Hi Everyone, One of my relatives in China said they could hunt down the whole WAIXING catalog of games for me. That is for NES and GB/GBC. There are about 30 Chinese original GB games, and even more NES games. You'll know these as unlicenced stuff like Dragon Quest V, etc. Each game comes boxed with cart and manual (I assume boxs are like the kind Genesis carts or PSP games come in). I don't know the details as of yet, but I'll know more soon. If I got extras, or even purchased full sets, would anyone be intrested buying some?
Thanks guys! Well, these are the prolems I see right now: 1. Although my cousin is willing to hunt down titles for me I'm not sure how rare some titles are when compared to others. He'd basicly have to run around to each malls/markets computer section to see if they had dead/old stock left in the local cities he can make it to. 2. He'd only get new stock (I don't think they came manufacture sealed) 3. In addition, he'd have to bargin for each game since each store sells at their own local rates. 4. Make shipping titles back worth while (Ie.A large quanity.) 5. Cover the costs of everything and a little extra for travel/gas/time. Given my experience in China, I think it might cost around $10 to $20 for each game but that depends on how well bargening goes, and how much he's bargening for. Considering how most of these Chinese games are undumped, at the minimum I going to make a full GB set since its the smaller of the sets (Only about 30 game) so that much is clear. The NES set is much larger. I estimate around 60 orginal games or so. So ya, if people are intrested in getting large quanitites, or wants a full set, I'll tell my cousin to start building them. It might be possible to hunt for select titles, but I doubt it would be economical for him to do so. Plus, you'd need the Chinese untranslated game name since English titles are worthless in China
I'm not interested in a fullset - a significant number of them would be unintelligible RPGs, presumably, and there's no way I could afford the £300-£600 you're estimating it'd cost. Ideally I'd like to pick and choose, just to be awkward Is there a game list anywhere? I have a thing for unlicensed knock-offs of other platform franchises (Somari and that kind of thing), so that's what I'm really looking for.
Well, your right that most games are going to be RPGs. A bulk of them are Chinese era piriod stuff. I would suspect also a lot of communist/anti-Japanese stuff too. But you do have remakes like Dragon Quest, Pokemon, Gundam, Monster Maker, Dynasty Warriors, Everquest, and other things of the like thrown in as well. As for a game listings my cousin has a hardcopy list. I assume he got it from a local dealer, who in turn got it from the manufacture. But unfortunatly all the game titles are in Chinese (No serial numbers) so its pretty useless unless you can read it. But in terms of lists, it's probably the closest thing from the horses mouth. Most of the lists i see on the internet are incomplete and have terrible miss-translations into english. Makes hunting a hell of a lot harder. As for what my cousin has learned, he says the games were released in diffrent forms. Some games were loose-only releases (I suppose pack-in games for edutainment systems). Some games only were released with box, and some games come with full case and printed color manual. The three games I already own from Waixing came in clear Gameboy cases that look like PSP cases with color insert and full manual. I'm hoping more games got the red-carpet treatment, but I suspect only the gameboy line of games (higher quality) titles got that. Anyway, its the weekend so I assume most dealers are on brake, but I'm hopefull he'll be able to get more research done this week.
By the way, for those too tired to look through the other Chinese originals thread, here is the cell phone shots I took of my Waixing gameboy games.
I'd love a Famicom full set. I'm not a CIB collector, but CIB would be fine. Is your cousin only getting Waixing? How about Shen Zhen Nanjing Technology? These games cost, what, like $3 each in China? That's what I see on Chinese eBay.
I would definatly be interested in getting the chinese GB set, or at least as many as your cousin could scrape together. what is your sense of how much this will end up costing per game?
Hey Everyone, My cousin's been doing more digging around and it turns out that many manufactures seem to have old stock so he's considering going direct. Just a matter of finding the right company to go with. I assume he doesn't relish the idea of running around china for cartriges Given from what i've heard, the games would probably stay within the initial estimate between $10 and $20, depending on package type (Loose, Box + Cart, Box + Cart + Manual). Price also drops depending on volume of orders, but I think it might be on the high end since I can't see myself ordering 1000's of units. Anyway, he's sent off inquiries to contacts so we'll see what happens. EDIT: Since this might turn out to be a professional order, I might also look into getting a quantity of "Coolboy" gameboy clones. Something about playing a Chinese original on a Chinese gameboy clone is neat
Not sure if other manufactures are possible. I just know Waixing is the biggest around so it's the most feasible software to go after. There are like over 120 Chinese orignals they produced so if theres a gold-mine of classic gaming, thats it. As for price, it really depends. The last time I was in China, loose cartriges were around $7 to $12 bucks each (Chinese wall-mart type department stores). The nicely packaged ones were around $20 or so. I think if your going for new stock it probably will be about that.
Shen Zhen Nanjing Technology released nearly 100 games, if my database is correct -- highest product number I've seen is NJ074. Shen Zhen may be Waixing's main competitor, and as far as Famicom goes, they were responsible for appealing titles like FFVII, Titanic, and Tomb Raider. I think both companies are located in Fuzhou, so that may be the place to go... BTW: I don't know if we can call their games "Chinese originals" since both companies use the same basic RPG engine over and over. They pretty much just hacked their RPGs to make "new" RPGs. So, I've been debating what to call them: originals or hacks?
You see the same thing with Famicom unlicensed fighters, like Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat, World Heroes, Tekken, King of Fighters, etc. All of them started with the same basic engine and companies just hacked title screens, added and changed fighters, changed backgrounds and maybe altered a few other graphical features here and there. It's kind of a rip, but it keeps me busy trying to track down the best version of the engine. A few companies perfected this engine; some created their own, it seems.
I think they're still pirate/Chinese originals. It's not like the engine is half-original just because it's been used a few times before (or else Sonic and Knuckles is half-original as well). Of course, whether the engine was entirely "original" itself is another question... is there evidence of code theft in unlicensed Famicom games?
There's lots of evidence of potential code theft in unlicensed games -- best example I can think of right now is the so-called original Contra 7, which steals sprites from Contra and Mighty Final Fight. The fighters have borrowed engines and sprites, Gouder borrowed from JY Company...Rex borrowed from Sachen. I say "borrowed" because I tend to think most of these companies communicated with one another and didn't think taking someone else's sprites was the same as stealing them. As for code theft in these Chinese games, I don't know. I think these companies began by developing a single engine and then spitting out a bunch of games based on that original engine. They certainly stole names and storylines, like FFVII, Titanic, Tomb Raider, Dragon Quest, Yu-Gi-Oh! and so on.
Some RPG games use stolen engines. As an example FF, with stolen sprites and similar looking monsters and interface.
The coolboy is a onestation clone, which then again is a machine, where the NOAC chip is inside of the of the carts.