FPGA Based Videogame System

[FPGA Based Videogame System]

The world is a big place. There will always be profiteers. I wouldn't let them sour you to the point where you're wondering the motivations of excited fans. Just think of the resellers as doing their part in hyping a product.

 

My current job, which has nothing to do with gaming or auction sites, still runs into the "fans that don't know any boundaries" problem. I'm not going to make this argument about me. So just be satisfied with the response that I'm concerned that kevtris might stop firmware updates, or cut features if the fans get too obnoxious about them.

[FPGA Based Videogame System]

Wow! You have a very low opinion of people. I think you're getting a bit lost in assumptions. The prices on Japanese games is cheaper vs the American ones on every console and it's always been that way. All those precious rpgs we all spend hundreds on are in the 500 yen bargain bin in most cases. Not every collector treats their collection like an investment. I'd say that is a very small minority from my experience. Personally I'm just glad all these games that were released in a time that video games were treated as childrens toys are getting the attention they deserve.

 

The people downloading roms for free are not the same people selling them on eBay for $300 on fully loaded consoles.

[FPGA Based Videogame System]

Are the people who don't want to spend money on real carts somehow the enemy?

 

If the only reason they are asking is so they can sell their collection now before the bottom falls out of the market when the chip support happens, if it happens. Yes. Same with people who bought NES Mini and SNES Mini's entirely to resell them on eBay with pirate games on them. These people do not care what damage they do, they just see dollar signs.

 

Did you notice how the SNT immediately sold old the day that JB was announced?

 

(PS Look on eBay at the price spread between the Japanese versions of Super Mario RPG and Yoshi's Island vs the American versions)

[FPGA Based Videogame System]

It does seem that Ikari has either hit a wall from a technical standpoint or has lost interest in further development on SD2SNES firmware. I suspect Kevtris is our only hope for further enhancement chip support

 

It's also possible that he, and others that are capable FPGA developers kept being badgered by people to do these things when they make no money from it. It's fun to design things, but when your "fans" constantly demand you do things so they don't have to spend money on real carts kinda puts capable people in the "no thanks" camp. Just look at some of the comments in this thread about wanting the JB so they don't have to buy a SD2SNES or Everdrive. Please try to cover your ulterior motives a little.

 

At any rate the SD2SNES or whatever replaces it, if it turns out a more powerful FPGA is needed to do the SA1 or GSU-1 then you'd still be buying one of these devices, and the SuperNT would likely NOT have space to do both of them simultaneously, and would probably have to resort to "SNES+(chip)" cores. The SD2SNES AFAIK actually has all the cores addressable, though that doesn't mean you can use all of them at the same time.

[FPGA Based Videogame System]

I hate to say this, but I believe my Analogue Super Nt could be defective.

...

I'm not sure what else I can try, but I'm open to ideas. Otherwise I will have to contact Analogue about a possible replacement.

 

I'm pretty sure it's clipping because your audio setup is letting it.

 

I was watching OBS on my capture card and noticed that audio is always hitting red, but averaging in the yellow area.

 

So to test that I recorded the audio and set the volume to maximum in the playback video to see if it clips. If anything it seems like the audio muffled more. Maybe try the -3DB output cut feature in the audio to reduce the volume and see if you hear the same effect.

[FPGA Based Videogame System]

Honestly, the real advantage of it is realtime saving and very quick game loading. On top of that, CX4 and DSP-1 support are nothing to sneeze at. Mario Kart is an all time classic, and so are the Mega Man X games. The potential for SA-1 and Super FX are nice, but if "doesn't have every feature imaginable" makes something unfinished, pretty much everything is. And while MSU-1 hasn't been used for a lot of interesting things in homebrew yet, the implementation of an MSU-1 version of Road Blaster shows it could allow for some interesting versions of FMV games. I think a version of Night Trap on SNES would be hilarious.

 

So yeah, it's not going to cure world hunger, but it's not exactly an "unfinished piece of tech" either.

 

The point of the MSU-1 is overlooked because it's primary "cool factor" can only be achieved with existing BS-X games and retrofitted to other games that had OST or remixed sound tracks.

