[Amethyst]

MD

T-400XX - TOAPLAN
Taken from NTSC-J copy of Zero Wing

T-80146-50 - Flying Edge
Taken from a PAL copy of Steel Empire/Empire of Steel

T-81326-50 - Arena / Midway, unsure. From a PAl copy of NBA JAM

[Meat Miracle]

The T-xx codes are there on all games released on Sega consoles as far as I know.

T-19 looks like a very early third party code, so I'd look at the games released on the earliest Sega consoles to find out which company it is. SG-1000 and so.

edit: sg-1000 games did not use the t-xx codes. Megadrive seems to be the first to do it. Master System games seem to use different third party codes? (they don't match up to t-xx codes)

This post has been edited by Meat Miracle: 17 April 2012 - 09:30 AM

[Black Squirrel]

There were no third-party Japanese Master System games. Bar those by Salio.

I'm fully confident the T-19 code was registered by someone and then never used. We have gone through every single licensed Mega Drive game known to man, and if these codes were registered on a first come, first serve basis, that means it would have had to be registered before Asmik (T-20). Asmik published Super Hydlide in October 1989 which was their first Mega Drive release, which means T-19 would have been registered before then.

Because the Master System doesn't use T-series codes it is safe to assume T-19 would have been registered between some point in 1987/1988 (whenever the Mega Drive project started) and October 1989.


I think it's pretty simple - the company either didn't publish any games for Sega consoles, or Technosoft were stupid and registered two codes by accident.

The answer might lie in late 80s Japanese magazines. See if anyone announced something for Sega's system but didn't deliver, or went bankrupt around that time. I mean there are 550+ Saturn games and 200+ Dreamcast games which still need pages on Sega Retro - maybe you'll get lucky and find a T-19, but I think it's more likely someone registered that code "just in case" they needed it, but never actually used it for whatever reason.


Maybe it was SquareSoft or something.

This post has been edited by Black Squirrel: 17 April 2012 - 11:14 AM

[Meat Miracle]

I already checked the saturn library, and there's no t-19.

Chances are it was either some specific Technosoft/Sega collaboration (if some technosoft games indeed had t-19), similar to how some other companies got multiple codes - like Treasure/ESP. Or, it was a company that registered as a third party with Sega but then never released anything. Shining the Holy Ark producer Sonic Software Planning got their own unique code as well, but for only that one title, while the rest of their stuff were published as first party games.

I believe a lot of third party codes will never surface, due to unreleased software. Not unless someone gets a master list from Sega, which probably doesn't even exist anymore.

[Andlabs]

ESP is a weird situation. I'm betting the combination ones are really the original company rather than joint ventures... apparently they were part of Game Arts though No way to really tell :/
Some of the later entries on the list are also messy or suspicious; I'll have to run through them as I fill out the Dreamcast (and later Saturn) verification tables in the near future

This post has been edited by Andlabs: 17 April 2012 - 12:34 PM

[Sik]

Black Squirrel, on 17 April 2012 - 11:13 AM, said:

I think it's pretty simple - the company either didn't publish any games for Sega consoles, or Technosoft were stupid and registered two codes by accident.

Or Sega was the stupid one and registered two codes by accident =P

There's also the chance it's one of the companies that decided to use an abbreviation of its name instead of the T code. Is there any company that did that and never used the T code in any of the headers?

[Andlabs]

For released games it wouldn't matter because of game boxes. ...that is, unless it's an early international game argh

For unreleased games by companies who never published anything...

This post has been edited by Andlabs: 17 April 2012 - 09:50 PM

[Andlabs]

A weirder situation arises with T-35 and T-66

If we go solely by boxes:
T-35
Toaplan - MUSHA JP
Seismic - MUSHA US (35046==T-35046?), Super Hydlide US, Hellfire US (35036==T-35036?), Air Diver US
Compile - nothing
T-66
Compile - everything they published

but by ROM headers
Binary file /media/FD/nointro/mdroms/Madou Monogatari I (Japan).md matches
Binary file /media/FD/nointro/mdroms/Puyo Puyo 2 (Japan).md matches
I'm guessing here Compile was just too lazy to change the header but I doubt it because the later revision Puyo Puyo 2 has T-66
The Toaplan question still remains either way

BUT WAIT THERE'S MORE
Fatman - Sanritsu - T-44 box, cart has T-38 in the copyright and T-44 in the serial number field
(Slaughter Sport has T-56 for both)
perhaps T-38 is Mediagenic or Mediagenic Japan?

This post has been edited by Andlabs: 17 April 2012 - 10:48 PM

[Meat Miracle]

T-35 is either Seismic (US) or Compile/Taoplan (JP, as a collaboration). I don't know if there's any other games released as t-35 in japan, can't even look it up with vgrebirth dead (are there any other sites where you can browse games by serial?).

Compile on it's own is T-66 always. Or is that Compile when published by Sega? They published almost all of their games later on - even on other consoles!

[Andlabs]

Toaplan (T-40) was the sole publisher of Musha Aleste as far as both Sega can tell and from what I can tell from the box. I could try to get the box translated by someone who knows Japanese...

