MSTREET-6 Street Fighter 2 Champion Edition Bootleg: Restore & Upgrades

[Hatsune Mike]

Don't forget that emulators are only as good as the code the author wrote. They don't have a single static level of accuracy, advantages, or caveats. It is all dependent on the driver for a particular game and its hardware.

The popular CPS2 emulators still have rough CPU timing approximations, as none of them implement the memory access delays of the original hardware. It's close, but the speed isn't correct for games that are sensitive to it (Super Turbo, Hyper Fighting). Cave 68000 emulation is the same way - while the nominal gameplay will be at the correct speed, as it's based on the vertical refresh rate, the speed affect of a slowdown is approximate.

J. J. Squawkers, in MAME, has a stupid box sprite in the lower-left corner that never goes away. The refresh rate (and consequent game speed) is a little too fast, while the emulated CPU performance is worse enough to make the game drastically slower during slowdown.

68000 Cave games (and others on the Atlus chipset) don't emulate sprite drop-out when the blitter bandwidth is exceeded. This isn't going to ruin your enjoyment of the game, but you are getting a different experience than the original, for better or worse.

On original hardware, it isn't necessary to wonder for even a second if these kinds of details are being missed.

Bootlegs are hardware, but if it's a bootleg that reimplements hardware from scratch, similar caveats apply as they would for emulation

As people care more, and additional effort is made, these gaps can be closed. However, with these classes of issues, it is not circumspect to say "emulators are good" or "emulators are bad". It is a matter of compromising some things for others, and emulation solutions lay on one side of the balance.

 

[Zebra]

I (and the sellers of collectibles on youtube) are not saying there are no 45+ collectors of stuff. It's just a dramatically reduced number as the age bracket increases. It's impossible to say why or what percentage lose interest but it's easy to see that people's priorities change with things like marriage or when their kids approach college age. Most people's wives would divorce them if they spent $20,000 on a video game from the 1980's.

All it takes is a small percentage to try selling their collections and prices tumble. couple that with fewer buyers and you get the face of those guys on Hoarders who find out that their doll collection is not worth anything close to the $300,000 they spent.

Vintage video games is nothing like the classic car market. expensive classic cars have far broader appeal and far fewer who can afford them. Something like a Mercedes 300sl gullwing is desirable to the vast majority of the worlds population but only the top 1% of the top 1% could ever afford one. They have always been expensive, even when new. Nobody is looking to pay top dollar for a 1987 for Ford Mondeo, even if it was a limited edition. It's all about desirability.

only the top earners of a tiny niche of a tiny niche would ever buy an expensive video game from the 80's or 90's. Most are happy to download them for free. They are only desirable to a handful of people worldwide. And, unlike classic cars, games rarely find a following with the next generation. Today's kids will have no nostalgia for the Golden days of arcade gaming.


Anyway, this thread is about an imperfect bootleg of SF2 CE. This was the most popular arcade ever. Neither the original or it's bootlegs are in any way rare and certainly not a good investment. So, to me, an imperfect SF2 bootleg is a waste of money, no matter how cheap it is.

 

[Hatsune Mike]

Today's kids will have no nostalgia for the Golden days of arcade gaming.

This attitude is pervasive, and I think it stinks. Don't disregard the many people who get into these games having seen nothing of them during their childhood. Do you think nearly anybody here grew up playing DoDonPachi? There are many reasons to like these games beyond nostalgia. When publishers go out of their way to associate a game's re-release with NOSTALGIA ALERT! REMEMBER YOUR HALYCON '80s DAYS?! ESCAPE YOUR UPSETTING LIFE WITH THIS TRIP! it cheapens the game and narrows the demographic.

For people who come over to visit who aren't familiar with the games - they may not know they like them yet - when they come over to a bunch of well-kept arcade machines running games they haven't seen, it piques their interests, and almost always they enjoy them and ask about playing them again. Adherence to nostalgia holds both the community and industry back.

 

[XtraSmiley]

Today's kids will have no nostalgia for the Golden days of arcade gaming.

This attitude is pervasive, and I think it stinks. Don't disregard the many people who get into these games having seen nothing of them during their childhood. Do you think nearly anybody here grew up playing DoDonPachi? There are many reasons to like these games beyond nostalgia.

