original or a fake?
Moderators: B00daW, Moderators
@blargg: That would be hilarious. It really would.
As far as copy-protecting NES games, it's really a lost cause in some respects. I know alot of people will disagree with me, but personally I think that the modern age just makes copy protection a waste of time. The internet make distribution of information and software easy and inevitable and just speeds up the time it takes for people to collaborate and crack protection schemes. And of course, if you're a low wage worker in China or Hong Kong who has access to tools it kinda makes it very easy to make a few extra bucks even if you sell your counterfeits for a few dollars less than optimum price.
And as for new games, I understand the desire to make it copy protected, but if I was selling a new game I wouldn't bother wasting my time or money with copy protection. I'd start out by releasing the game on cartridge, and then wait for a while and release the ROM later on after my limited supply of carts runs out. The people who would have bought a cartridge will probably still do so just for the sheer novelty of it, and the leeches and lamers will still just hack it and play in an emulator sooner or later.
As far as new carts being collectibles, you could always just hand autograph the inside of each cartridge and serialize them. Each serial number would have a unique signature, so unless the bootlegger had photos of the inside of every single NES cartridge and then also knew which ones wouldn't be accounted for online he wouldn't be able to fake it.
As far as copy-protecting NES games, it's really a lost cause in some respects. I know alot of people will disagree with me, but personally I think that the modern age just makes copy protection a waste of time. The internet make distribution of information and software easy and inevitable and just speeds up the time it takes for people to collaborate and crack protection schemes. And of course, if you're a low wage worker in China or Hong Kong who has access to tools it kinda makes it very easy to make a few extra bucks even if you sell your counterfeits for a few dollars less than optimum price.
And as for new games, I understand the desire to make it copy protected, but if I was selling a new game I wouldn't bother wasting my time or money with copy protection. I'd start out by releasing the game on cartridge, and then wait for a while and release the ROM later on after my limited supply of carts runs out. The people who would have bought a cartridge will probably still do so just for the sheer novelty of it, and the leeches and lamers will still just hack it and play in an emulator sooner or later.
As far as new carts being collectibles, you could always just hand autograph the inside of each cartridge and serialize them. Each serial number would have a unique signature, so unless the bootlegger had photos of the inside of every single NES cartridge and then also knew which ones wouldn't be accounted for online he wouldn't be able to fake it.
If one does their own quality control (highly recommended), then the build quality of the cart is about as effective a signature too, I believe. Just using a unique PCB would be a big step in that direction. Heh on the last NES board layout I prototyped, I have "Garage Cart #2" silk-screened onto it. If you do a through-hole design, you could have a gold-plated signature/logo/graphic, no kidding. 
(you'd want a solder coating for surface-mount though). I figured why not, it doesn't cost anything extra, and I figured it would be dumb to limit my future possibilities to a single mapper/board by (prematurely) planning to reuse it for anything else.
Yeah copy protection for games sounds like a waste of time. Really the only use I see for it is more towards security with internet applications. Any kind of online game for example, would become useless if anyone can just easily hack the ROMs to cheat and/or screw up the game for others. Same goes for almost any kind of online services (with fake servers, etc.). None of that stuff exists of course, and also the way I would do it probably makes it transparent to the NES itself, but I'm sure that same sort of feature used for authentication could be made to work as a protection thing somehow.
(you'd want a solder coating for surface-mount though). I figured why not, it doesn't cost anything extra, and I figured it would be dumb to limit my future possibilities to a single mapper/board by (prematurely) planning to reuse it for anything else.Yeah copy protection for games sounds like a waste of time. Really the only use I see for it is more towards security with internet applications. Any kind of online game for example, would become useless if anyone can just easily hack the ROMs to cheat and/or screw up the game for others. Same goes for almost any kind of online services (with fake servers, etc.). None of that stuff exists of course, and also the way I would do it probably makes it transparent to the NES itself, but I'm sure that same sort of feature used for authentication could be made to work as a protection thing somehow.
The pricing is totally dependent on the size of the board. My tiny UNROM board (about the size of an NROM board), IIRC was under 75 cents. Add maybe $100 in setup cost (one-time fee) and shipping, so around $1.75 a board for 100 of them.
I think the board-area cost for full-size cart when I made the old Squeedo (fills up the entire cart shell) was about $3.50. But that was a pretty large board.
I think the board-area cost for full-size cart when I made the old Squeedo (fills up the entire cart shell) was about $3.50. But that was a pretty large board.
