Bootleg Gallery (Pic Heavy)

trenton_net

Kuroko's Training Dummy
Joined
Oct 18, 2016
Posts
70
In my own experience it's not that easy to erase EPROMs. I have had to bake them in direct UV light for as long as 30 mins to completely erase a chip, MVS carts have small vent windows and I doubt there is much sunlight in your MVS cab :-) not much concern for a bootlegger to worry about wasting stickers in an environment that's not that unstable.

I assume in your example, 30 minutes is the total time to erase every bit of the EPROM, where as a shorter bake time will only erase some parts of the memory? I guess it's kind of a gray area, and not binary (All or nothing) in terms of erasing?
 

Gunbu

,
Joined
Sep 29, 2000
Posts
69
Here are a couple of the bootlegs I own.
Neo Turf Masters
neoturf_boot.jpg


Puzzle Bobble. Someone sure put a lot of work into this one.
pb_boot01.jpg

pb_boot02.jpg
 

Heinz

Parteizeit
15 Year Member
Joined
Feb 13, 2005
Posts
22,333
I knowingly received a KOF99 bootleg MVS cart (was thrown in with a 1C bought from ebay).

The label is fake and I reckon even the warning stick is too. Booooooty!

kof99fake.jpgkof99fake1.jpgkof99fake2.jpg
 

ledfrog

n00b
Joined
Mar 9, 2017
Posts
42
I'm fascinated by the varying styles of boards used for bootlegs and some of them look nice in terms of their construction. This brings up some questions: if a bootlegger is going to go through the trouble of having a custom printed circuit board made, how come they didn't try to emulate the original board better? I mean if they were trying to dupe naive buyers, wouldn't the best bet be to try and copy the original as close as possible? Isn't that the whole point of counterfeiting anything?

Don't get me wrong...I'm glad they don't since it would make it a bit harder to find boots in the wild, but I'm still curious.
 

aha2940

AH, A, COLUMBIAN!,
Joined
Dec 15, 2013
Posts
2,528
I'm fascinated by the varying styles of boards used for bootlegs and some of them look nice in terms of their construction. This brings up some questions: if a bootlegger is going to go through the trouble of having a custom printed circuit board made, how come they didn't try to emulate the original board better? I mean if they were trying to dupe naive buyers, wouldn't the best bet be to try and copy the original as close as possible? Isn't that the whole point of counterfeiting anything?

Don't get me wrong...I'm glad they don't since it would make it a bit harder to find boots in the wild, but I'm still curious.

That would mean making boards for through-hole chips, and also getting the chips, which are obsolete and likely not that easy to obtain. Current technology is likely cheaper, and anyway, if people knows about boots, they will not fall for them. If they have no clue, no matter what, they will fall.

TL;DR: it makes no sense.
 

Niko

Whip's Subordinate
Joined
May 15, 2014
Posts
1,773
In the case of MVS, I dont believe bootlegs where ever made to try an "dupe" anyone. I think it was a way for operators to save money and pirates to make money. Alot of bootlegs, despite the physical differences, play just fine. Its when you get into the later games post 1999, when things get finicky, as the protections wearn't fully understood. So pirates would get them to a "good enough" state, or use proto version and then move on to the next game.

Of course, this is just my opinion.
 
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xsq

Thou Shalt Not, Question Rot.,
Joined
Jan 17, 2013
Posts
7,414
what niko said (at least for the MVS side of things).
 

ledfrog

n00b
Joined
Mar 9, 2017
Posts
42
That would mean making boards for through-hole chips, and also getting the chips, which are obsolete and likely not that easy to obtain.

This totally makes sense, but I was thinking more along the lines of at least getting the boards the same...like identical trace patterns and chip layouts. But after thinking about it some more, I guess that wouldn't have been very cost effective even for a bootlegger seeing as how they'd probably want to maximize their ability to boot multiple games using the same knockoff boards and some games require a different amount of chips as well as different layouts.

Another thing that I noticed about the bootlegs is that they almost always have ALL 60 pins present on the edge connector, whereas I believe none of my original cartridges have all 60. They're usually missing a handful toward the center.
 
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ledfrog

n00b
Joined
Mar 9, 2017
Posts
42
In the case of MVS, I dont believe bootlegs where ever made to try an "dupe" anyone. I think it was a way for operators to save money and pirates to make money. Alot of bootlegs, despite the physical differences, play just fine. Its when you get into the later games post 1999, when things get finicky, as the protections wearn't fully understood. So pirates would get them to a "good enough" state, or use proto version and then move on to the next game.

