Bootlegs, Dictators, & Shoot Em' Ups! Gaming in Brazil | Podcast with ShmupsBR

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  • Опубликовано: 7 сен 2024

Комментарии • 84

  • @GustlikRGZ
    @GustlikRGZ 2 года назад +9

    Listening to all of this information, I can personally relate to it, and I am from Poland. I'd like to tell you a little bit about gaming in Slavic countries. Here, and in the other former Eastern Bloc/USSR countries, video game market in the 80s and later 90s was mostly populated by clone consoles based on Famicom, Sega MD or Atari 2600. Importers used the political situation (fall of communism in 1989 meaning free market, lack of copyright laws, a reform of civil law system allowing anyone to start a business) The most popular platform were the Famicom clones that were sold on street markets or toy shops. There was even a "official" famiclone called Pegasus, that was sold in large computer stores along with official computer hardware from manufacturers like Atari and Commodore. If someone had a real NES back then, most likely he bought it in Germany or in a "Pewex" shop (a shop that sold super expensive imported stuff). If you ask a Pole what platform was Super Mario released on, it is more likely that he'll answer Pegasus rather than NES. When you say Nintendo, a Pole usually thinks about a Game Boy. It is interesting that Bobmark, the company that imported and rebranded the Pegasus from Taiwan (the console was originally manufactured by a company called Micro Genius and was consequently rebranded in various countries as "Dendy", "Pegasus", "Street Fighter" etc.) made a deal with Sega to officially import the Mega Drive to Poland - there's an interesting fact, that at the same time they manufactured an unlicensed MD clone called Power Pegasus. Then came the PS1 that completely dominated the market for 32 bit consoles - Bobmark then changed their business profile to a soda manufacturing company that still, to this day makes a... Coca-Cola clone. Copying the best as usual, duh. As for Nintendo, since 1994 there were a few small companies that officially imported SNES and later the N64. SNES had really poor sales, because they were imported in small quantities and were way more expensive than Sega - parents and grandparents were more eager to buy cheaper consoles for the kids. Therefore, original Nintendo consoles were not very popular and this trend continued until the release of Nintendo Switch. The same can't be said about handhelds, though - Game Boy had no real competition, it was advertised in kids' comic book magazines etc. and I don't recall Game Gear being sold or advertised anywhere. This changed with release of Sony PSP, which sold much better than the NDS.
    As for arcades, there were plenty of them in the 80s and 90s, especially the latter. I was raised in a small town (approx. 2000 citizens) and we still had an arcade in there, where I enjoyed playing games like Aero Fighters, Metal Slug, Cadillacs and Dinosaurs or Street Fighter. We also had to buy arcade coins in order to use them on the machines, though it has changed in the early to mid-2000s, where you could spot some machines operated directly by inserting money coins. I suppose that some of those machines could be bootleg, because in almost every arcade were lots of machines that had a board with another game (like a machine that had "Aliens vs Predator" on it, displaying some kind of basketball game). The most popular arcade systems in Poland were NeoGeo and CPS2, along with Tekken machines.
    As for shmups, I was playing a lot of Zanac, Gradius, Life Force, Star Force, Star Soldier - I had all of them on a console with a built-in multicart, and later Gradius II and Over Horizon, which I have bought for 30 zł (less than 7 dollars) from a friend along with ~40 other cartridges and a famiclone. Those games made me love the genre. An interesting fact is that almost all famiclones released in our region were kind of PAL-NTSC hybrids - they were made to be compatible with NTSC games, but they worked in 50 Hz mode for PAL TVs. Most of pirate cartridges contained NTSC versions of games, so they worked 17% slower. Of course, we did not know this back then - when I run an NES emulator for the first time, I was like "hey, why is this game running so fast?". Additionally, the bootleg games often had some hacks or trainers coded into them - for example, Gradius gave two options and shield upon respawning after a miss, Gradius II had much stronger shield, Life Force gave you a menu option to start with Konami Code cheat (30 lives) while Over Horizon started with 30 lives whether you wanted it or not and Zanac had a level select option. While I find it annoying today, those things gave me a chance to study those games' later levels and work on some strats, this resulted in perfect runs of Gradius and Life Force and a 1cc of Zanac, all done by a kid. What did not make things easier were the flimsy Chinese controllers that you had to replace regularly, because they got busted far too often and had D-pad issues, randomly registering diagonal movement, resulting in a lot of failed runs. Still, I absolutely love the fact that we had a chance to play games that were released only in Japan - you could buy a Recca or Crisis Force bootleg cartridge from a dude who was also selling panties and carpets in a street market...
    Despite having a rough start, today in Poland, the video game market is not much different than in most European countries like Germany or UK. If you were patient enough to read all of this, I really appreciate your videos and looking forward to more shmup stuff!