 

Yes, it's unlikely we will see any game designed specifically to use the MSU-1 since that would require people to own two pieces of kit, a SNES/SNT and the SD2SNES, or be forced to play it on a software emulator and all the complicated patching that goes with it. People just don't understand or care how to do it, so they just find someone who already did and use their prepatched stuff. And then it gets into the hands of people trying to make money without any care about copyrights. I can tell you right now that if the MSU-1 was an actual chip, there would be a buttload of pirate game carts out there with it, because there is already a buttload of pirate "english patched" carts.

[FPGA Based Videogame System]

I tried several times to reproduce this bug using my Super NT firmware 4.1, sd2snes, and the latest GoodSNES ROM for A Link to the Past. You are probably right, it is a bug with your copy of the game ROM.

 

I also tried to replicate it with the LoZ JP and PAL versions that are in the SM pack and can't replicate it their either. Also tried to see if I could make it show up in the BS Zelda game but instead found a different bug.

 

But because it's basically a hack, that bug is more likely a bug in the patched rom (BS The Legend of Zelda: Ancient Stone Tablets (BSゼルダの伝説 古代の石盤 )). So I'd have to go re-play the entire thing on the actual SNES anyway.

[FPGA Based Videogame System]

 

anyone know what the j4 and j7 headers are for? edit - is one of them for the LED?

Given the location, they're probably controller headers. Only 5 pins are used on them.

[FPGA Based Videogame System]

 

NTSC Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past cart works fine here on 4.1 non-JB firmware.

 

I can replicate the crash on the SD2SNES however. Once.

 

Edit: Got it on video.

 

Here (This is on the SNT)

 

https://mega.nz/#!x2QghQaA!Fy2Eymnr4QgFfmbS_fMQxsiruNMe3xCeVf2ebGhUtDU

 

Steps to replicate:

1. Erase any save games

2. Reset

3. Create new game in slot 1

4. When you leave the house, hold up before the transition starts

5. SNT SNES core will crash

 

The SNT can still be told to run the cartridge again. The only times I've been able to replicate this is from the SD2SNES when there was no previous save game, and I suspect it might involve slot 1, as when I tried it on my real cart, I used slot 3 and could not replicate it. I'll move the save game around on the real cart and erase the first slot and see if that does it, but I have a feeling it might actually be the empty save that is responsible for it.

 

Edit: I tried three more times with the real cart on the SuperNT and I can not replicate it.

PCB I have is SHVC-1A3B-13 with

SNS-ZL-0

LH53820B

9223 E

if anyone else wants to compare PCB versions to see if there is another version of the cart.

I'll note the shell label has SNS-ZL-CAN on it. But Canadian versions of most software simply came with Bilingual manuals.

 

Can't make any more edits to this post, but I went and tried to replicate it on the SD2SNES on the real GPM-02 SNES and I was not able to. So this appears to be a problem specific to the version of Legend of Zelda in the SM pack on the Super NT that doesn't surface on a real SNES. With the real cart it doesn't happen.

[FPGA Based Videogame System]

Love the SuperNt, simply the best option to play my cartridges on a modern display.

 

I may have found a minor bug with Zelda. Using the JB firmware and the NTSC Zelda rom from the SmokeMonster pack, if you exit and re-enter the house at the beginning there is severe graphical corruption or just a black screen and you must restart the game. I can't confirm with the real cart because I have the PAL version - this and the PAL rom are fine.

 

NTSC Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past cart works fine here on 4.1 non-JB firmware.

 

I can replicate the crash on the SD2SNES however. Once.

 

Edit: Got it on video.

 

Here (This is on the SNT)

 

https://mega.nz/#!x2QghQaA!Fy2Eymnr4QgFfmbS_fMQxsiruNMe3xCeVf2ebGhUtDU

 

Steps to replicate:

1. Erase any save games

2. Reset

3. Create new game in slot 1

4. When you leave the house, hold up before the transition starts

5. SNT SNES core will crash

 

The SNT can still be told to run the cartridge again. The only times I've been able to replicate this is from the SD2SNES when there was no previous save game, and I suspect it might involve slot 1, as when I tried it on my real cart, I used slot 3 and could not replicate it. I'll move the save game around on the real cart and erase the first slot and see if that does it, but I have a feeling it might actually be the empty save that is responsible for it.

