111 replies to this topic

[svenski]

Sorry to hear this guys - maybe an obvious thing to check would be the warranty information - registration card - where to send returns etc? If this has nothing to do with Atari then I'd guess warranty contact information would be different and would soon give the game away if people started sending back or registering fake units to/with Atari.

[Guitarman]

I have call 3 of the Smith stores in the general area here in Carson and all 3 stated they had the Flashbacks. 2 of them are sold out and the third has 2 or 3 left. They have set one aside that I'll be picking up tonight.

I did find out that Smith's is a Kroger store, so it goes in line with what BroJamFootball said, that they are probably all being sold out of the Kroger family of stores.

[Curt Vendel]

That footprint on the CPU is about 25% bigger then the CPU's that were done, that could be a knock-off chip...

Of all of the people who've gotten one of these "new" FB2s --- who's is having game corruption and screen problems, or is everyone seeing problems...  I'm only asking because one thing that the factory doesn't own or have the code for is GIZMO which is the MMU and Menu system chip, so they'd have to make their own and if it isn't done right, I could see it causing problems.    GIZMO is my chip and my code, and Atari and the factory don't have those materials so I'm curious to know if any of these consoles is working right.


Curt

crsdawg, on Wed Dec 22, 2010 5:32 PM, said:

Got another pic for you guys...business side of the pcbs. The FBp (flashback pirate) has a much different layout. I bet it's cheaper to make.

If I get some time I'll put these back together, plug 'em in, and look for differences in play quality.

original fb2 is upper...Kroger one is lower:

[nathanallan]

Just looking at the two boards shows me a lot of components missing.

Good idea looking at the registration card and anything inside it to try to track down to whom it goes if there are warranty issues.

They aren't being sold around here afaik (will def have to check).

A sticky is a GREAT idea, has anyone asked Albert to do this??? Best to let the public know as much as a person can about knock offs being out there and not to blame crappy quality on a good company when it wasn't them.

[Retro Rogue]

nathanallan, on Wed Dec 22, 2010 9:34 PM, said:

Just looking at the two boards shows me a lot of components missing.

Good idea looking at the registration card and anything inside it to try to track down to whom it goes if there are warranty issues.

They aren't being sold around here afaik (will def have to check).

A sticky is a GREAT idea, has anyone asked Albert to do this??? Best to let the public know as much as a person can about knock offs being out there and not to blame crappy quality on a good company when it wasn't them.

The warranty card (if there is one) won't make a difference.  It's a knockoff systtem, not just a clone - they're making every effort to reproduce the packaging and whatnot down to the logos, it wouldn't take much to just reproduce the same warranty card.  They don't need to worry about providing warranties themselves, they're trying to make it look like it's from Atari.  They most likely wanted to slip the product in to the US looking like NOS.

As far as the sticky thing, maybe the title of the thread should be changed as well to "Warning: Pirate Flashback 2's".

Edited by wgungfu, Wed Dec 22, 2010 9:44 PM.

[Random Terrain]

wgungfu, on Wed Dec 22, 2010 9:41 PM, said:

As far as the sticky thing, maybe the title of the thread should be changed as well to "Warning: Pirate Flashback 2's".

I had a hard time selling the real Flashback 2s I had on Craigslist. I'm glad I sold them when I did because this horrible news would make them even harder to sell.

[OldSchoolRetroGamer]

Random Terrain, on Wed Dec 22, 2010 10:12 PM, said:

wgungfu, on Wed Dec 22, 2010 9:41 PM, said:

As far as the sticky thing, maybe the title of the thread should be changed as well to "Warning: Pirate Flashback 2's".

I had a hard time selling the real Flashback 2s I had on Craigslist. I'm glad I sold them when I did because this horrible news would make them even harder to sell.

I dunno, listing it as GENUINE Authentic FLASHBACK II may yield good response.............

[Guitarman]

Here is a photo gallery of the fake Flashback. You should be able to see all detail in the board and case. Notice the grid with the connections for adding a cartridge slot, but there are no numbers on the pads on the reverse side.

[Retro Rogue]

Guitarman, on Wed Dec 22, 2010 10:58 PM, said:

Here is a photo gallery of the fake Flashback. You should be able to see all detail in the board and case. Notice the grid with the connections for adding a cartridge slot, but there are no numbers on the pads on the reverse side.

Thanks, the closeups of the console case actually helped to further confirm who this is coming through.

How are the joysticks as well?  My guess is if they used just as cheap of parts as on the main unit, those things are going to snap right off during mild use.

Edited by wgungfu, Wed Dec 22, 2010 11:51 PM.

[yuppicide]

Interesting thread.

[JPjuice23]

Wow, maybe I have a fake flashback.

Are the joysticks supposed to screw off really easily? I always wondered why people never complained about this...

[JohnBuell]

Hm. Now I'm curious. Marty, the closest Kroger's to either of us appears to be Ottawa, IL. Would you like me to contact them and see if they have any? I'd send it to you straight away, no charge. Then there are some affiliated stores in the Rockford, IL area. PM me if you want to follow up that way.

