The origin of the Sonic 2 Beta ROM

Then a person risks a long time in Jail by stealing a prototype , to show to the world he stole a cart featuring a game in pieces, to prove his testicles are bigger than all the others piraters ? Sounds very logic. And that's also including the fact that SEGA's security over its games is a crap. It must be, even if he stole behind all the eyes, SEGA even haven't locked the beta in somewhere secure.

They (or he , she... I don't know who stole.) can't be that dumb. They should at least played once a time to see if there are something in the cart, if its not fake, if its the correct prototype...

more arguments? counter-arguments?

[EDIT]

Nice point you made out there, but even if they made a lot of money after selling the beta (thing that I doubt, since pirate carts are very cheap, is hard find a pirate cart who costs more than R$ 20,00, and I mean "Reais", not "Dollars".), they would simple put in the web to continue showing they're better than the others piraters?

No offense to the piraters, but that's sound kinda retarded, and also pointless. If they alredy proved they can get the betas before the others for years , no sense in continue doing that.

 

They don't care about that. They assume it's the right game because Sega have it.

 

How did they remove the SEGA logo if they never put it in a console? (Of course, one major question I've had all along is WHY they removed the Sega logo...)

 

All pirate games have they original corporation name removed. Looks like pirates don't want give credits to Sega.

But I believe the Sega's logo was cutten by Naka, why? because it's Sonic 1 Logo, and probably would sound like lazyness use the same logo for two games.

[EDIT] And also, if it was cutten by pirates, they would cut also the "© SEGA 1992" in the title Screen. Have you played the Sonic 2 Pirate Version?

 

Of course they're not going to give they're name and address. That's where the use of handles took off, in the cracking scene (and despite the fact that this cart didn't need 'cracking', the same principles apply). I wouldn't be surprised if, at some point in 1992, this ROM had an intro attached to it, as was common in cracking scenes (take a look at the C64 for this - every single cracked release had an intro, even if it was just a simple text screen saying "cracked/broken by so-and-so").

Every computer or console that has had a large cracking/piracy scene is this way. Groups become "#1" by becoming the absolute first to release several warez, and the more "first-releases" a group puts out, the more popular they are. So, of course, when this cart was likely obtained by someone in such a group, Sonic 2 hadn't been finished, and thus it wasn't possible to go buy it. One of the greatest things you can do in the context of a crackscene is to get a ware before it is sold to the public - this is commonly referred to as "0-day" warez nowadays, but I don't think it had a specific name back then. So, of course, the crackers come across this cart for a game that's not even out yet, and of course they are going to release it - if you were in the same situation as a cracker, you'd do the exact same thing (you being generic and not specifically aimed at you).

The C64's crackscene was the largest of any other system to exist (although I'd say the Amiga would come second). And there were numerous people who got raided and arrested for piracy. Just because there's a risk doesn't mean that people won't do it - every single time a group cracked and released a game, the members of that group were at risk for jailtime.

Also, many groups had members that worked within the industry, which means that they essentially got their originals, or "oris", from the very people who would have legitimate access to them. I don't know for fact, but I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if it was discovered that this cart was also leaked by someone internal to Sega. And the best security in the world can be circumvented by an inside job. For example, the Sonic Spinball proto cart was supplied by a guy by the handle of "Winston". I wouldn't be a bit surprised if it turned out that "Winston" worked for Sega in some capacity that would have granted him access to the WIP carts.

Also, we're not 100% sure that the SEGA intro was removed by anyone, that's just educated speculation based on Sega guidelines. It's plausible that someone made a small typo that disabled the intro on first boot. We're quite sure that it was most likely hacked out, but we don't know for fact - all we know for fact is that the ROM doesn't show the SEGA logo on first boot.

 

Fine, I can't prove if it is fake or if it's true. But I'll wait until the truth appear.

and also, who is "Winston" (just curious) ? He got betas for somebody , or just Hacked Spinball?

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And talking about "SEGA's People", Did Eric Gray got prototypes (He worked at Sega, right?) , or SEGA don't give prototypes so easily (even if the person work at SEGA) ?

Nah, I doubt. He was in the "Sega Smash crap staff" as "Tester"...

 

Based on the text found in the Spinball proto's intro, the game was "supplied" by Winston. As with 90% of crackers, that's likely a handle, which means it may be impossible or at least quite fucking hard to find out who it is. From the intro:

If you want to try to track down anyone else who was in Premiere (which likely did more than just Genesis 'cracking', many groups came from the C64 or Amiga, and had a presence on SNES as well), then go for it, but I don't know how you'd go about that, considering that there was almost never a connection to a real name, especially in a crack group.

It's entirely possible that Winston didn't dump the game, but rather got it from someone who may or may not have worked for Sega, and who dumped it. It's possible he had a hand in releasing the Sonc 2 prototype, and that at one point the ROM was spread with an intro on it. It's also possible that Premiere had nothing to do with it, and the Sonic 2 proto was acquired via other means. This is just speculation, however, and I have no evidence to back any of it up and turn it into fact. The stolen cart conjecture is just as plausible at this point, given the amount of information we have to work with.

ROMs with intros on them were intended for use on copiers, and were not burned to any carts as far as I know, and thus anyone who was able to burn it to cart would probably know enough to be able to remove the intro and save on ROM space.

I never said anything about testers leaking the game. I would imagine that there would probably be other people who had access to the carts. It could have been copied and stolen without anyone else's knowledge for all we know, and all it would take is one person with the balls to copy the cart. Or, for that matter, it could have been someone with access to the development machines, where they could most likely acquire the ROM without the need to dump a cart. We just don't know, so it's all speculation unless you can track down the person who first got the proto back in 1992. And good luck to you if you try =P

 

For some reason I believe that Naka lost the code for Sonic. But the rest of the interview, why was it cut?

Seems like a hoax to me. Has no proof as usual. It is just text.

 

How old is this list? Paradox has been an active group for years and still dumps many-a cart.

 

Well, it's there in the scrolltext (1993). And I know some of those groups are still around, I'm pretty sure that FLT is still around in some form. I know for a fact that they still make C64 demos - they just released one in July.