 

Edit: I tried three more times with the real cart on the SuperNT and I can not replicate it.

PCB I have is SHVC-1A3B-13 with

SNS-ZL-0

LH53820B

9223 E

if anyone else wants to compare PCB versions to see if there is another version of the cart.

I'll note the shell label has SNS-ZL-CAN on it. But Canadian versions of most software simply came with Bilingual manuals.

[FPGA Based Videogame System]

So I was testing/playing some games and something came to mind.

 

In games without SRAM or have No Battery, how trivial would it be to have an alternative to a cheat menu be a way to preserve high-scores or even progress in certain games that are controlled by passwords?

 

Like the Tetris game in the Dr.Mario/Tetris, it saves your high scores on reset, but not on power off. Not like a save state (which saves everything, and requires more space.) eg 7E1E30-7E1E6D appears to be the high score table in Tetris.

 

Obviously someone would need to use a debugger to actually find the addresses, but once found they could be stored as a CSV file on the SD card. This seems more like a thing to do with the SD2SNES, but could also be entered as it's own type of game genie/pro action reply type of code, where instead of "patching" the memory, you preserve a specific address and size, and "save on reset/save-on-change/restore on cold boot/restore-after-boot/restore-upon-first read to address." Like with the Tetris game I watched the addresses, and the actual high score table is only manipulated when it's changed, so it could theoretically just be written at any point before the it's read, or it could just be straight up over written at any time before the game over.

 

Anyway that would be an interesting way to extend a feature that would otherwise only be useful for cheats.

[FPGA Based Videogame System]

 

In my opinion even the pic from Freedom Planet would look better with scanlines if those were done right. There are like two or three lines per pixel row.

 

And I don't buy the sentiment that scanlines only look good on games that were meant to play with them. In my book anything 240p or less will benefit greatly from them, even Game Boy and Game Gear. One of the reasons I love my NT Mini and its analog output.

 

As mentioned a few times already, regardless of if scanlines improve the picture or not is a subjection observation. Out of the box on the SuperNT, in my opinion people will not want the scanlines on and will wonder if their system is broken if it were defaulted to that. They will not complain about the 4.5 scaling default and 8:7 aspect ratio unless they had been playing on Snes9x/Zsnes before where that is typically not the default. Likewise earlier in this thread about comparing Higan and the output of the SuperNT's color, Higan actually has a color "tick box" menu item to make it output the SNES color we see on the Super NT, but if it's enabled by default depends on what build you have AND if you're using something like Retroarch, which uses it's own scaler/framebuffer systems.

 

But every time someone says "oh but it gives it a CRT look", nope nope nope. At best it gives you a partial effect. Yes, the entire reason the scanlines exist is because people think there is something subjectively wrong with looking at the pixel art, but if that were the case, it would look subjectively wrong on ALL pixel art, which is never the case. You can actually see what Nintendo thinks of "CRT effects" in the Mini's. Jagged lines.

 

I have a photo of this actual effect from my CRT too

 

 

While we're at it, The CRT lag test with a real SNES:

 

[FPGA Based Videogame System]

INL sells the blank PCBs and the programmer on his site (Kazzo NES/FC dumper updates for NES/SNES burning) and you can get clear shells too. RetroStage and many others offer these parts but I know INL sells an affordable programmer. INL’s programmer is cheap enough that you probably won’t feel like you need the Super Nt or Nt Mini to flash it (IIRC, $30). Kevtris had a lot of negative things to say about the cat hairs he and Jason found in their INL order of cartridge shells but I don’t recall any engineering criticisms.

 

My issue, is that if we want to encourage "homebrew" stuff, there needs to be a way to obtain boards/shells that explicitly show they are designed for homebrew, and not simply to produce counterfeit copies of games.

