Sorcer Striker Korean version. Bootleg or Original??

[robivy64]

Picked this up a while back, and it looks a little different than the usual Sorcer Striker PCBs I see. I want to poll you fine PCB experts to see if this is an original or a bootleg. I think it is an original, but I may be wrong.

Here are a few photos of the PCB and some areas of interest.

Note the non-keyed connector. This would normally be a dead ringer that this is a bootleg, but look further.



"SYMBOL" is etched into the PCB near the DIP switches


Socketed EPROMs with legit-looking RAIZING labels. On most PCBs I have seen, these are MASK ROMs. All ROMS are socketed on this PCB.


And finally, RAIZING silkscreening and the GP9001 TOAPLAN GPU that Raizing used with all of their own hardware.


Any ideas?

[system11]

I'm going to suggest manufactured under license.

Certainly pretty cheaply made though - poor quality edge connector, no heatsink.

[robivy64]

Interesting. I have never seen one like this before. Was this a common practice?

It plays fine by the way, good thing it was cheap enough.

[system11]

It appears Irem did one or more like that, I think Seibu too.

Personally, I'd pay less for them due to the cheap and missing components.

[D]

Call me grandpa and shave my legs, but...
Paizing
Toa Plan
To me it looks like a bootleg, but I've been (proven) wrong in the past so.

[Ed Oscuro]

Toa Plan is fine, and that's Raizing, not Paizing, look again at the other chips (one has parts of the letters coming off).

About Toa Plan - I knew I'd seen it before. Check a Batrider PCB if you have one. The font is different (boldface letters) but you'll see it's made in Hong Kong.

[Dave_K.]

I'd call bootleg with the mask "Paizing" eproms. The component layout looks generally similar, but the pcb design is clearly different, despite them silkscreening the same model number on it. For comparison, here is my legit korea region board.

[system11]

Then how do you explain the Toaplan CPU? Also note some of the ROM labels are the same design as your board. The OP one is very dodgy and bootleggy looking, but that custom CPU is something bootleggers would have replaced with 'something else'.

[Ex-Cyber]

Markings are just markings. If a bootlegger has the volume to get mask ROMs, gate arrays, etc., then they can probably get custom markings too.

[robivy64]

Here is one on ebay, from a Korean seller:

http://cgi.ebay.com/Arcade-pcb-board-RA ... 19b8c6d46a

[system11]

Markings are just markings. If a bootlegger has the volume to get mask ROMs, gate arrays, etc., then they can probably get custom markings too.

I've had hundreds upon hundreds of PCBs, I have never -once- seen a bootleg with faked chip etching.

I wouldn't buy one of these Korean licensed ones though regardless - they look cheaply made.

[antron]

and that's Raizing, not Paizing, look again at the other chips (one has parts of the letters coming off).

looks like Paizing, a misprint. and someone tried to correct them all with a blue pen.

[Ed Oscuro]

I see it now. Earlier I thought somebody was just trying to be fancy (with the line extending too far) but I see on some the line starts in the curve of the P.

[Ex-Cyber]

I've had hundreds upon hundreds of PCBs, I have never -once- seen a bootleg with faked chip etching.

I'm not saying it's common practice in arcade PCB bootlegging, but chips do get re-marked or otherwise fraudulently custom-marked. It's commonly done to sell slower chips as faster ones, but there are weirder cases too (e.g. microcontrollers disguised as 7400 logic). Anyway, I do suspect that the chip is genuine in this case; at least from the photos here it doesn't look like there's any appreciable difference in the packaging style.

Is it plausible at all that it could be an overproduced quasi-counterfeit? That is, the licensee did an extra unauthorized run of cheaper boards to milk some extra revenue out of the deal? This is a known problem with contract manufacturing, though the cases I've heard of tend to be for more expensive products.

[Ed Oscuro]

Production overruns (and subsequent backdoor sales) are apparently an issue through a wide range of price points, certainly today. Unfortunately there were no estimates given, but I read an article recently in the American Bar Association Journal about strategies to combat the problem. Unfortunately that doesn't help get us closer to the question one way or the other. As that chip was made in Hong Kong, though, I wouldn't be at all surprised if there were some overruns.

[rtw]

I'm going to suggest manufactured under license.

Certainly pretty cheaply made though - poor quality edge connector, no heatsink.

Agree with bloodflowers, a lot of games licensed for Korea were in fact produced there as well.

Telltale signs are, original ASICs/GPUs, Korean components and the JAMMA connector does not have the notch.

[Ex-Cyber]

I didn't really look too closely at the layouts before, but the more I look at it (particularly the odd combination of similarities and differences between Dave's board and Rob's board), the less it seems to clearly point to an explanation. Just as a point of interest, all of the three versions of the game that are in MAME use a 6-ROM configuration, as opposed to the 8-ROM configuration of Rob's board. It's probably just the same ROM contents split up for 8-bit UVEPROMs instead of 16-bit mask/OTP, but it makes me wonder just what the heck happened.