I have wanted to hear your input for quite some time now.
|darc| wrote:This isn't how the Dreamcast markets were even aligned, and Sega themselves only had 3 regions for the Dreamcast. Dreamcast had 3 main regions:
REGION 0 (J): Japan, Taiwan, Philippines
REGION 1 (U): USA, Canada
REGION 2 (E): Europe
|darc| wrote:But... even if this were how the Dreamcasts were aligned, what is the point of assigning different colors to different region systems or locking the builds to regions? No indie software for the Dreamcast has ever had different builds for different region Dreamcasts, because why would they?
So, the region that I am referring to is not that of the dreamcast.. but, the actual playstation games and how the emulator handled each region.
It has already been proven that the beta bleem acts differently with these 2 PAL regions based on color beta used.
REGION 4 -- Australia, New Zealand, Latin America (including Mexico)
REGION 5 -- Eastern Europe, Russia, India, Africa.
|darc| wrote:While I haven't done my own analysis of the bleemcast code that locks the software to the specific machines, it makes no sense that it would be used as test bait. Because the protection on the betas fundamentally has to be different than the protection on the discs, because they're protecting two completely different things.
Then why encrypt each beta differently, when each one of the bleem beta colors were the same build? -minus region?
Protecting IP like this seems way over the top, the employees signed nda's already.
Also the initial leak was very early, before the actual 2003 time stamp shown in the cracked beta versions found everywhere.
This was an early build that is super buggy, has very low compatibility, and i doubt even sony would give a damn if it was leaked.
If a better build was leaked it might cause much more concern.
But knowing how sony goes after anything and everything who knows?
|darc| wrote:The actual myth makes far more sense than your theory: They made the software check for a console modification, and if the modification wasn't present, it refused to run; and only authorized people were given consoles with that modification. And to add a digital trail, the modifications were slightly different so if someone was losing or sharing their discs they'd know who was being loose with the software. So of course when all of the protections were stripped off the builds were the same. They were always supposed to be. Why would they have 1 person test different builds? One person can't test everything alone. You need a lot of people testing one single consistent build.
According to the .nfo file in the leaked beta the tester says:
Code: Select all
[04:30] <Betatester> Well, each one was encoded to only work on that specific DC
[04:30] <Betatester> However, if you mean the burning process, no, it was the same for them all.
[05:16] <Me> i mean different color dc's got different builds
[05:24] <Betatester> Well, I'm really not sure if they were different builds or not. I'm thinking that he might have done some kind of encoding on them, AFTER he did the builds, to make it work on the individual DC's. But, I don't know that for sure. He might have had the encoding done during the build itself, in which case they would be different builds for each color
It has never really been stated what the different colors were about and the "locked dc bios to disk color" is still hearsay.
It was also stated in the original dcemulation thread that testers were sent the betas.
So obviously the internal bleem testers were the ones with colored dreamcasts with alleged bios modifications.
Did they send modified dc consoles out to the other testers lol?
|darc| wrote:I just couldn't fathom Rand taking the risk of putting his code out there on purpose. Especially when after bleem! had gone under and they no longer had a financial interest in its sales, Rod Maher and Rand Linden posted on DCEmulation expressing regret that the beta making the rounds was extremely early and misrepresented the work they put into the emulator afterwards and that they were very disappointed in the person who leaked the builds because the company was so small and tight knit
Well, it still doesn't mean an intentional leak did not happen..
|darc| wrote:I think people just like to come up with theories and gossip about bleem! because it's just one of those things that has had an extreme following. People saw bleem! as rebels in defense of a dying Sega. Rand even had a cult of personality on DCEmulation known as the Randites.
Of course bleem! has so much folklore, gossip, conspiracies, hearsay, myths, etc. that goes back close to 20 years now.
|darc| wrote:bleemcast! was written entirely in SH4 assembly language. With that level of talent, he would practically be a God in the Dreamcast indie programming community. Of course he'd never say that... he's religious (or was, don't know if he still is) and doesn't believe in saying the Lord's name (using "G-d" instead).
Rand is a programming legend.
I probably missed a few things but I am sure you get the point.