  • @PedroFerreira-sx2gd
    @PedroFerreira-sx2gd 2 года назад +14

    Brazil hás a amazing and fascinating story with bootlegs, piracy, places to play consoles games at a rate for hour. Being a country in expansion, plagued by corruption in the past ,extremelily high taxes with foreign technology. The way they that players, companyes,etc had to adapt is very creative

  • @yagami999913
    @yagami999913 2 года назад +3

    Just came across this channel and it's crazy how it singlehandedly reignited a more than a decade old passion for shmups.
    Just got Caladrius Blaze and Crisis Wing after watching your reviews to get my early shmup fix on ps4.
    Now i'm planning on getting the M2 Ketsui port to really try and get better at these games. Something i always had on my mind.
    Keep up the awesome content. A fan all the way from Africa ! 💪

    • @TheElectricUnderground
      @TheElectricUnderground  2 года назад +2

      That s really cool to hear!! Keep an eye out for my next vid it s going to be a big one! R type series ranked!

  • @MixologistMilo
    @MixologistMilo 2 года назад +5

    Fascinated by Brazil’s love of gaming, being lucky myself to grow up in UK and US

  • @radio100jogosdeemacs2
    @radio100jogosdeemacs2 2 года назад +3

    Even I as a Brazilian didn't know about a lot of this information, great podcast!
    I had a heart attack when Mark though Brazil spoke spanish though.

    • @TheElectricUnderground
      @TheElectricUnderground  2 года назад +2

      Whoops ha! I thought it was a dual language sort of thing like Canada, but sounds like it s all Portuguese

  • @AKTANEARCADE
    @AKTANEARCADE 2 года назад +2

    MY MAN FILIPE! Great guest Mark! also great topics! Really appreciate this one because its two of my favorite folks and learning about Brazil for me has been so interesting through Filipe and Luy :)

    • @TheElectricUnderground
      @TheElectricUnderground  2 года назад +1

      Thanks my dude!!! It was super interesting to hear about smuggling games and the grey market :-)

    • @AKTANEARCADE
      @AKTANEARCADE 2 года назад

      @@TheElectricUnderground India has a crazy grey market as well that I was exposed to as like a pre teen back in the day. It was wild to see full storefronts of bootleg games. I'm curious to hear about if Brazil is the same. I'll listen to this bad boy through tomorrow 👌🏾

  • @adamhamdon3019
    @adamhamdon3019 2 года назад +2

    Always great to hear the perspective of the gaming industry from those outside NA & Japan. So much history and culture that goes completely ignored. Also got a good laugh at you guys saying there's nothing left to talk about at the 1:50:00 mark then looking at the timeline.

  • @bobsteave1236
    @bobsteave1236 2 года назад +1

    I have brushed shoulders w/ gamers from SA / Brazil and this conversation/ podcast was a great incite on what there interaction was w/ games . So crazy this stuff is/ was going on everywhere in the world.

  • @true12grave
    @true12grave 10 месяцев назад

    Speaking for myself, i'm Brazilian and i must say, ShmupBR is rigth in every single aspect wht he says about the gaming scenary in our country. When i was young, i was one of these poor kids that only played videogames because of friends with good financial conditions. My passion for Shmups came in about i was 16 when a saw a Samurai Aces (TENGAI) arcade in a bar close to my home. Since then i have looked into NES and SEGA GENESIS library when i had access, the later into PC emulation. The best days of my entire life as a "shumper" was with XBOX 360 CAVE ports. Then a came across Dodonpachi Daioujou on PS2.... Today i have a Blog where here and there i post some Shmup stuff i feel its worth to record for myself. I'm proud to Have Original copies for Mushihime Futari and Daifukatsu. I'm 42 now... So yes it took a lifetime to have these games here in Brazil.

  • @lounowell4171
    @lounowell4171 2 года назад +1

    In response to the 'console arcade' discussion around 1 hour in:
    I can't even imagine what the legal situation was in Brazil, but in most of the world it's illegal to charge people to play a console game you own, the work around with arcade games is that the PCB itself comes with a commercial license.

  • @annefrank125
    @annefrank125 2 года назад +1

    Wow, I'm really hyped up for this video, wasn't expecting that. I'm also from Brazil.

  • @zusk8556
    @zusk8556 2 года назад +1

    I smiled real big at the 2 hour mark, when you guys were "wrapping things up," and I checked and there was another hour left. This was an absolutely fascinating conversation. You guys had great chemistry as well. Very enjoyable video, man.