 

I grabbed a few GB and SNES games off eBay the other day and in the back of my mind I was thinking "dang it, I should have looked for signs of it being a repro", none the less, I take issue more with people who are making money off of peoples ignorance. Some people want a repro (when I worked at eBay, the same can be said for the counterfeit handbags, some people explicitly want those counterfeits for whatever reason.)

 

At any rate, seeing as the boards are like 25$/ea and have clear markings on the PCB, it's probably not that unreasonable to just take every cart apart to make sure it's not a repro and slap sellers on the wrist who do didn't label them so.

[FPGA Based Videogame System]

There’s a lot to that, actually. Shortly before this launched, Rene from dbElectronics, wrote an article regarding a disturbing industry trend of using modern 3.3v logic in 5v logic retro hardware without proper level translation. It usually works, but there were some potential issues.

 

It really stirred things up though. It took aim at a lot of popular products and polarized fans. It got a lot of people asking technical questions that the Iam8bit guys weren’t prepared to answer, so they just threw up that tongue-in-cheek disclaimer. In the end, their repro boards were from Infinite NES Lives, which were properly made with correct voltage logic level translation.

 

They really should have removed that by now.

 

Anyway, here’s the article that started it all:

https://db-electronics.ca/2017/07/05/the-dangers-of-3-3v-flash-in-retro-consoles/

 

That's really curious actually. I wonder how many people killed their systems by having gaming marathons with those early everdrives.

 

Anyway, as far as producing new carts that work in the SNES, but are primarily designed for the Super NT or NT Mini, seems like someone just needs to come up with a standard "blank" cart PCB and make sure it has "FOR DEVELOPMENT ONLY" on the PCB and a clear shell, so people aren't unwittingly buying repro's. Heck, make it so that the Super Nt/NT Mini can actually flash games TO such a PCB.

[FPGA Based Videogame System]

1. Agreed

 

2. A lower cost NT Mini with Plastic Shell and HDMI only would be a smart move. They should also use the same Cyclone V that is in the Super NT for more features like Interpolation.

 

3. I don't believe Analogue sees a big enough market to make standalone consoles for anything older than NES. I mean lets be honest here, how many people would really be willing to spend $189.99 for a FPGA Colecovision?

 

I doubt anyone would be willing to spend $189.99 on anything that has no means of buying new games for it. That's the conundrum of building things with the cartridge slot.

 

Nintendo has the ROM files for every game ever made for their system. They could even build their own multicart with the exact same games as the Mini's and licence it for use on the Analogue systems, but they won't because they have been resistant to even doing mobile games. "Not our hardware = lawsuit"

 

That said, Capcom, Sega (who doesn't produce SNES/NES games, but likely would do this with a Sega system), Konami, Square-Enix and several other publishers that are still in business would love to cut Nintendo out of the virtual console business, and the Analogue NT Mini and Analogue Super NT let's them do that. Capcom in fact did that... https://www.polygon.com/2017/8/30/16230658/street-fighter-2-snes-cartridge-rerelease-capcom-iam8bit

 

edit: Read the description https://store.iam8bit.com/products/street-fighter-ii-30th-anniversary-edition

 

WARNING: Use of this reproduction game cartridge (the “Product”) on the SNES gaming hardware may cause the SNES console to overheat or catch fire. The SNES hardware is deemed a vintage collectible, so please exercise extreme caution when using the Product and make sure there is fire extinguishment equipment nearby. Use of the Product is at the sole risk of the user.

[FPGA Based Videogame System]

You've just made another completely irrelevant post. I've clearly defined my position as "I use scanlines because they improve the quality of the image" and not because of nostalgia or to intentionally make the image look worse for authenticity. If you have any argument against that the pictures I provided either prove my case or prove you have really bad taste. Those are the two camps you have to choose from. Now this conversation is over.

 

And I'm saying people get the wrong idea about what scanlines do.

 

This is MY CRT:

 

This is MY 4K without scanlines:

 

This is the same 4K with Hybrid scanlines:

 

This is the same 4K with Normal scanlines:

 

Subjectively, it looks better without scanlines.

[FPGA Based Videogame System]

All image filters are subjective. This news should not shock you.

