Posted the concern on no-intro. Especially considering we have no PAL-region Pico hardware shots or scans, this is a very valid concern. Trying to find alternative solutions would be nice, indeed.
If I recall correctly, yes, a cartslot from a Pico was taken to get those dumps (no idea if there are chances to put the thing back, though).
What Sik said. IIRC the previous destroyed Picos were US Models, though, which are as common and cheap to gets as Genesis consoles, so the damage was very little. (Kinda a bummer that only, like, 2 [retail] ROMs got dumped prior to Team-Europe doing all their work.)
Pico Soccer uses SMPS/68k! Song list - $10588 PSG voice list - $10054 I don't know how similar coordination flags are, though $F4 appears to be the "change voice" flag (and even after dropping the voices into Sonic 1 the Sonic 1 version of the driver still didn't play the song the same way as far as volumes go...). For those who care, the entry point into the SMPS routine (which appears to be called every frame) is $10642.
A few updates of note; 1) A new ROM dump http://www.axifile.com/en/1AF60FEAC7 HPC-6042-00 - Game wo Shinagara Oboe You! Kantan Wakuwaku Keyboard (Japan) Currently can't be emulated (It requires the Pico keyboard accessory). 2) Evidence of music being lazily reused between Pico games. Check "Ken-chan to Pepe no Wanpaku Drive" and compare it's theme song to the one in Mushiking. To make this slightly stranger, Wanpaku drive is published by Sega while Mushiking Sega Toys, adding another degree of complexity between the Sega/Sega Toys relationship. 3) My Youtube has more videos - including ones I put up from NicoNicoDouga as well as ROM recordings. I'm also monetizing a lot of my uploads. -I would appreciate it if you guys watch and let the ads run free on any of my monetized videos-. The money will probably go into trying to get more Pico games researched into. Example; 4) ReBirFh on no-intro forums; I would like to get the Brazilian Pico Soft in Team-Europe's hands to ROM dump. ScarredSun sent me these comparisons for Tec Toy Picos and games; http://produto.mercadolivre.com.br/MLB-239002247-sega-pico-da-tectoy-funcionando-4-jogos-leia-descrico—_JM http://produto.mercadolivre.com.br/MLB-239159618-sega-pico-c-caixa-_JM
The first link is the collector and items I talked about, the price is sligthly lower (only R$15) if I deal directly with him but you can try through Mercado Livre too.
Look, a Pico game page Ecco Jr. and the Great Ocean Treasure Hunt! But I'm confused about cartridge colours. I found a red one http://segaretro.org/File:EJatGOTH_Pico_US_Cart_Page1.jpg but there's apparently also a blue one http://media.giantbomb.com/uploads/12/126045/1775765-giant_bomb_sub_2.jpg both are from the US. Europe seems to be easy because all the cartridges are yellow, Brazil has Tec Toy branding and Japan/Korea have noticable translations, but there seems to be 34783924324 different colours of cartridge for the US and I'm not sure why games like A Year at Pooh Corner seem to be worse - I've spotted blue, purple, green and cyan cartridges, all claiming to be from the US
I'd rather not have the stream of Pico games stop here. Is -anyone- willing to help out for the cause?
Updates going fast; I asked about the USA-region games with different-color cartridge shells but so far it doesn't appear that it's worth the effort to dump them all. Team-Europe is still accepting donations to help get Pico material. and I've still been using Youtube.
Majesco re-released the Pico in North America (in late 1999) along with seven games: - Disney's 101 Dalmations - Disney's The Lion King: Adventures at Pride Rock - Magic Crayons - Mickey's Blast into the Past - A Year at Pooh Corner - Richard Scarry's Huckle and Lowly's Busiest Day Ever - Sesame Street which might explain one of the Pooh colours... but it doesn't solve the Ecco mystery
Does anyone have any pictures of multiple USA-region Ecco carts of different colors, by the way? If it's not Majesco, and it's not actual game revisions, then we'd simply have to guess Sega of America didn't particularly care what colors the books were, or used leftover parts from Japanese game production.
I've only found two Ecco carts and I posted them above but there's at least three for A Year in Pooh Corner even though according to Sega's packaging, they should all be red: there's yellow carts too, though these were most likely made for Europe. But I can't guarantee there's no yellow US carts because it's not a situation where you would only find yellow carts in Europe:
Two questions a) By 1996 Sega of America were calling Pico carts "Deluxe Storyware". What does deluxe mean in this instance - more content? bigger ROMs? or is it just a meaningless marketing gimmick b) dun dun dun... I think this might be an Asian model Pico. A truly frightening concept. It's hard enough trying to find out where Mega Drives were sold. Any thoughts?
All "Asian" boxes tend to look the same, which is really tedious because to Sega, "Asia" can spread from the middle east, to China and Taiwan, to places like Indonesia and Singapore - a massive area of the world. And of course not every country got every console, and out of those, not every country got theirs at the same time. The only concrete way to identify which country an Asian console is from is to look for stickers which either identify what sort of television signal the console uses (if it's PAL-I, you can assume Hong Kong, PAL-D, China etc.), or the name of the distributor. This is the most under-documented Sega console of all, so the chances of finding anything like that in the near future is slim. Now, with Asian Mega Drives, the manuals are often printed in languages such as Malay and Thai. It will be extremely fun if we find that the pages on the cartridges were translated too, I.e. there is an entire set of "Asian" games. Unlike Mega Drive games you wouldn't necessarily need to mess around with code to do that. EDIT: Apparently that one is a PAL system
Spot the difference: Apparently the Advanced Pico Beena was "redesigned" at some point, becoming just the "Beena" (or "BeenaLite" as it was known for a bit). Basically the redesign means "take off the handle". I don't know if there were any other changes (bar differences in colour scheme and a slightly new logo). Fun fact for the day: There are four Pokémon games for the Beena, three for the Pico. Also apparently the Beena works without a TV set - pre-dates the Wii U!
anybody got some clear photos of Beena game cases? I know that they're plastic, and I know they're bulkier than Pico cases (even though the cartridges are thinner?), but there's no clear shots of... anything Beena related really. Just press shots. this is about as good as a game box scan gets right now but as you can see, this doesn't appear to have a spine. So I don't know if it's been hacked together or something. This is one of the least documented consoles on the planet right now so I don't have a lot to work with
Unfortunately until some hackers get around to looking at it, I don't think we're ever gonna get really detailed Beena info.