I know alot of people on here have betas/protos/unreleased games, and I've always wondered what would be the best course of action to actually FIND one. Is it just a combination of luck and waiting on eBay, or do defunct game companies actually sell all of their shit? Do you just need connections?
Seriously tho, there are companies that sell things, connections are nice, and I've also found things on ebay that people didn't know what they were.
I found a n64 prototype at a retro expo. They wanted $1,700.00 and said it doesn't boot on a standard n64 only a development. To my knowledge with the sdk there are no special versions that you can compile for dev only. Only adding makemask for the crc and adding final to remove the special debug functions. Probably could of talked him down to $600 or less if he was reasonable and pulled put the SDK so he realized it was blank. Probably missed my best chance on getting a good deal looking back. I guess it would crash immediately calling a debug function like Ossyncprint() but to not boot at all?
once find dev or not for sale item , try get all you can, some day take this to exchange or give away to some one made a big network lucky will find you
Those are just certain carts that hook up with SCSI to Indy/Win that Rare liked to use. This was just a standard flash cart one no connections. Really kicking myself not to make a offer didn't seem to attached to it either.
If it was one of the standard Nintendo development flash carts (I.E. the really tall looking carts) then it should have booted on a retail N64. It it won't boot, it's broken, corrupt or blank - or possibly has the wrong CIC type for the region of the console you are trying to use it in. In any case, unless you want it as an artifact then those original Nintendo carts aren't worth bothering with - to use them for anything you also need to find a GW or SW to write them and they are pretty slow anyway. If you want something for development then get the 64drive, if you just want to play games then get an Everdrive.
Sometimes it just comes down to straight luck by being in the right place at the right time online. There are also geographical locations where you are just far more apt to find items like this in the wild. Places where there are a large amount of game developers are prime.
Didn't see thread. Sorry if I made mine afterward. Was asking same question against Biohazard 1.5 and 0... I'm wondering why dont industry corporate groups open code or allow consumers a license to convert existing games to a target console? Why should I be forced to buy Xbox 360 to play "Blue Dragon"? I'd rather use a license to convert it to a preferred target like Wii-U or maybe Windows RT. What if I want to update my PSX to a Nintendo 3DS or PSP to play "Final Fantasy VII"? Think your best chance of finding prototypes is Japanese and Russian networks. Find decent network hubs; been a while but I used DC++ in 2003. Forget WWW and torrents...
I found a LOT of prototypes - they come from a "nintendo near" company. Getting that connection was pure coinsidence and luck. In my opinion, you will need a lot of luck to get a exclusive connection.
I'll shine some light on this, to also clear the air why a lot of betas don't make it out of collectors hands. Some people had friends that worked at a game magazine company and would either make copies or give them the disc after the review was finished. These discs supposed to be "destroyed". If they leaked it, that meant betraying their friend and a breach of trust. However, people with rare betas would trade them with others that had rare betas, because they were in the same position. 10 years ago on this forum, you had a few small groups that would trade with each other. I don't think I've seen any of them post in the last 2-3 years TBH. That's the "grey" area. Here is the black area. When Xbox 360 and PS3 gameout, the disc would be sent as well as hosted on a private server from the company. People would find them and hacked them. If you leaked a game this way, the company would know that they need to fix their security on the server, meaning no more betas. Also, they can look through the logs, and if you left any traces, they can come find you. I wanted to say all of this because people get their panties in a wad over some collectors not sharing. They think they are doing it for an ego boost or just be an asshole. I've seen reasons ON THIS forum that are just ridiculous. They are not sharing because they either respect their friend or they obtained it in a shady manner. So when someone posts a screenshot of a video of something, you better be glad they at least did that. The attitudes on this forum is why it's in the state it is now.
Not quite the overall picture... Attitudes changed (a bit) when that small group of beta collectors/sellers would list a whole page of betas with three figure sums attached but they wouldn't test the discs to see if they were in fact any different to retail (so, just review copies) I believe there was also a rule change implemented to stop it happening. Their typical argument was "I have so many discs, I don't have time to check all of them..." It really was a gamble Not very nice when people shelled out huge sums for games that were byte for byte identical to retail. In the end, they stopped selling or discussing them because they had sold everything - that's the impression I got.
one more source - scrapyard at building where was some gaming company in the past. and now, landlord(s) pulling stuff from scrap, identify it, cleaning, and pushing to ebay. in this way we got preserved a lot of Sega arcade prototypes, rare games, rare undumped games revisions, etc, during past years. which came from former Sega's office building in US, or Sega's warehouse in China for example...
