you. First, yes there is proof since there are no contracts which you need to agree to in order to purchase the game, there are no "click-wrap" agreements when it is first played, and the documentation included with the kits (e.g. manuals) make no mention of licensing agreements nor the suicide battery. A side note: the implied warranty of fitness for a particular purpose is not a warranty per se, it is a legal doctrine affecting manufacturers which requires that saleable items must be fit for their intended function. You could not make and sell a new car which only drives between 100-200 miles before it needs to be replaced. I only said that the suicide battery *could* be seen as breaching this legal covenant.
B/c you're buying a product, not a service, w/ no type of contract. A CPS2 board is no different than a PS2 cartridge. Capcom sells the games to distributors, the distributors sell them to shops, shops sell them to mainly arcades, but also to individuals. There's no track of who bought what from where. Capcom has no more or less right to diss Johnny arcade fan than a Sega arcade. I was told buy a distributor here (AMI's main distributor, actually) that to get a CPS2 rerommed, you simply "send it to Capcom". Of course, there's more to it than that, but it's more to go on than just speculation.
actually the opposite is true, the battery on a cps2 board is not a rechargeable one, storing the board in a dark and cold place will keep the current flowing the longest while having it switched on with the current and heat generated will kill it quicker.. ;-) i have games like SSF2 that have survived in storeage for well over 10 years and still work today while most Progear boards start dying about now without a battery change, especially those in the hands of collectors, turn a board on and off for 1-2hour sessions every day is the quickest way to kill it.
While it's powered up there is no drain on the battery, so it would last. I'd expect between 5 & 10 years, which for some arcade boards is quite good. Others die much quicker than that. But they don't have rabid fans who complain ;-) Well, I have seen not for resale etc type agreements with arcade games. If you were the first user and it died within it's warranty period then I'd expect capcom to fix it for free. But you're not and it isn't, so they won't. Not many people are rich enough to buy arcade games new, but if you did then the fee capcom charge for servicing the board is relatively cheap. Definately cheaper than the service costs of a car. A cps2 board was bought cheap off ebay & it was broken. This was seen as capcom selling goods which were not fit for purpose and justified the widespread distribution of unprotected roms. Whose distribution promotes people killing their boards to run their favourite game. Now firstly it's actually illegal to do it because of the DMCA ( even if you own the arcade board and do the conversion yourself ). But we can leave that one alone, because I can already hear you all jumping on that one. Secondly. While what you do with your cps2 board is your business, even the ability to do alot of this stuff is because other people have put in work to preserve these games. If you want to just take and take and then never give anything back ( and worse kill a game that hasn't been preserved yet ) then nobody can stop you, but it's not exactly nice. smf
Not legally binding in Japan...even if they do exist. You can resell whatever you want. Where did you see these? Even so, nobody can still prove you were not the first one to buy it.
Thanks a lot idc. Does that mean a pheonix fix contains several revisions of the same game (japanese and western release)?
No, you just have the option of changing what region it runs in, ussually giving you the ability to select a japanese or english region, I forget if you had an option for hispanic or some other language. But usually you can set Japan, USA, Euro, Asia, and maybe ETC/World or some others. There really isn't a point to the region switch other than for Japanese/English switching.
And you don't really need that. How many CPS2 games had changes made for the better for their English versions? How many actually require any type of reading?
Great Mahou Daisakusen / Dimahoo, actually. The in-game item list command is very helpful, essential when playing for score. Then there's that D&D Quiz game, I guess.
none are essential but quite a few games make the experience better in concideration of story and stats and whatnot, D&Dgames, armored warriors, alien vs predator.. to name a few.
A self-compiled version of MAME 0.117. Edit: I think "MAME Plus" does some of the Phoenix ROMs. If you want my MAME32 binary which supports a few more, PM me and I'll send it to you.
i apologize for not being around for so long, went on a trip to japan and stayed there for 3 months. wanted to release the complete, unprotected progear romset before the trip, but didn't manage to. in order to fulfill my promise, here's a link to the romset: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=OG8490IB if you want to spread it, feel free to. i assume the megaupload link will be gone sooner or later. this can be used to convert any cps2 board to progear or repair broken original boards. the unprotected game plays just like the original, so you won't know the difference unless you open it up.(no phoenix bootscreens, hacks or anything like that) have fun!
Excellent work, d4s! Hopefully I'll be able to do a few other games too... Edit: I've built a version of MAME which supports d4s's "Stealth Phoenix" version of Progear, along with many of the other Phoenix edition ROMs (a number of which do not currently appear in MAME Plus). Source code available on request. Download (current version is 0.120u2): 32-bit optimised: ftp://ftp.untergrund.net/users/idc/mamebuilds/mame32_0120u2_phoenix.rar 64-bit optimised: ftp://ftp.untergrund.net/users/idc/mamebuilds/mame64_0120u2_phoenix.rar The above archives contain a single executable file only. If you need the support files from the mame32qa team, you can also download the binary package, replacing the included executable with one of the above: ftp://ftp.untergrund.net/users/idc/mamebuilds/Mame32b.120.2.exe (7z sfx archive) d4s ROM mirror: http://rapidshare.com/files/66799161/Progear_j__unprotected.rar