[edweird13]

I saw some of these at Dillons ,which is a grocery store, here in Joplin, Mo. They had about 25. I figured they may have been pirates since these have not been for sale for a long time.

[Bakasama]

So these are pirated versions?  Now I'm curious to see how different the pirated joysticks are from the real thing.

[tep392]

I ran across this old thread.  Looks like Kroger was selling these last year as well.  I wonder if these could have been knockoff's as well.

[pboland]

What gets me is the Kroger's near me have upped the price for the last four or five units they have. They are now $34.99!!!

It would appear that these type of products still catch people's eyes since they are selling so well. It's a shame that the are fakes and probably don't even work right. What a shame. I'm glad I didn't buy one of these fake units. To think I almost did.

[crsdawg]

Here are some pics of the controller. Pcb has the same atari logo and font as main pcb.

I also plugged this in a played for a bit. I didn't experience any glaring problems, but my gaming
session wasn't very long either. I was able to navigate through the menu's and select games
easily.

The real Fb has sound issues so I was unable to compare side by side.

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Edited by crsdawg, Thu Dec 23, 2010 3:28 PM.

[akator]

pboland, on Thu Dec 23, 2010 2:41 PM, said:

What gets me is the Kroger's near me have upped the price for the last four or five units they have. They are now $34.99!!!

It would appear that these type of products still catch people's eyes since they are selling so well. It's a shame that the are fakes and probably don't even work right. What a shame. I'm glad I didn't buy one of these fake units. To think I almost did.

Yeah... the one we bought was 34.99 before using the "Kroger Card," which brought it down $10.

crsdawg, on Thu Dec 23, 2010 3:24 PM, said:

Here are some pics of the controller. Pcb has the same atari logo and font as main pcb.

I also plugged this in a played for a bit. I didn't experience any glaring problems, but my gaming
session wasn't very long either. I was able to navigate through the menu's and select games
easily.

The real Fb has sound issues so I was unable to compare side by side.

I found that the joysticks worked fine... but I already have a ton of 2600 sticks. I thought about keeping all of it just for some extra "new" sticks, but I didn't feel good about the purchase in general. With the obvious flaws with gameplay, I didn't think it was worth the money just of sticks that are probably as questionable as the console. We returned it today.

[batari]

I'm not sure if this is appropriate to ask, but I want one of the pirate consoles to tinker with.  If anyone bought one and wants to sell it to me, and can confirm it's a pirate console, let me know.  I don't care about the original box or anything, you can just throw everything in a USPS flat rate box if you want.

[birdie3]

Is Atari going to do anything about it? They just might be losing some money on this. Seems a bit odd that this would happen with little opposition.

[crsdawg]

birdie3, on Sat Dec 25, 2010 7:27 PM, said:

Is Atari going to do anything about it? They just might be losing some money on this. Seems a bit odd that this would happen with little opposition.

I think the problem is that what is gained by stopping the pirates(atari/infogrames loss) might not be worth the cost of fighting them. This is both in profits and market share.
This is a market they gave up on...so do they even care about suing for a few thousand units of pirate fb2's? We think so, but they might not.

Then there is the problem of who do you go after? Can you even get to the guys in China? Is Kroger at fault...it's a tough situation.

I'm just playing devils advocate btw, I'm not really taking a side here.

Fwiw, I'm pretty sure the store near me sold out of their batch...if atari takes anything from this deal, I hope it is that there is a market for this stuff.

[wood_jl]

Any legal experts here?  Wouldn't it clearly be an example of copyright violation, and an injunction granted to stop the pirates, without a legal battle if Atari (Infogrames) didn't have the money to fight or simply chose not to?

I wonder if Infogrames may have quietly licensed out this IP cheaply (and quietly) in order to make some quick cash?  Stranger things have happened, like when Hasbro took over for cheap and let it go cheap.

[nathanallan]

crsdawg, what is the serial number on the orig vs the pirate?

[svenski]

wood_jl, on Mon Dec 27, 2010 11:31 PM, said:

Any legal experts here?  Wouldn't it clearly be an example of copyright violation, and an injunction granted to stop the pirates, without a legal battle if Atari (Infogrames) didn't have the money to fight or simply chose not to?

I wonder if Infogrames may have quietly licensed out this IP cheaply (and quietly) in order to make some quick cash?  Stranger things have happened, like when Hasbro took over for cheap and let it go cheap.

I'd thought the same thing  

[batari]

batari, on Sat Dec 25, 2010 2:12 PM, said:

I'm not sure if this is appropriate to ask, but I want one of the pirate consoles to tinker with.  If anyone bought one and wants to sell it to me, and can confirm it's a pirate console, let me know.  I don't care about the original box or anything, you can just throw everything in a USPS flat rate box if you want.

Anyone? Bueller? Bueller?