I see what you mean. I dont know tbh then again the translation in general is not exact anyway. Its more like explaining it in english rather than a direct translation like in "all your bases are mine". It is what it is i suppose. I was speculating it was world version based on the no region splash screen. Could be as you said, a quick n dirty version for display, an unreleased world version, or whatever you like to call it.
Indeed. I spent a year inside the game's data, I live in Japan and speak Japanese pretty darn well if I say so myself. There aren't many people out there who know the game's data and it's relationship with the two languages better than me. That's why I'm being pretty adamant about things. It's not "it is what it is." We don't *know* what it is until we have more proof. In my opinion it is either: a) a hoax/scam made by someone who is pretty decent at ROM hacking and has tools to burn the data to some chips, neither of which is entirely uncommon these days b) a legitimate and very rare international release of the game, but one which almost certainly has nothing new to bring to the table and is not worth the asking price. I mean, we did somewhat recently find that English version of Sonic Cosmo Fighter, so this is *possibly* legitimate. I am simply urging caution to everyone involved in putting up money.
What now doesn't seem to add up for me is the Japanese manual as well. Cosmo Fighter's was fully translated, why would they not bother with this?
If it helps I purchased this from a retired collector several years ago. I doubt he would know anything about what you just said either. I'm pretty decent and repairing and maintaining my collection but as far as software and mame, thats another story. Also thank you for your input. This kind of thing helps me a lot. I am sure the buyer is not stupid and knows what to look for. Also makes me less inclined to keep it as well. As for the arts that belonged to my Japanese version, I sold ages ago. I made this video for him to see what he would be getting for his money.
It seems like it’s schrodinger’s beta. Unless OP has something that can prove provenance, nobody will know if it’s a real prototype or a patched version of the Japanese rom without OP dumping the rom and letting someone competent look at it (which would piss off whoever is offering him 4k monies)
It depends where the board comes from. The only time I've ever seen a SegaSonic Arcade machine in the wild was a trip to SegaWorld London 20+ years ago (I have no idea if it was localised - it was well before I paid attention to such things) - if they were never seen outside of Sega venues, maybe a fancy manual wasn't needed. Or they never bothered to print one. Conversely, that localised SegaSonic Cosmo Fighter was found in a Spanish shopping mall(?), which might suggest it was actually sold to someone, and therefore needed documentation. Or there was a manual and it got lost. Or it's a prototype. idk. We can't really make judgements without the ROMs being dumped.
This is the most prudent approach. There's enough evidence here to even have an expert question its validity, meaning the PCB itself could potentially be worthless and hold no value whatsoever. The only way to confirm is to dump and analyze. Buyer confidence would be secured in doing so, thereby determining an appropriate value for the board.
I doubt this helps much but I have a photo of that exact Segasonic (next to Sonic the Fighters) from Segaworld London from 1996. I played it once there but also cannot remember if it was localised or not.
Gotta say, I'm with Chimpo here. It's either worth nowhere near that much, or worth a lot more, and we'll never know until it's dumped.
I have to agree with RyogaMasaki's points. I get the desire to preserve, but there's nothing indicating that this release, if legit, has anything new to offer. I wouldn't chip in any money for this. What gets me, is if it's fake, then the question would be who the faker is. Monstermug has been around on that arcade forum for over a decade, so I don't think they're the faker, which means they got tricked by someone else. Might be worth explaining where they got it from. This isn't for witchhunting purposes, but it might shed some light on if this is legit?
We were so blinded on Segaworld London using a import we never thought of doubting this Personally I want the PCB documented and if possible the board dumped, but as stated it'll probably have little to no differences outside of being another oddity to put in the odds and ends bin e.g. Sonic 2's REV02... assuming this is legit Also I recall a twitter talking point before Covid hit that I saw a video of a vhs cam recording of someone playing a SegaSonic cab in the 90s in America/Australia/the UK, with the cab having the label "never released in the USA", with the video showing that Segasonic made it out overseas but it wasn't translated. Ive been unable to find this video for today other than some guy going full ham on a segasonic popcorn machine so if anyone knows what im talking about lmk where that video is.
I'm a bit confused by the new footage, as it isn't localized. Is the language setting controlled by a dip switch?
Until there's more info/pics/etc available, I'd say the current valuation from this community would be "not worth more than a final board".
That post was confusing. He was showing a full Japanese machine, separate from the maybe worth-something board.
There is some footage of it - it wasn't. I have read that machines running it reached other UK locations ran by Sega (e.g. Sega World Bournemouth) though, so it is still possible a localised version went to one of those instead.