 

Having said that however, those that subjectively enjoy pixilated images are either very strange or have never done a comparison and assume people only like scanlines because of nostalgia.

 

I've been through similar arguments about scanlines on other retro forums. You basically have four camps:

 

1. Software emulator is good enough, and whatever it defaults to is considered standard, even if it's inaccurate. These people have never played the original hardware and will not pick up on that.

2. Scanlines replicate the CRT experience, cue arguments about exactly which CRT is the gold standard.

3. Scanlines make things ugly, and it becomes a circular argument about how to make things more ugly-accurate, like have RF interference, or limited chroma/luma, etc

4. Turn all that off and just let me enjoy the game

 

I don't care for it, and when I see botched youtube videos, it's always a result of people uploading video without any understanding of what scanlines do, how it's compressed (you actually need noise in the video or you get banding when it gets converted from RGB to YUV420) and what the native resolution of the device is.

[FPGA Based Videogame System]

But it is worth taking a look at how the image changes with them on because it usually makes things look a lot better.

 

 

You're making a subjective statement about a feature that nobody will agree on. We're talking about scanlines in 2018, in 2024 we might be talking about replicating the exact aperture grille of a CRT.

[FPGA Based Videogame System]

The short answer is that scanlines provide a smoothing effect on the image by breaking it up so your eye doesn't see all the hard edges, but it goes much deeper than that into proper aspect ratios and resampling and all kinds of stuff. This is a good article to give a read if you are interested in more info:

https://nfgworld.com/mb/thread/660-Aspect-Ratios-Scanlines-and-Modern-Displays

 

 

 

 

The problem there, is that pixel art made for LCD screens (That middle image set is from a sonic-clone called Freedom Planet) is not designed with the color palette of the game systems that run on CRT's, so adding scanlines to anything but 8-bit systems tends to do the opposite and makes it look a way it was not intended to.

 

Hence, NES, C64, Sega Master System, Apple II, CGA/EGA, etc when you add scanlines to those systems, makes it look like the color palette is doubled. But CRT's never had "grids" like the scan lines create, rather those lines came from the interlaced resolution. Trinitron screens actually had VERTICAL lines. So the correct "CRT" result would require lines in both directions. Remember dot pitch?

 

What has happened though in the last two or so years are 4K monitors and with them, resolution-independent scaling. So the result of this is that the dot-pitch equivalent (measured now in ppi) is so far from CRT norms that you can actually get away with replicating the individual trinitron style output on it. If you have a 144dpi 4K screen, and are running a SNES at 256x224, that is equal to about 14.7 dpi on a 24" screen.

 

But to go back a minute, if you think scanlines look good, you need a nostalgia check and go play a NES/SNES on a 14" CRT and ask yourself if you really think that looks better. It tends to only ever really be the case with arcade CRT's which were significantly higher quality than the TV's we had in the 80's, even the 90's.

 

Like I understand peoples nostalgia for the way the CRT looked, but then we have the other end of the spectrum of people who think the 8-bit style retro graphics look gaudy and try to use scalers on them to give them more resolution than they actually have, and then we have 3D cards and junky LCD monitors that apply linear filters to non-native scaling.

 

My opinion is that the original graphics do not need to be improved by filtering or scanlines. If it happens that the aspect ratio correction makes the pixels look too fat, then you've been playing with software emulators too long. But you can still turn that off. The original hardware didn't generate scanlines. The original hardware was plugged into CRT's of varying quality, so no two people will have the same fondness for scanlines, and to each their own.

 

But if you upload anything to youtube with scanlines, you've gone a little too far, because that is trying to give someone else your experience using your tastes, if youtube doesn't turn it into muddy blurs.

[FPGA Based Videogame System]

So maybe this is a dumb time to ask the question.. but I guess it's always been in the back of my mind. Why do people like scanlines.. or rather, what is the advantage of them?

 

For all I can tell it puts lines across the screen... and I guess it looks fine.. but, and what? Is that all it's for?