    • @TheElectricUnderground
      @TheElectricUnderground  2 года назад

      Ha yes the classic electric Underground 1 last thing going for an extra hour XD

    • @zusk8556
      @zusk8556 2 года назад

      Lol yup! He's got a new subscriber as well. The language barrier isn't a big deal when it comes to video games, imo. You can hear someone's passion come through even if you can't understand the words. And with enough time, you just might.

  • @then1533
    @then1533 2 года назад +3

    This was a great podcast- so interesting to hear about the scene and gaming history and culture of Brazil.Those folks that made Sophstar are really talented-.I'm enjoying playing their game here in Sweden.

  • @wabbyleg
    @wabbyleg 2 года назад +1

    Mark's right a lot of people just listen. I played shmups through the entire episode and it was fantastic! Two cool guys talking shmups, doesn't get any better than this.

    • @TheElectricUnderground
      @TheElectricUnderground  2 года назад +2

      Glad you enjoyed the ep!! Yes I think having both audio and video is a huge advantage

  • @aLe-be2fq
    @aLe-be2fq 2 года назад +1

    the Brazilian version of the soccer game is actually a modded Pro Evolution Soccer and it was/is a MONSTER that is known as Bomba Patch here in Brazil, we used to play a lot of it with friends

  • @fernfernacelli
    @fernfernacelli 2 месяца назад

    5:20 …YYYYYYEEEESSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!
    There are SOOO many amazing games in this genre… I first played Space Invaders (on the Atari 2600) in the early 1980s, but then got to play Zanac on the year it released.
    Decades and so many games later, Zanac is *still*, and will ALWAYS, be my number one.
    Excellent discussion… cheers!
    \m/, 😊 ,\m/

  • @ceticobr
    @ceticobr 2 года назад +1

    Can hardly wait to watch this. Two of my favorite content making a collab!

  • @Razorslash
    @Razorslash 2 года назад +3

    Good interview, tho I think he overstated the Nintendo part somewhat. Nintendo home consoles certainly tended to be more exclusive compared to the alternatives, but by no means you had to be RICH or anything to own them. I was 100% purely a Nintendo kid from a middle class family growing up starting with the SNES and between getting a new game every few months, rentals and borrowing from friends, I had little problem sticking to them, and it wasn't all that uncommon to find other kids who also owned or at least were aware/into Nintendo games.
    btw Star Fox 64 gang represent. I also know that game by heart lol

    • @TheElectricUnderground
      @TheElectricUnderground  2 года назад +1

      Oh great point of clarification!!! And hell yes love starfox 64

    • @ShmupsBR
      @ShmupsBR 2 года назад +2

      Just to clarify: I was talking about original NES before Playtronic started manufacturing Nintendo originals in Brazil. Yes, you're correct, we could play Nintendo games on clones before, because they were cheap and available everywhere (that was my point when I mentioned the video from a north american youtuber talking about the story of videogames in Brazil, when he mentioned we had no Nintendo at all). My point is: If you had an original / imported NES or everything related to the console (games, accessories) before the arrival of Playtronic, you were probably rich, because they were only available for the US market. But, of course, everyone could play Nintendo on a Phantom System, Bit System, Dynavision 2 or whatsoever. Thank you for the head's up!

  • @RetroRick1990
    @RetroRick1990 2 года назад +1

    Congrats you guys for this great conversation, I am subscribed on both of channels, great RUclips creators. Thanks for the event 👍✌🏻👏

  • @soratheorangejuicemascot5809
    @soratheorangejuicemascot5809 2 года назад +2

    0:46 that is so true!!

  • @AlchemistTongueDrums
    @AlchemistTongueDrums 2 года назад +1

    Looking forward to diving into this!!! ShmupsBR is an absolute bro. He recently released a packaged, ready-to-go emulator and video for PC-98 so I could finally play Compile's Rude Breaker.

  • @freewilliam93
    @freewilliam93 Месяц назад

    Really fascinating episode

  • @konstantdrachenfels5446
    @konstantdrachenfels5446 2 года назад +1

    Great content as always! I wish you noted the chapters like in the previous videocast with Akane though :)

  • @superhadouken
    @superhadouken 2 года назад +1

    I watched this video almost hearing it and on different days. Also, I´m Argentinian and the history of video games here was similar. All that could be pirated was the popular thing. People didn't follow brands, they followed what could be pirated at that time. we all played on clones and pirated copies. Famicom, megadrive, ps1, ps2, xbox360

