111 replies to this topic

[Retro Rogue]

 crsdawg, on Sat Dec 25, 2010 11:45 PM, said:

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.

They do.  Their legal department is taking action.

Quote

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.

Not in the least.  We identified the source thanks to the pictures taken here, that's being taken care of in a way that won't require legal action.  Kroger will being getting a cease and desist on selling the units in the future.

 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?

It's completely illegal, and a violation of Atari IP, trademarks, and copyrights (both in games, usage of their logo, and the product itself), as well as Activision's (since the two games were licensed from them in the first place).  Atari legal knows about it and is taking it from here.

Quote

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.

Nope.  They were completely unaware of this.

Edited by wgungfu, Tue Dec 28, 2010 1:12 PM.

[onmode-ky]

 wgungfu, on Tue Dec 28, 2010 1:08 PM, said:

Not in the least.  We identified the source thanks to the pictures taken here, that's being taken care of in a way that won't require legal action.  Kroger will being getting a cease and desist on selling the units in the future.

What was in the pictures that clued you in as to who was making them, specifically?  Was there something unique about the plastic texture?  It just looked like any other plastic to me, the layman.  I didn't even know individual factories left "signatures" in their plastics.

And, the "way that won't require legal action," does that involve you and Curt getting stealth-dropped into a blissfully unaware Chinese factory and making use of a generous dose of C4?  Or will there just be breaking of legs?

In search of details, onmode-ky

[nathanallan]

I'm all for Strikeforce Marty and Curt and the C4. Sounds like a great game title.

Strikeforce Marty and Curt preorder now for the Dreamcast  

Edited by nathanallan, Thu Dec 30, 2010 12:57 AM.

[crsdawg]

Good to hear some action is being taken, I'd be curious to know how the guys in china are being dealt with.

Nathan...I will check the pcb #'s next time I have them apart.

Edited by crsdawg, Thu Dec 30, 2010 1:10 AM.

[nathanallan]

Is the large ZD and Michelle on the boards significant of anything??

[drmiller21]

I got one of these FAKE FLASHBACK 2 pirated consoles for Christmas. It was bought at a Smith's here in Las Vegas, NV. I am EXTREMELY disappointed, as I have been looking at these since they first came out. Having grown up with Atari as a kid, I had a 2600 console and a 5200 console. I must admit, it has been a while since I have thought of Atari and my old consoles are long gone. So I was very excited to get the flashback 2 for Christmas.  The games on it are very buggy and Quadran has no voice. When you start it, it goes to start, then the thing makes a strange beeping noise, goes to snow and the the game comes up.  The checkers doesn't work at all. I did play this thing all day Christmas, and most all the popular games work, but now, I question whether they added the actual games or pirated the game code as well. Also it is very disheartening that I can't modify it.  The circuitry is different.  I went to Smith,s to try to get our money back, but they said that all they could give me is in store credit without the receipt and since that can't be located, I am stuck with this thing.  Since it is not real I will not play it.  Sad thing is, these will be around a long time.

[Wickeycolumbus]

 drmiller21, on Mon Jan 3, 2011 12:27 AM, said:

I got one of these FAKE FLASHBACK 2 pirated consoles for Christmas. It was bought at a Smith's here in Las Vegas, NV. I am EXTREMELY disappointed, as I have been looking at these since they first came out. Having grown up with Atari as a kid, I had a 2600 console and a 5200 console. I must admit, it has been a while since I have thought of Atari and my old consoles are long gone. So I was very excited to get the flashback 2 for Christmas.  The games on it are very buggy and Quadran has no voice. When you start it, it goes to start, then the thing makes a strange beeping noise, goes to snow and the the game comes up.  The checkers doesn't work at all. I did play this thing all day Christmas, and most all the popular games work, but now, I question whether they added the actual games or pirated the game code as well. Also it is very disheartening that I can't modify it.  The circuitry is different.  I went to Smith,s to try to get our money back, but they said that all they could give me is in store credit without the receipt and since that can't be located, I am stuck with this thing.  Since it is not real I will not play it.  Sad thing is, these will be around a long time.

