Hey everyone, I managed to pick up 9 official N64 dev carts, 3 are PAL and 6 are US. I have had no problem testing the 3 PAL carts. They play fine on a retail console and have found some cool stuff on there. I am having some trouble playing the US carts though. I bought a Passport Plus III from Play-Asia and tested this last night but can only get 1 of them to boot through it. The other 5 all come back with the message 'This game was not designed for use with this system'. This has left me very confused. I am borrowing a US machine from a friend for a couple of weeks and that should be here within the next few days. Will this solve the problem? Is there a specific machine I need to play these? Has anyone had any similar problems? Any help would be great. Thank you.
The region code is wrong it looks like, for your console, is the first issue. I believe you will need an authentic US console as there probably is no established hack for those games. You use your original power deck and video cable, and can reuse expansion pak, so all you need is the base console. Which games have you picked up for reference?
Cheers mate, I have a US base unit on its way so hopefully that will solve my troubles. The 3 PAL ones I have managed to test are - Earthworm Jim - Looks really close to retail from what I have played. Colour schemes are the same and the level layouts are the same. Earthworm Jim - Different build to retail, different start screens and different colour schemes. Although the levels look the same they are set out in different places and at different times. Tom & Jerry - Must be a very early build. Main menu comes up and you can select 'single player', 'multi player' or 'options'. 'Options' menu works fine and you can change the settings (i.e. Time of bouts, number of bouts etc..) If you select 'single player' or 'multi player' it takes you to the character select screen; all the characters silhouettes are there put not one can be highlighted for selection (so basically you cannot play the game). As for the US carts, I have no idea yet as they are not labelled up. One does say 'PPG Fighting Game' on there so I presume it is Power Puff Girls but not certain. I like the fact it doesn't have the actual game title on as it could mean it is a very early build. I will keep you posted on the other 5 if/when I get them working.
I've seen other weirdness too. I saw a proto with a German region code once, but I imagine that would've played on your PAL unit. I'm very interested to hear what comes of this!
