SNES POWERFEST & SUPER FAMICOM COMPETITION CARTS

jollerancher's Gallery

 

sound weird to ask, but can you show it closed

 

Any more pic of the famicom test, just to see if it's identical to part of this supposed SNES CD?

Sorry for hijacking this thread

 

whoa, this seems fishy now

 

Woah! This seems amazingly similar to the SNES CD! Could it be that the *supposed*SNES CD on the pictures posted on the other thread (doesnt remember) was only a famicom Test machine??

 

the super nintendo cart is the 1994 powerfest cart with the games super mario bros "the lost levels", super mario kart, and ken griffey major league baseball. the 1992 super famicom cart was used for a one time competition between 2 u.s. and 2 japanese players and includes the games super mario world, f-zero, and pilotwings(yes the same games as the super nintendo campus challenge cart that has been found). u can go to the link i provided earlier to view screen shots and all the other goodies i found at the garage sale of a former nintendo employee who was in charge of all this stuff. according to him this are the only copies of these 2 competition carts that werent given back to nintendo and taken apart to be used for something else. ray:

 

nice try... the first two are another thig compared to the second one

 

:nod: Yep, it's true. It may look fishy, but that's what everyone says the first time they see these pics. They're really neat, nuh? Great story, too.

I've seen these photos at the Famicom World forum, NES World forum, NES Forums and now here -- maybe posted at DP. Just curious, jollerancher...why do you post these pics in so many places? Are you trying to sell these? Trying to find info about them?

 

really just trying to get the word out that they exist. when i first found the nes campus challenge, (2) nes earthbound proto's, snes zelda 3 proto, etc i really had know idea that collecting retro video games was this popular. now i know a little more and i figure it's my obligation to share this items ive found with people like yourself that truly appreciate them. as far as finding out info on them ive spoke to the former nintendo employee i got these from and were gonna sit down and he's going to tell me all he knows about them. when i get that info i'll be sure to share it with the find folks here and of course on famicomworld.com.

 

Is there any concern on the part of collectors that those PROMs might one day soon erase themselves? I'd hate for us to lose those games.

 

im pretty sure they''l eventually end up in the hands of someone who will back them up like the nes campus challenge i had. ive been in touch with alot of the big collector's who also dont want to see these games erase themselves.

 

Well, it could just be a metal box with a supposed CD drive, some random buttons to match the prototype pictures and a carved-out snes port on top ..but if i were to test a SNES cd it would probably look something like that - which by the way could have been easily a home-made backup unit to run games off a CD?

 

The reason that I thought the test unit being similar to part of the botom of the prototype is that it is a part from nintendo on the unit.

Why would a pirate dismantle a test unit to make a back up unit?

 

Because pulstec did the laser/cd unit, and nintendo the designed/built the actual chipset?

And hasn't it been established that these things are rare? What are the chances some pirate gets a hold of one of these and makes a very unusual cd backup unit? And what are the odds this thing is found with a prototype PSX controller?

 

the prototype psx controller has no stickers or anything on it. I could make you a controller like that any day. Hell, if you have a friend in the plastics business you could make a fortune selling legendary (but essentially bootlegged) controllers and consoles on ebay.

And by the way, the controller is not hard-wired to the unit. In other pictures it is shown to have a standard RS 232 interface. Why though? Only the old dev controllers of the PSone were in RS 232 (and sega's mega drive of course, but the pin-out was unique) in playstation related history, in order to connect to the proper dev board. The SNES was long established and the prototype SNES CD in the official releases (including the sony stand-alone version) has standard SNES controller inputs. So where did the controller plug-in if the unit doesnt have any controller ports and the SNES unit doesnt do RS232? It just doesnt make sense. In the best case the guy who owns the set might have his hands on an original prototype of the PSone controller and from there on he got inspired and counterfeited the SNES-CD depicted.

Besides, that unit may not even be a backup unit. Just some guy's attempt to impress the masses. If it were anything real, pictures of it would at least exist. Don't forget that the official manner of operation of the SNES-Cd does not fit the profile that this unit presents, as the top slot was only going to be used for the System Cartridge (a la 64DD dev).

 

go and read my topic floating around and care to read it all

pulsetech are professional in making prototypes of optical devices. still it could be a VERY well studied brik-in-a-box... but how many of you ever heard of pulsetech before?

Edit: ALSO NOTE that the first 6 Pictures have NOTHING to spare with the 7th (snescd proto)

 

you have a point but ultimately, you cant tell if its fake or not just by looking at two or three pictures of the units housing.

just some thoughts:
1. say someone made this to brag about having a snes-cd prototype. dont you think he'd at least want to have _some_ publicity?
we dont even know who's currently in posession of the unit.
2. if he was into plastic molding and stuff, why make an ugly box that looks nothing like a console or any snes cd prototype we have seen so far for this matter?
3. i already explained this in another snes-cd thread: almost all signals going out of the snes' bottom connector are also present on the cartridge connectors ext-pads, which most cartridges with coprocessors use. that includes the b-bus and the audio input lines.
from a technical point of view, you could connect the unit to the top or the bottom slot without having change anything beside the connector.
4. are there any pictures showing the controller actually plugged into the drive or a rs232 connector on the unit? to my knowledge, there arent any.
i wouldnt take it for granted that the controller belongs to this specific unit.

 

interesting point about the top/bottom slot, didn't know.

But why on earth would a prototype have a sticker that says "not for sale" and a serial number? prototypes don't have any numbering at all usually, and in contrast devkits do.

The guy has had some publicity, with the pictures of himself in shows. I don't know if that's the same guy holding the device to this day, but last time i checked he wasnt selling it.

 

In this picture, you can see some connectors on the side. The small connector(one on the right) may be rs232.


As for the number and not for sale sticker, this may be a dev kit. It's also possible that this was some type of proto that was handed over to a developer for testing and whatnot.

And being an attention whore, why hasn't he done more, and why hasn't he tried to sell it? Yes, some people may get satisfaction over doing something like this, but word from the show is, he wasn't saying anything about the unit-and it was only long after the show that people saw the pics and realized what they were.

And sorry to the origional poster for taking this so far off topic.

 

I agree with WindowsKiller on his points. Its more probable than not that this might be faked. If it was indeed a devkit more than one piece would be around . Early devkits/protokits do not carry a serial usually as their number of distro is low and the company knows the people they give the unit in person and not just over some documents. so they make also sure as hell get the units back.