Sounds like you may just have one of the early revisions.  Does the circuit board look like the one on this page?

http://www.atarimuse...hacks/page1.htm

[Retro Rogue]

 Wickeycolumbus, on Mon Jan 3, 2011 2:46 PM, said:

 drmiller21, on Mon Jan 3, 2011 12:27 AM, said:

I got one of these FAKE FLASHBACK 2 pirated consoles for Christmas. It was bought at a Smith's here in Las Vegas, NV. I am EXTREMELY disappointed, as I have been looking at these since they first came out. Having grown up with Atari as a kid, I had a 2600 console and a 5200 console. I must admit, it has been a while since I have thought of Atari and my old consoles are long gone. So I was very excited to get the flashback 2 for Christmas.  The games on it are very buggy and Quadran has no voice. When you start it, it goes to start, then the thing makes a strange beeping noise, goes to snow and the the game comes up.  The checkers doesn't work at all. I did play this thing all day Christmas, and most all the popular games work, but now, I question whether they added the actual games or pirated the game code as well. Also it is very disheartening that I can't modify it.  The circuitry is different.  I went to Smith,s to try to get our money back, but they said that all they could give me is in store credit without the receipt and since that can't be located, I am stuck with this thing.  Since it is not real I will not play it.  Sad thing is, these will be around a long time.

Sounds like you may just have one of the early revisions.  Does the circuit board look like the one on this page?

http://www.atarimuse...hacks/page1.htm

If he got it at Smith's this Christmas it's one of the pirate ones.  Smith's is part of Kroger.  Quadrun having no voice is more likely because of the pirating of the chips which is what's leading to the other games not working as well.

[nathanallan]

Martin, have you gotten your hands on one of these yet?? I am thinking maybe some good can come from this crap after all. How, you ask???

They made chassis and joystick plastics so the molds have been made again or at least copied, so buy them out and put your own boards in there, good ones. Boom, another run of OFFICIAL FB2's with legitimate hardware on the inside.

Yes, the offenders need to be held accountable for the act. It seems that anything that happens in China goes unpunished because of all these many and varied pirate consoles running around all over the place are still out there for sale.

The hardest thing would be to talk the bigwigs into it. Could go something like this:

Cost of making the plastics could be a fraction of what it was, the only investment would be the new boards on the inside and getting them in the plastic shells that are already made.

I'm just trying to make the best out of a bad situation. It might not work at all.

[Mirage]

Why would you (they) buy things, even molds (or maybe you mean current production product), from people who "stole" them? Now, if they could be confiscated......

[nathanallan]

Oh, that's the easy part: Sell to us at our "fair" price or we put you in jail under international treaty (or copyright violation or right violation, not sure). Just the threat alone might be enough.

Like I said, trying to make the best of a bad thing.

I'm not sure if they could even be punished for something like this, if you could even find them. But the money will lure them out at the prospect of being bought out, then you hit 'em.

AH! Confiscation! That's something I hadn't thought of, but maybe confiscated means 'destroyed' over there, not sure about it. Interesting!!

Edited by nathanallan, Mon Jan 3, 2011 5:15 PM.

[drmiller21]

 Wickeycolumbus, on Mon Jan 3, 2011 2:46 PM, said:

 drmiller21, on Mon Jan 3, 2011 12:27 AM, said:

I got one of these FAKE FLASHBACK 2 pirated consoles for Christmas. It was bought at a Smith's here in Las Vegas, NV. I am EXTREMELY disappointed, as I have been looking at these since they first came out. Having grown up with Atari as a kid, I had a 2600 console and a 5200 console. I must admit, it has been a while since I have thought of Atari and my old consoles are long gone. So I was very excited to get the flashback 2 for Christmas.  The games on it are very buggy and Quadran has no voice. When you start it, it goes to start, then the thing makes a strange beeping noise, goes to snow and the the game comes up.  The checkers doesn't work at all. I did play this thing all day Christmas, and most all the popular games work, but now, I question whether they added the actual games or pirated the game code as well. Also it is very disheartening that I can't modify it.  The circuitry is different.  I went to Smith,s to try to get our money back, but they said that all they could give me is in store credit without the receipt and since that can't be located, I am stuck with this thing.  Since it is not real I will not play it.  Sad thing is, these will be around a long time.

