A sad end to a possible cool score.

[syphic]

So recently a fan of my youtube channel reached out to me and stated that he had some promo & possible prototype games he had for over 15 years. Said he got em in a Turbo game lot years ago. He never got into the Turbo but had these laying around this whole time and finally wanted someone to check em out to see whats on em and maybe buy em. He sent me pictures and everything matched up. (pics below)

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Met up with the dude so we could test em out. Brought my duo with me and a small lcd screen with inputs. Unfortunately he hadn't taken care of em too well. Shadow of the Beast and Shape Shifter had small scratches on the data side of the disks so both games would not load up at all. Buster bros and Forgotten worlds had small scratches on the bottom but no scratches to the data part. Kinda sad that we will never know what was on the Shadow and Shape discs. Would have loved to see how these differed if any to the finished products. 

Added pics of the bottom of the disks:
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[NecroPhile]

Did you try to rip 'em with a computer?  A good pc drive will be far more tolerant of scratches.

[turboswimbz]

What of the other 2? were they awesomerer? 

[esteban]

NEVER GIVE UP.

[BlueBMW]

NEVER GIVE UP.

TRUST YOUR INSTINCTS!

and DO A BARREL ROLL

[Tatsujin]

Are you or your buddy even sure about those are real promo/protos?

seems to me like they're kinda all coming from the same batch, event the companies behind are totally different

so non of the four discs worked in the end?

[bob]

Powell ripper?

[Xak]

NEVER. GIVE. UP!

NEVER!!!!!

[Psycho Punch]

As others have already said, if they're in your possession take it for polishing. It might work!

NEVER. GIVE. UP!

NEVER!!!!!

[syphic]

2 of the discs, Forgotten Worlds and Buster Bros booted and played perfectly. The other 2 didn't want to boot. Took those 2 home with me and been trying to mess with them on my computer. Some how the disks have scratches to the top part of the disk. That's where the data is. If the scratches were on the bottom then I would just get em resurfaced. if you hold em up to a light you can see the light come right thru on the parts that have the tiny scratches. He let me keep the 2 busted disks to fiddle with em. Still debating buying the 2 that work. These cd's are not cdr's but actually pressed and have the #'s TGXCDxxxx on the bottom inner ring near the data like a hologram.

[DesmondThe3rd]

Hopefully you can save them all. I would love to see a video on them.

[tggodfrey]

handwriting looks way to similar like they were written by the same person.  i dont trust these are demos at all.

[NecroPhile]

With them being pressed discs with the expected "txcd" on the hub, what else would they be if not samples?

[esteban]

With them being pressed discs with the expected "txcd" on the hub, what else would they be if not samples?

But I thought even demo/prototype media were simply burned back in the day (back when it was prohibitively expensive to have this gear). It doesn't make sense to press small batches (since burning discs alone would have been ridiculously expensive).

The txcd sounds too good to be true, have we confirmed the details behind other, legit demos/prototypes?

I never followed the details too closely (only now am I beginning to take interest in demo/proto stuff).

[syphic]

I added pictures of the bottom of both discs that I have in my possession so you can see the Inner rings. Also says discs are manufactured by JVC.

[NecroPhile]

There's quite a few pressed PC Engine samples (most have a screened label or at least a sticker though), so I don't see why the Turbob couldn't have some too.  Them sporting the same handwriting could be explained by them being distributed blank (the case or sleeve had the name on it), and the guy that received 'em wrote on 'em, presumably a gaming rag reviewer.

[Tatsujin]

Yeah, was my thought too.

My idea is, since they have all same turbo brandings, that some guys at TTi or so did them state side to distribute
some shop displays or mag reviews.