Guardiana has a serial search but you're going to get results that match everything in the T-35x range (Fortyfive/45XLV, etc.) and there might be mistakes

Sega and Compile appeared to have split the publication of Compile's games, with all of Compile's own using T-66. I know Banpresto (Super Puyo Puyo) and Tokuma Shoten (Madou Monogatari) published some of their SNES fare, and they self-published their PS1 software (except for a weird situation involving Sega publishing a 2003 rerelease of Sun). Maybe there's a difference between cart and disk — I don't see Compile having published many of their own MSX cartridge games, yet they made countless issues of DiscStation! (apparently well beyond when other companies stopped caring? I'm still on the 1990 MSX titles but with things like "DiscStation Bessatsu ℹ miss you." you're not getting far... and some of the games were contracted to Compile without credit)


In other news, T-84 GameTek - where did this come from?

This post has been edited by Andlabs: 18 April 2012 - 12:26 AM

[Black Squirrel]

As a general rule I wouldn't trust ROM headers over boxes. If they don't match up for whatever reason, assume the header is wrong - it won't have been much of a priority to get it right. This especially applies to localisations where new developers might forget to change things. Same if there's a change in publisher for whatever reason.

There is always a chance covers may be incorrect, but I get the feeling they're less likely to be. People can actually see those numbers.

Might be worth checking some of these duplicates for clues as to where in the world they come from. Could be a case where the US branch has a different code to the Japanese one or silly things like that.

This post has been edited by Black Squirrel: 18 April 2012 - 07:06 AM

[Sik]

Black Squirrel, on 18 April 2012 - 07:03 AM, said:

This especially applies to localisations where new developers might forget to change things.

Actually moreover, as far as I know releases in different regions get different serial numbers. Can somebody confirm me this? If this is the case, when they used the same ROM for multiple regions (which happened a lot), it'd match only one of the serial numbers.

Black Squirrel, on 18 April 2012 - 07:03 AM, said:

Might be worth checking some of these duplicates for clues as to where in the world they come from. Could be a case where the US branch has a different code to the Japanese one or silly things like that.

Could be related to what I mentioned above. Maybe T-19 being Technosoft comes from the serial numbers in the boxes.

I think the whole T-19 thing comes from some old FAQ though...

[Amethyst]

Here's another one for you, scanned by yours truly.

This post has been edited by Amethyst: 18 April 2012 - 07:44 AM

[Andlabs]

Black Squirrel, on 18 April 2012 - 07:03 AM, said:

etc

While trusting the box is better yes, the situation now is that the box says T-35 for Musha Aleste...

Duplicates and other suspicious entries are what I'm trying to run through right now. I know some companies like Bandai and Kodansha have separate T-series codes for subsidiaries (Ma-Ba, ASK Kodansha, etc.). There are a few situations where overseas publishers might also get involved, though I do know DreamWorks is not NCS and I wonder if Sage's Creation is HOT-B and if Seismic is Asmik

Sik, on 18 April 2012 - 07:10 AM, said:

etc

I wonder which FAQ...
There are no T-19s on boxes; I listed all the codes I could find above. The US Thunder Force III (the only thing Tecnosoft published overseas; distributed by HOT-B) has a (T-)18 code.

Amethyst, on 18 April 2012 - 07:43 AM, said:

Here's another one for you, scanned by yours truly.

Thanks. We have T-72 for Varie, but that's a slightly better scan than what we have now. Could you make a larger quality scan? Bad scans are still a problem :/


Just as a reminder, here is the link to the most current list:
http://segaretro.org..._T-Series_Codes
updated whenever

This post has been edited by Andlabs: 18 April 2012 - 08:20 AM

[Meat Miracle]

Andlabs, on 18 April 2012 - 12:18 AM, said:

Toaplan (T-40) was the sole publisher of Musha Aleste as far as both Sega can tell and from what I can tell from the box. I could try to get the box translated by someone who knows Japanese...

The JP box of Musha Aleste says T-35013. So it's T-35. The same cover also says Compile/Taoplan.
Since Taoplan on its own is T-40 and Compile is T-66, that leaves T-35 as Compile/Taoplan.

The only problem is that for USA games, T-35 was used by Seismic. But I recall the USA and JP t-xx numbers clashing a few other times too, so this could be normal - but it means that usa and japanese lists were separate.

Black Squirrel, on 18 April 2012 - 07:03 AM, said:

As a general rule I wouldn't trust ROM headers over boxes. If they don't match up for whatever reason, assume the header is wrong - it won't have been much of a priority to get it right. This especially applies to localisations where new developers might forget to change things. Same if there's a change in publisher for whatever reason.

The ROM headers were generic templates handed out by Sega that developers had to fill with their own numbers. Sometimes they forgot about it (on prototypes - if the numbers weren't fixed, Sega wouldn't let them publish it), or added bad numbers, or perhaps there was a change in publisher and the numbers weren't refreshed in the header because the carts were already in production or some such shit.

Croc:Legend of the Gobbos has the same header in PAL and USA releases, Virtua Racing Saturn has the same header between PAL and JPN releases, Virtua Fighter Kids has the same header between PAL and JPN releases.

I'd trust the covers for the master list, and mention cover/header differences on a per-title basis.

This post has been edited by Meat Miracle: 18 April 2012 - 08:31 AM