Sounds like you may just have one of the early revisions.  Does the circuit board look like the one on this page?

http://www.atarimuse...hacks/page1.htm

No, it is fake.  It was bought at Smith's here in Las Vegas, NV on DEC. 23, 2010.  The games in it are very buggy most don't work very well or don't work at all. On the real controllers, they screw into each other.  But on the fakes, the controllers snap together.  Also the text on the face plate is all one color.  I did not open it as, I did not want Smith's to claim I violated my warranty which would not have mattered as there is no warranty.  It is a good fake until you do a little research which, I have been doing pretty much since, I got it.  I have tried to return it and they don't want to take it back.  The person who got it for me tried returning it, and they told her the manager needs to approve it.  So we shall see tomorrow what happens. If I can return it for a refund, I plan to get a legitimate unit although, I am a little concerned on buying one off online from any other source than Atari and they only have the 2+ which is fine as that is a great system with some really cool added games.  I really would like to keep the activision games. I suppose if I go the 2+ route, I can still mod that one for carts and get the old carts for river raid and pitfall ext....

[risxc]

My flashback 2 I have ordered from Amazon has arrived today .. based on the above pictures

it is a fake also



I have basically  almost tested all games on the unit , what I have found so far

the quadrun voice does work in this version

Yars return has a hold issue  

and space dual is just weird   the asteroids is sometimes visible other times not

but the others seem to be working fine


but I still feel shafted , I mean I imported a unit , and it turns out to be fake

Edited by risxc, Wed Jan 5, 2011 9:36 AM.

[nathanallan]

Did you buy it from Amazon themselves or from a person selling on Amazon? If Amazon has them this could be a bigger deal than thought previously.

[risxc]

 nathanallan, on Wed Jan 5, 2011 2:23 PM, said:

Did you buy it from Amazon themselves or from a person selling on Amazon? If Amazon has them this could be a bigger deal than thought previously.

that will be difficult to say as I bought it through an import service. that buys from amazon

I had a quick look again amazon does not have stock at the moment.
but some sellers are offering eg BESTSKU etc

what we can take away from this is that the seller stock on amazon is tainted.


also what is really interesting to me is that I can find no glitching on the unit except for the normal reported flashback 2 glitches  eg. yar's return

Edited by risxc, Wed Jan 5, 2011 3:02 PM.

[Mitch]

 risxc, on Wed Jan 5, 2011 9:24 AM, said:

My flashback 2 I have ordered from Amazon has arrived today .. based on the above pictures

it is a fake also



I have basically  almost tested all games on the unit , what I have found so far

the quadrun voice does work in this version

Yars return has a hold issue  

and space dual is just weird   the asteroids is sometimes visible other times not

but the others seem to be working fine


but I still feel shafted , I mean I imported a unit , and it turns out to be fake

It could be the first revision FB2 as well as that had a few issues.

Mitch

[risxc]

 Mitch, on Wed Jan 5, 2011 3:41 PM, said:

 risxc, on Wed Jan 5, 2011 9:24 AM, said:

My flashback 2 I have ordered from Amazon has arrived today .. based on the above pictures

it is a fake also



I have basically  almost tested all games on the unit , what I have found so far

the quadrun voice does work in this version

Yars return has a hold issue  

and space dual is just weird   the asteroids is sometimes visible other times not

but the others seem to be working fine


but I still feel shafted , I mean I imported a unit , and it turns out to be fake

It could be the first revision FB2 as well as that had a few issues.

Mitch

nope

is fake , circuitboard is identical to fake posted.

here is pics of my board





but the thing that gets me is that the people are reporting issues , and I am not having any

Edited by risxc, Wed Jan 5, 2011 4:17 PM.

[tep392]

These fakes are going to be a real pain.  It would be nice if we could find some difference in the box art to help identify them for the people buying sealed units.  I wonder how many of the many boxed Flashbacks on Ebay are fake.

[risxc]

 tep392, on Wed Jan 5, 2011 3:59 PM, said:

These fakes are going to be a real pain.  It would be nice if we could find some difference in the box art to help identify them for the people buying sealed units.  I wonder how many of the many boxed Flashbacks on Ebay are fake.

the thing is there isn't  ,
box art is exact copy
they are have plastic enclosures from the "real" molds
to me I could only tell once I compared the circuit board with the side by side comparison posted on this thread,
some you can tell apart with the one color used on the button names

[crsdawg]

Riscx is right about the box art, I found one of my old fb boxes tonight (while digging around for ti-99 psu). I compared the two boxes (pirate and legit) side by side...they are mirror images. The red of the original box is a little darker than the pirate, and the carbboard (viewed from inside the box) is also darker but the difference is slight and it wouldn't surprise me if similar differences were evident in different batches of legit packaging.