 

Some people like the look of it for some reason, and IMO, it's something you'd do if you're trying to replace a CRT experience, but that's just something you will always fall short on, since CRT's came in a bunch of different shapes and color phosphors used. I don't personally like seeing the scanlines on anything except when the intent is to go "this is a CRT". Much in the same way you see film grain or sepia/black+white in a "flashback" in a film, despite film grain hasn't really been a thing since the 80's as well. There's even "VHS" filters that people use to make digital video look crappy for the purpose of going "this was supposedly recorded in 1984" . So to that extent the purpose of scanlines is to give people that vintage 1985 feeling by degrading the video.

[FPGA Based Videogame System]

Dunno, the 68K is probably the worst part. Other than that, I don't think it's as complex as the SNES was but I am sure it has lots of quirks and weird things too. I have done FM before and video so I don't think it will be too terrible or out of that out of the ordinary. The worse part is people wouldn't like if it didn't run sega CD or the 32x, which it most likely wouldn't do. It'd be stock genesis only. That's not to say it wouldn't have expansion for the cd, but it definitely would never support the 32X because it'd need to output analog RGB, then re-capture analog RGB from the 32x for its video overlay. So I suspect the bitching would be epic if I didn't support those things. I could be wrong and it has happened before :-)

 

I was never much of a Sega person, but I understand the appeal of those devices, or at least trying to support games that use them.

 

For the most part I think it's possible to support those inside the FPGA system, but as I stated pages ago, the resources required to support the actual external devices would be insane, and it we would all be better off if trying to support those external devices is not done. Either a Mega NT supports the 32X carts or it doesn't. Trying to make it support the actual 32X defeats the purpose of trying to having a HDMI console. Where as the master system/sg3000/gamegear carts/cards was originally done via pin adapters in the first place, so you can actually improve upon that by not needing the power base converter. The SegaCD I think, in theory you could have the segaCD expansion slot available, but wouldn't be able to use an actual SegaCD on it without making the MegaNT the exact same size as a Genesis model 1 or model 2, thus people will get mad that their version of the SegaCD unit doesn't work. Adding to that, all the subtle differences between US/JP and EU markets.

 

Then there is the MegaLD as well (Yes LaserDisc), and the Mega Karaoke...

 

You can't please everyone here. So to that end, I'd suggest leaving some kind of two-way expansion pony connector that can't use a real SegaCD unit, but leaves open the possibility of a FPGA 32X/CD should someone convince SEGA to licence their stuff.

[FPGA Based Videogame System]

 

Here's the thing... I reported one of those auctions as well as auctions for complete mp3 collections for particular musicians, and eBay didn't do anything, even weeks later. From what I can tell they don't care about this kind of stuff.

 

Take a look at this seller's auctions and let me know if anything gets taken down: https://www.ebay.com/sch/themonsterometer/m.html?item=273066477429&hash=item3f9407c775%3Ag%3AgHcAAOSw-olaEkt5&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2562

 

Don't take it personally.

 

There will always be things to take down on eBay, when I worked there, I could easily spend a full shift just taking down LVMH counterfeits and never get to the pirated games. Part of this is that the only thing that is high-priority for eBay is VeRO take downs, so reporting the auction piracy stuff to the copyright owner is also another way of going about it.

 

Also listings that are removed for infringement disappear and aren't visible to the public anymore.

[FPGA Based Videogame System]

Thanks for the insight! In my case it was purely started from the V64 even though they do seem to let me use the word “ROM” today. I even sold an Everdrive last year and my brother sold an Analog Nt Mini on our account just the other day and even got away with mentioning “Jailbreak:”

https://rover.ebay.com/rover/0/0/0?mpre=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ebay.com%2Fulk%2Fitm%2F132504460944

 

I guess I’m off the naughty list. Maybe it’s because he dismissed the notion that it was even a “jailbreak” since the meaning of the term implies that your are breaking out of an engineered restriction where this came from the original engineer. It could also be that his example of playing games without the original cartridge specifically references homebrew.

 

Funny that I was ever on that list, considering how I feel about others who sell illegitimate ROMs.