Yeah this is what I was thinking for back when these games were new seeing as how just about every popular arcade game appeared to have some amount of bootleg counterparts. But today, it's a different story. Operators aren't clamoring to get the latest and greatest Neo Geo game into their arcades. Back then, I'm sure the faster a bootleg could be made, the faster everyone "wins," so the quality wouldn't be there and there would be no concern for trying to emulate perfection. But today, there's a sizable market for collectors and since some of the MVS games are well into the hundreds of dollars and the AES versions can get well into the thousands, I would think that we're at a point where there would be some unscrupulous bootlegger out there that would try to dupe a buyer the best they can.

I mean think of all the other types of products that get knocked off every day (purses, electronics, watches, etc.) and you find that while no knockoff is perfect, sometimes it's hard to tell! Again, I'm very glad we're not facing this problem here...just somewhat surprised it hasn't happened.
 

xsq

Thou Shalt Not, Question Rot.,
Joined
Jan 17, 2013
Posts
7,414
I think most MVS boots are mostly from back in the day... Homecarts are a whole different beast - used to be conversions/eproms, now you'll find almost anything (and they are harder to open without damage).
 

egg_sanwich

Windjammers Wonder
10 Year Member
Joined
Oct 9, 2012
Posts
1,379
I mean think of all the other types of products that get knocked off every day (purses, electronics, watches, etc.) and you find that while no knockoff is perfect, sometimes it's hard to tell! Again, I'm very glad we're not facing this problem here...just somewhat surprised it hasn't happened.

You must be new around here. Aero Fighters 3 US AES, 99.9% authentic Crossed Swords 2, NCI boots, basically any Metal Slug 1 AES - bootlegs are everywhere these days. Where there is money to be made, boots will exist.
 

Evan

Fio's Quartermaster
Joined
May 31, 2016
Posts
486
You must be new around here. Aero Fighters 3 US AES, 99.9% authentic Crossed Swords 2, NCI boots, basically any Metal Slug 1 AES - bootlegs are everywhere these days. Where there is money to be made, boots will exist.

Our favorite bootlegger, fakk2
 

noir

Overtop Pathfinder
Joined
May 23, 2016
Posts
101
Knowingly got this Super Dodge Ball bootleg in a lot with a couple other games. Fortunately it's at least played okay so far.

IMG_4543.JPGIMG_4545.JPG
 

werejag

Galford's Poppy Trainer
Joined
May 3, 2005
Posts
2,626
looks like the neo-273 was refluxed at some point also. well if it works flawless enjoy.
 

MrWunderful

Stakes Winner
Joined
Apr 12, 2017
Posts
98
Knew that this copy of puzzle bobble was going to be a bootleg, and got it for free:

wlJJhK8l.jpg
 

Neo Alec

Ned's Ninja Academy Dropout
20 Year Member
Joined
Dec 7, 2000
Posts
11,924
Most of the well-made bootlegs were made in China or thereabouts. Most arcade operators were not concerned about whether the game was legit. Bootlegs of all types of jamma games were basically standard in Asia.
 

Neo Alec

Ned's Ninja Academy Dropout
20 Year Member
Joined
Dec 7, 2000
Posts
11,924
Those last two were nice. Could use them to make some nice repros of unreleased games.
 

Catoblepa

King's Dry Cleaner
20 Year Member
Joined
Sep 29, 2003
Posts
387
Metal Slug 4 bootleg. Got it with a bunch of other carts, it's my only MS4 and it works fine, so... what the hell, it's better than nothing.
Like Madman's MS4 boot in the first page, no serial on the label, a dead giveaway.

Qt4ihBr.jpg


Boards are custom and frankly quite impressive, a very clean job if compared to some Frankenstein monsters out there.

HZJupqf.jpg


The most absurd thing is that they've gone the extra mile to create holo labels, even for the Caution sticker! :lolz:
Of course they look nothing like the crossed diagonal SNK holo pattern, more like sun rays.

p4MJoCC.jpg


gpKKuzD.jpg


But now that I've opened the cart, I'm afraid I won't be able to use the warranty anymore... after all, "Warranty void IS removed" (no "if", no doubt).

UwHq35j.jpg
 
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pier

Crazed MVS Addict
Joined
Jan 24, 2020
Posts
139
Pop'n bounce, i bought it to test the mv1b with audio problem of my thread, i never had a neogeo aes or mvs cartridge so i was not prepared to understand the differences from legit and bootleg.
card.jpg
2 pin in red were shorted, i removed the extra tin and enclosed into the case.
IMG_0011.JPG
IMG_0007.JPG
At the end i played (without the sound) and after 30 seconds the game hunged, the game animations still running but i cannot give any input but i can pause the game.
I am thinking to make a diagnostic card using this pcb, can i change only the m1 rom or should i do more modifications?
 

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