There was one discrepancy between the two boxes  that might be able to clue people in as to whether or not an original or pirate fb is inside, it's in the seal. The font on the pirate seal is slightly bolder than the legit seal. It's a small difference, but easily noticeable if your looking for it. If all legit fbs have seals with the same font as mine and fb pirate consoles all use the same font....then a close pic of the seal would be enough to validate a console. Maybe some others with real and fake fbs could take a look at their seal and post if it's the same or different from what I have.

Here are a couple pics to illustrate what I'm talking about, the left label is the pirate, right is legit original:

Attached Thumbnails

• 
• 

Edited by crsdawg, Wed Jan 5, 2011 7:09 PM.

[drmiller21]

 drmiller21, on Tue Jan 4, 2011 3:21 AM, said:

 Wickeycolumbus, on Mon Jan 3, 2011 2:46 PM, said:

 drmiller21, on Mon Jan 3, 2011 12:27 AM, said:

I got one of these FAKE FLASHBACK 2 pirated consoles for Christmas. It was bought at a Smith's here in Las Vegas, NV. I am EXTREMELY disappointed, as I have been looking at these since they first came out. Having grown up with Atari as a kid, I had a 2600 console and a 5200 console. I must admit, it has been a while since I have thought of Atari and my old consoles are long gone. So I was very excited to get the flashback 2 for Christmas.  The games on it are very buggy and Quadran has no voice. When you start it, it goes to start, then the thing makes a strange beeping noise, goes to snow and the the game comes up.  The checkers doesn't work at all. I did play this thing all day Christmas, and most all the popular games work, but now, I question whether they added the actual games or pirated the game code as well. Also it is very disheartening that I can't modify it.  The circuitry is different.  I went to Smith,s to try to get our money back, but they said that all they could give me is in store credit without the receipt and since that can't be located, I am stuck with this thing.  Since it is not real I will not play it.  Sad thing is, these will be around a long time.

Sounds like you may just have one of the early revisions.  Does the circuit board look like the one on this page?

http://www.atarimuse...hacks/page1.htm

No, it is fake.  It was bought at Smith's here in Las Vegas, NV on DEC. 23, 2010.  The games in it are very buggy most don't work very well or don't work at all. On the real controllers, they screw into each other.  But on the fakes, the controllers snap together.  Also the text on the face plate is all one color.  I did not open it as, I did not want Smith's to claim I violated my warranty which would not have mattered as there is no warranty.  It is a good fake until you do a little research which, I have been doing pretty much since, I got it.  I have tried to return it and they don't want to take it back.  The person who got it for me tried returning it, and they told her the manager needs to approve it.  So we shall see tomorrow what happens. If I can return it for a refund, I plan to get a legitimate unit although, I am a little concerned on buying one off online from any other source than Atari and they only have the 2+ which is fine as that is a great system with some really cool added games.  I really would like to keep the activision games. I suppose if I go the 2+ route, I can still mod that one for carts and get the old carts for river raid and pitfall ext....

Update to my Situation with this :

I was at Smith's on Flamingo & Jones here in Las Vegas tonight Jan 5 2011 and they had two of the Pirated Consoles for sale. so I guess Kroger is still selling them as well. I did get A refund for the one, I  got for Christmas  and they probably put it back on the shelf. Not sure what can be done to stop this fraud.

[svenski]

Well if this stuff is being sold via Amazon etc, and not just via Kroegers and then surely it would make sense to try and find out who the actual distributor is go after them?

[Animan]

Anybody that good at faking it (the box and all that) must be smart enough to realize this is SICK AND WRONG.

This is just downright ridiculous. Considering how many people here bought the fake ones, and how available they are, the money made on this could have funded other projects.

I hope this isn't happening to other toys and games. This really makes me realize, can any other stuff we have be fake too? Our TV's, Game Systems, Computers. I don't know now. I just don't.

[Random Terrain]

Yeah, the mainstream real people who count supposedly don't care about some crusty old Atari games anymore, so if greedy evil bastards are copying something supposedly nobody cares about and nobody will buy, there's a good chance that the more popular items in our homes are fake. Rabid Walmart haters say that everything Walmart sells is made in China, so maybe they're not crazy after all. Have we been buying fakes the whole time from every store out there? Is that why everything breaks after 6 months? That ice cream I bought at Walmart the other day could be frozen panda puke or yak jizz for all I know.

The only way we can be safe is to stop buying things. Grow our own food and entertain ourselves by making shadow puppets on the wall by candlelight.

[Mirage]

Dang, you guys make good points. Especially those non-frozen hermetically-sealed meat dishes from Hormel. There's simply NO WAY those are NOT panda puke.