  • @shmupsheaven1459
    @shmupsheaven1459 2 года назад +2

    An historic curiosity of the brazilian bootlegs: the main Brasil mindset economics is too influencied by the centralism and corporativism that influencies all the political e and economics views of the economics, when the State is a guider to the economics. This became with the ditactorship of Getulio Vargas in the 1930-1940's that create an industrial growing of the Brazil's economy, in that period is too attatched to agriculture. This vision is until strong nowadays and influencies boths right and left political compass of the contry. After this, in the period of Military Ditactorship (1964-1988), the state became again the guider of the economy and the militaries imposed a strong state and closed market. The industrial economics was strong oriented to the interests of the militaries and the old brazilian oligarchies and brazilian market became too closed to the importations. When the videogames appeared here in Brazil due to "illegal" imports from brazilian entusiasts consumers that had contact with the products in the outside, the internal industry become to produce illegal versions, the bootlegs, to attend the internal demand for this products. If an external company wanted to produce any product in Brazil, the political economics of the militaries imposed that creation and production under brazilian territory and they doesn't care about the bootleg until the condition that products must be produzed internally. This is the main reason the rise of the bootlegs in the 1980's and 1990's in Brazil. Brazil become a strong Sega's market because the efforts of the TecToy to produce and sell their products here. This is why MasterSystem and Megadrive was a fever here. The brazilian company called Gradiente created a bootleg of NES and became to be prossecuted by Nintendo. The two companies created a legal acording and the Nintendo products become to being produced in Brazil like the NES oficcially and after with SNES, N64 and Gamecube with their counterparty brazilian versions. With the neoliberal reforms promoted by an social democrat parties in the middle of the 1990's, the brazilian market became more flexible to the imports and the bootlegs become to be obsoletes and not interest to the brazilian consumers.

    • @TheElectricUnderground
      @TheElectricUnderground  2 года назад +1

      That is a really enlightening breakdown of the situation!

    • @shmupsheaven1459
      @shmupsheaven1459 2 года назад +1

      @@TheElectricUnderground the brazilian society is too complex. Here we have a joke that "Brazil is not for amateurs".

  • @Steve-Fiction
    @Steve-Fiction 8 месяцев назад

    This is a great episode, and Filipe is a cool dude.

  • @arquivofeioso
    @arquivofeioso 2 года назад +2

    this is going to be awesome

  • @wanderingsword4003
    @wanderingsword4003 2 года назад +3

    Brazil feels like an alternate dimension.

    • @TheElectricUnderground
      @TheElectricUnderground  2 года назад

      It is like the wild west out there it sounds like

    • @aLe-be2fq
      @aLe-be2fq 2 года назад

      for someone seeing from outside Brazil, it is an alternative dimension lol

    • @ShmupsBR
      @ShmupsBR 2 года назад +1

      It is, my friend. It is.

  • @soganatari7411
    @soganatari7411 2 года назад +1

    thanks for the interesting and entertaining podcast, it was a good listen, you forgot to mention Twin Bee, R-Type and Parodius for Snes, and maybe there are some Japanse exclusives ? thumbs up from the Netherlands !

  • @M7878-c3r
    @M7878-c3r 2 года назад +2

    Piracy on the PS4 is actually really easy and convenient, Mark. Obviously it's a very small minority of people who have them jailbroken so I understand it not being well known. Basically as easy as on the switch.

  • @snesfan8935
    @snesfan8935 2 года назад +1

    PS2 is from the year 2000. And since 32bit generation hardware was un-cloneable - proprietary and complicated.

    • @TheElectricUnderground
      @TheElectricUnderground  2 года назад

      Maybe not a clone per say, but chinese bootlegs perhaps was what I was thinking

  • @julianseph842gamez5
    @julianseph842gamez5 2 года назад +2

    Let's see what kind of weird shmup bootlegs are there. It's gonna get bizarre in this video!

  • @rafresendenrafresenden.1644
    @rafresendenrafresenden.1644 2 года назад +1

    great

  • @fdevlin5932
    @fdevlin5932 2 года назад

    Bombs. Darius Gaiden has bombs.

  • @dangunheadachron1603
    @dangunheadachron1603 2 года назад +1

    Geez I feel bad for Brazilian gamers.

  • @nemoguy
    @nemoguy 2 года назад +1

    Finally some third world rep

  • @RonaldoNoschang
    @RonaldoNoschang 2 года назад +2

    brazil is a diplomatic dwarf, it's a market dwarf, so all these stories are from a tiny and non-existent market, so it's all fake the way they say, brazil didn't exist any story in video games, and computers, I got all this, I live in Brazil, the atari arrived in 1983, and nintendo in 1989, so there is no brazil, forget it, useless video

    • @TheElectricUnderground
      @TheElectricUnderground  2 года назад

      Hmmm interesting feedback, not sure what to make of it ha

    • @ShmupsBR
      @ShmupsBR 2 года назад +1

      @@TheElectricUnderground This guy definitely don't remember the "Winners Don't Use Drugs" warning...