Interesting yet shady finds in a video game store...

[Dolemite]

I went into a gaming store a few towns over from me the other day and encountered a few interesting things. The store itself is a stand alone deal started by one guy, not part of a chain or anything. Here and there I pop in and browse around, not because he has great prices or anything, but because he carries just about anything you can think of, Atari 2600 games, Neo Geo Pocket games, imports, you name it.

So I'm looking around and the guy running the place asks me if I have an Xbox, to which I reply no. He's all like, "Dude, I have to show you something. It's like your very own arcade". He proceeds to show me Darkstalkers on his Xbox. And the the original arcade Killer Instinct. And Metal Slug 3. And Samurai Showdown 2. And Castlevania 4. And Capcom's Alien Vs. Predator. You get where this is going, right?

Turns out that, for the paltry sum of $500, they can send out your Xbox to a gentleman that loads up the HD with just about every emulator known to man. When you boot up the Xbox it goes to a list of the emulators, which the guy running the shop let me scroll through to see what games were available. I forget what emulators were included (I know there was MAME-X), but there were TONS. Basically, there must have been a few thousand games total- just about every American AND Japanese (and in some cases, the European versions were in there too)-released Capcom and Neo Geo game known to man, the arcade versions of Killer Instinct 1 (including the infamous attract screen that advertised it as being "ONLY on the Nintendo Ultra 64!") and 2, SNES (how hardcore is this? In the list was even the original Japanese version of Clock Tower with the English patch), Genesis, Virtual Boy(!) emulators...all perfect. No slowdown, no glitching, nothing, every game shown to me ran without the slightest flaw. Not just that, but the overall program that ran everything allowed full button config for the Xbox controllers (including a button for adding credits), a 'save anywhere' feature, the ability to take and save screenshots, hell, even a soft reset. I have to admit, it was fucking professional. Not very legal sounding, but professional. Still, an arcade-perfect version of Alien Vs. Predator running on a console...

$500, though? Kind of a rip, even considering how well done it is. Funny thing is the fact that this could be done was a complete suprise to me...I knew that the Xbox's HD opened up the avenue to piracy, but I didn't think it could be taken to this extent. The shop's owner told me that all the ROMS are out of production, so it's all cool (yeah, right), but he also said it's not a service that they go out of their way to advertise...

Something that was even more shady, however, were the bootleg "120in1" GBA carts he was selling for over a hundred bucks a pop. They had cheesy Photoshopped covers that pictured a collage of different legit GBA game covers...one had pics from various EA games like Return of the King and Harry Potter. The back of each box had a list of all the games on the cart, in Japanese or Korean or something. Tsk tsk.

[Eight One]

Is the guy from Hong Kong?

[Rocca]

That is some impressive piracy, but 500 is a bit much, even if you have all those games, you have to realize you won't even play half of them.

[Dolemite]

Is the guy from Hong Kong?

The guy that runs the store? No.

Or are you talking about the guy he sends the system to? If so, I didn't ask.

[Dr Travisto]

My X-box is like that...I didn't pay $500 though...

[Videodrone]

There used to be a real shading store in my area a few years ago. I saw somebody ask for a copy of Guitar Freaks, and the guy behind the copy brought out a "copy" of Guitar Freaks. Think they were charging $10 or something. I heard may stories about them selling boots over the counter. Thankfully they are out of business now.

[Joust Williams]

At Northgate Mall in Seattle, there was a kiosk the other day selling these controllers with built in games (think the i-Que? by Nintendo). Anyway, these were obvious bootlegs. Supposedly there were 76000 (76000!) games in them. We didn't take time to scroll through the list. Old NES games and such. The screenshots on the back were real photos. And all that for only 70 bucks.

Nevermind the fact that Nintendo US HQ is a few miles away.

[Melf]

The back of each box had a list of all the games on the cart, in Japanese or Korian or something. Tsk tsk.

Freudian slip?

[Dyne]

Funny thing is the fact that this could be done was a complete suprise to me...I knew that the Xbox's HD opened up the avenue to piracy, but I didn't think it could be taken to this extent.

here let me find your rock so you can go back under it........seriously tho there are some really cool custom dashboards and other apps ive seen being run on the xbox. really makes me wish i still had a job.

[Tojo]

www.xbox-scene.com

If you think having those emulators on the Xbox is messed up, I'm browsing TNL and the rest of the web on my Xbox. Afterwards, I'm gonna download some red vs blue videos on it then watch them on my xbox in XBMC(media center for xbox). I've always said a nonmodded Xbox is a worthless Xbox.