Hey, I’ve been a gamer my whole life and never played a Cave shooter. I go to Japan two years ago and play ESPGaluda for the first time, and let’s just say, now I have a problem!

You are right, what’s good is always good and will be rediscovered by new generations.

 

[Zebra]

It's easy to get into wishful thinking due to our own nostalgic feelings but.... It is not a case of attitude or opinion. It is a simple and obvious fact that the vast majority of arcades closed down. You can't have nostalgia for something you never experienced. There is one arcade left in my area with no pre-HD era cabs.

I play Final Fight with my 4 year old son. He likes it and I like playing it with him but he never saw the original cab and never played it in an arcade. What would ever make him want to invest hundreds or thousands of dollars on an original pcb?

Usually, people who have a strong reaction to this fairly immaterial topic are the ones with a vested interest in prices of old PCBs remaining high. Like that guy on hoarders. He got super angry when he was told that his doll collection, that he spent $300,000 on, was close to worthless.

 

[Zebra]

Today's kids will have no nostalgia for the Golden days of arcade gaming.

This attitude is pervasive, and I think it stinks. Don't disregard the many people who get into these games having seen nothing of them during their childhood. Do you think nearly anybody here grew up playing DoDonPachi? There are many reasons to like these games beyond nostalgia.

Hey, I’ve been a gamer my whole life and never played a Cave shooter. I go to Japan two years ago and play ESPGaluda for the first time, and let’s just say, now I have a problem!
You are right, what’s good is always good and will be rediscovered by new generations.

just because good is always good, it does not mean new generations will be prepared to drop loads of cash for original hardware for games they can download for free.

The main driver (besides speculation on value increases) for buying expensive PCBs (instead of emulation) is a dislike of the little differences to the experience they remember from the arcade.

 

[opt2not]

just because good is always good, it does not mean new generations will be prepared to drop loads of cash for original hardware for games they can download for free.
The main driver (besides speculation on value increases) for buying expensive PCBs (instead of emulation) is a dislike of the little differences to the experience they remember from the arcade.

Tell that to the hipsters/trendsters. Pretty sure those early-20 y/o’s didn’t have nostalgia for any of these “retro” games, but here they are all over youtube with original boards, consoles, carts.
How can you explain that oh wise one?

 

[XtraSmiley]

Today's kids will have no nostalgia for the Golden days of arcade gaming.

This attitude is pervasive, and I think it stinks. Don't disregard the many people who get into these games having seen nothing of them during their childhood. Do you think nearly anybody here grew up playing DoDonPachi? There are many reasons to like these games beyond nostalgia.

Hey, I’ve been a gamer my whole life and never played a Cave shooter. I go to Japan two years ago and play ESPGaluda for the first time, and let’s just say, now I have a problem! You are right, what’s good is always good and will be rediscovered by new generations.

just because good is always good, it does not mean new generations will be prepared to drop loads of cash for original hardware for games they can download for free.
The main driver (besides speculation on value increases) for buying expensive PCBs (instead of emulation) is a dislike of the little differences to the experience they remember from the arcade.

I don’t disagree with you, but like I posted, I’ve never played the originals in my youth, I’m just eager to collect now that I know about them. I think some prices will adjust, but it’s really impossible to know how it will really end. There is also the issue of the chips failing, acid damage, whatever, that reduces the total parts available.

Anyway, I like the discussion and value your input, I just believe it’s too hard to accurately predict the future on these.

 

[JoeAwesome]

I play Final Fight with my 4 year old son. He likes it and I like playing it with him but he never saw the original cab and never played it in an arcade. What would ever make him want to invest hundreds or thousands of dollars on an original pcb?

Gee, I don't know. Maybe because it's the game he played with his dad when he gets to be older?

I would guess the point being made is "nostalgia" doesn't require you to experience something in its heyday, but rather to have an experience to refer to.

 

[connor]

I think that the only reason to still buy PCBs is if you are either a purist or a collector. If you don't mind it not being perfect then groovymame on a CRT is fine. There is no reason to spend any money on a bootleg.

If you are a collector (or investor), bootlegs have no value at all. They are a lose lose thing.

Cave CV1000 titles quickly get unplayable on mame due to missing and inaccurate slowdown among other issues.