What does a fake Saphire go for?

[exile]

I see one on EBAY and was wondering how much they go for? I don't really care if I own a copy, as long as it plays like the original. Does anyone have it? Does anyone know if the gameplay suffers because its a copy?
 below is the linky


ht  tp://cgi.ebay.com/Ginga-Fukei-Densetsu-SAPPHIRE-Turbo-Grafx-PC-Engine-Duo-/170490263480?cmd=ViewItem&pt=Video_Games_Games&hash=item27b202f7b8

[JapanTokei]

I'm not sure exactly how much a "fake" goes for, but here are the price ranges, depending on the versions.

1)  Brand new, sealed - I've seen this at Tokyo stores for 60,000 yen, or $667 USD.
2)  Opened, Legit, with spine card and registration cards - typically go for around $375~$425 USD. 
3)  No Spine card or none-minty - ~$275 yo $300.
4)  Bootleg version - looks all legit - looks all nice and all, but you're really paying for that presentation.  The quality of the press is unknown, but better than CDRs.  Longterm it might damage your Lasers on the machines.  I see these go for $50 ~ $75.  Only way to tell is the inner-CD band does NOT say "HCD"  the real legit one looks like this -


5)  Plain CD-Rs - you can get these for $20 or just burn them yourself if you can find a good CD image.  Not recommended unless you are playing the games on your PC as CDrs suppose to damage your TG/Duo/PCEngine lasers.

I see one on EBAY and was wondering how much they go for? I don't really care if I own a copy, as long as it plays like the original. Does anyone have it? Does anyone know if the gameplay suffers because its a copy?
 below is the linky


ht  tp://cgi.ebay.com/Ginga-Fukei-Densetsu-SAPPHIRE-Turbo-Grafx-PC-Engine-Duo-/170490263480?cmd=ViewItem&pt=Video_Games_Games&hash=item27b202f7b8

[Joe Redifer]

How, exactly, can the quality of the CD itself damage a laser?  I know that Duos don't read CD-Rs very well simply because the laser is weak.  Obviously the laser will wear over time simply due to it burning out, but I don't see how using CD-Rs or whatever would make it burn out any faster.

[JapanTokei]

I actually was not aware of this neither Joe, but I know there was tons of prevous thread discussion on this topic.  I don't remember who... maybe it was Katarre or Nat or Tats/Offsitewing who also chimed in similarly.  All I know is I decided to play it safe and not run my CDRs on real systems after I found that out. 

How, exactly, can the quality of the CD itself damage a laser?  I know that Duos don't read CD-Rs very well simply because the laser is weak.  Obviously the laser will wear over time simply due to it burning out, but I don't see how using CD-Rs or whatever would make it burn out any faster.

[SignOfZeta]

The price of a bootleg Sapphire depends totally on the ignorance of the buyer. If you are lucky, $30 is probably possible. A lot of people have paid WAY more than this on eBay and Yahoo Japan auctions though.

The quality is more or less perfect, btw. It won't damage your machines.

[Arkhan Asylum]

How, exactly, can the quality of the CD itself damage a laser?  I know that Duos don't read CD-Rs very well simply because the laser is weak.  Obviously the laser will wear over time simply due to it burning out, but I don't see how using CD-Rs or whatever would make it burn out any faster.

It overworks itself trying to focus on a crummy non reflective dyed disc surface, as opposed to being able to quickly focus on a nice reflective silvery bottom.

I think at least.

[nectarsis]

So it just hastens the laser wearing out (an inevitability over time anyways) not damage it.

[RoyVegas]

So it just hastens the laser wearing out (an inevitability over time anyways) not damage it.

Causing it to wear out faster would be considered damaging it in my opinion.  Like you said it eventually will die anyway but it speeds up the process.

Example:  Eating fast food doesn't kill you on the spot however it's proven that it does have damaging effects on the body.  This damage decreases your life span.  Same thing right?

[nectarsis]

True but there are some people that hold on to belief it actually breaks it physically (or how they make it sounds) vs just more strain reading the disc.

[RoyVegas]

True but there are some people that hold on to belief it actually breaks it physically (or how they make it sounds) vs just more strain reading the disc.

I see.  Well, to be on the safe side I won't be doing it just to be safe...

[Arkhan Asylum]

True but there are some people that hold on to belief it actually breaks it physically (or how they make it sounds) vs just more strain reading the disc.

I like to think of it as:

When you use crappy discs, it's like using a pinto to pull a boat uphill.

[nectarsis]

Depending on the boat   Our old Pinto(s) were freakin tanks lol

[RoyVegas]

Depending on the boat   Our old Pinto(s) were freakin tanks lol

As long as they wern't rear ended, then they're land mines.   

[nectarsis]

Depending on the boat   Our old Pinto(s) were freakin tanks lol

As long as they wern't rear ended, then they're land mines.  

That's been blown out of proportion, and #'s fudged to high on that.  Similar to the Ford pickup's blowing up, COvair issues..much of that is manipulated data ;)

[termis]

Really seems to depend on the machine.  I had a SCD that struggled at times to read CD-Rs, but my Duo pretty much much has no problems with them, and I've had no issues of "laser getting stuck" like some have reported.

And even if it does wear out sometime in the distant future (and if history's an indication, it'll be awhile, as this laser's about 3 years old now), I have another spare ready to go...

Basically, I'm not too worried about replacing a $25 part -- so I have no problems putting CDRs in my machine.