 

I wouldn't risk selling anything with the word Nintendo in it pretty much. The thing with the SD2SNES is that it has "SNES" in the name, so that's enough to get on Nintendo's radar. The Everdrive on the other hand likely flies under Nintendo's radar unless "NES" or "Nintendo" or "Famicom" are also in the title.

 

Nintendo itself however also files VERY VERY Large VeRO lists, sometimes for listings that are 5 months old. So just because someone thought they got away with it, doesn't mean they did.

 

If I was still working at eBay I would have been compelled to remove the listing for mentioning anything about the jailbreak firmware, and "you don't need a cartridge", but keep in mind that eBay staff are not personally invested in removing listings, so whoever reviews it might not know anything about firmware, where as the next person might be someone like myself who actually knows the intricacies of what they mean. I used to intentionally search for piracy listings because it would improve my metrics and it was low-hanging fruit compared to the counterfeit bags.

[FPGA Based Videogame System]

 

I find it surprising that these types of auctions are allowed to exist:

https://goo.gl/VJZfrd

 

They won't for long, I assure you that for every one listing you can see on the site, there was probably another 50 that was taken down before 5pm.

[FPGA Based Videogame System]

I’ve *personally* had my eBay account suspended for trying to sell a Bung product around 2003. It happened again when I mentioned the particularly large “mask ROM” when selling my copy of Tales of Phantasia around 2005. That’s right: Because I said “ROM.”

 

 

I worked for eBay around that era in that department, so this comes from a position of authority on the manner.

 

Basically, taking the context of what is being sold today

 

- The Super NT or NT Mini where any statement indicating that games can be played off the SD card, would be taken down

 

- The NES Mini Classic or SNES Mini Classic would be taken down if it lists anything but the stock games in the listing, or is listed as "modified" or "hacked"

 

- Any RPi device that includes copyrighted games by name would be taken down. The would not be taken down if MAME is not mentioned. (MAME takes down listings for trademark)

 

- All Repros mentioned to be repros.

 

- All "modded", "mod", "modchip" listings are removed, as well as anything mentioning "ROM", or ability to play recordable media (such as cd-r, dvd-r, and sd cards)

- Any "copier" would be taken down (And as such the M3 and R4 devices were immediate takedown + suspension), which also includes devices like the Everdrive and SD2SNES. These devices were released after eBay closed the location I worked at, so I couldn't tell you if they hit the keyword filters

 

- Any "service" to modify a console or install any firmware on a device that can play copied games

 

 

What won't get you in trouble:

 

- Selling a device in it's stock (New in Box) form

 

- The Super NT or NT Mini without any ability to play games off the SD card, and without any mention in the listing about jailbreak firmware, would pass. Opened or not

 

- Selling the SNES mini classic or NES mini classic unopened, or opened but no mention of anything being done to it,

 

- Selling new labels or cartridge shells, despite the fact they will get used for Repro's (Note that this rule is unrelated to "selling empty boxes", which will be taken down)

 

- Selling any broken console for parts

 

 

eBay does change the internal rules frequently, usually when a new console is released, or as mistakes are made. Case in point, there was one version of the Xbox 360 chipset which was a chipset not known for RROD's, but they kept getting flagged incorrectly. There was one exception made, and that was for the PSP custom firmware, where people could sell the modified console as long as there was no mention of what the custom firmware did. The Pandora battery was always taken down however.

 

So the precendent internally would be that you could sell the Super NT with "custom firmware" as long as you nobody ever mentions what it does. As soon as someone lists a Super NT that can play roms, that genie is out of the bag and all Super NT's get taken down.

 

Which is the problem with selling things on eBay in general, it's better to omit critical information from the text description AND photo if it may call into question the legitimacy or legality of the product. It only takes ONE TIME to get your account flagged as someone who engages in piracy, and that will make all listings you sell scrutinized more than sellers who have never had an infringement take down. It's a "leopards don't change their spots" kind of rule. This rule is also the corner-stone of taking down counterfeit junk from chinese drop-shippers.

 

There are plenty of sites out there you can order potentially illegal things from online, but Nintendo or any other rights owners can only go after them one at a time. That's why some sites will not sell to certain countries or states, because if they do, the items will get seized at customs.