List games not released in Japan

[P]

Having FDS mixed in to the list but marked so they can easily be filtered out is as good as having them in a separate list, so that's all good by me.
I think "it's own thing" is ambiguous though. FDS are definitely their own thing but not a separate console, they all have the unique characteristics of the Famicom/NES system, so I could never see Zelda, Metroid or SMB2j (the latter which is FDS-exclusive) as non-Famicom games.
Dattach is technically in the same boat, although I could imagine some people considering it different just because it being more obscure.
I think the VS System could be considered an edge-case as that is definitely a separate and mostly incompatible system but based on the same hardware and therefore has the same characteristics as the Famicom. Donkey Kong 3 and Punch Out arcade systems uses the Famicom CPU as a sound processor, so they only shares audio characteristics and are not really edge-cases.

Here is a better example: If you count any media that does not come with the system as part of a separate console, Commodore 64 floppy disk games would be a separate console from the Commodore 64 since it requires a disk drive sold separately (and C64 games mainly comes on floppy disks and tapes). Heck, the tape drive were usually sold separately for most computers so cassette tape games would be for a separate console (the tape deck console).


I agree with Fcgamer that it would be weird to discriminate between unlicensed titles by including some Tengen Tetris but not other perfectly original unlicensed games, purely based on personal preferences. That's why I think it would be best for all unlicensed games to go in separate lists that does not "clutter" the licensed list. Sorry if "clutter" sounds like a bad choice of words, I'm not trying to be dismissive about unlicensed games, but there are many good reasons they should be separated.

There is the problem of defining exactly what type of unlicensed titles you want to limit yourself to. Unlicensed, as in literally any Famicom/NES software that is not officially licensed by Nintendo, would of course include all homebrew in existence which are uncountable as new ones are released as we speak and impossible to document unless they have some kind of public release.
Perhaps limiting to something like unlicensed commercial originals released within a certain time range which covers Tengen Tetris and other games you think should be included and preferably that are already documented.

[Ghegs]

The easiest way would be just have unlicensed -status be its own column in the table. That way the games are all in the same list, it's easy to include/exclude unlicensed titles (maybe have the UI exclude them by default), and would handily solve the cases where a game was released officially in one region and unlicensed in another.

The bigger problem is the homebrew, like you say. Putting a time limit on which unlicensed games would be included feels kind of artificial, but it could work. The range would have to be something like "from the first official game release to the last official game release". The Famicom itself, as a system, wasn't officially discounted until 2003 and that's just way too long a time period, that'd bring in a ton of homebrew.

Also, to be clear, bootleg carts do not count as releases here. I have a pirate Famicom cart of Prince of Persia, that does not mean Prince of Persia was released for the Famicom, and SMB2j wasn't released as a cart despite the abundance of pirate carts. It means somebody took the game, put it in a Famicom cart, and sold a product they had no permission to sell. That's just software piracy. That in my mind is a completely different case from releasing a game the publisher did have the rights to, they just didn't the license to release it on the system.

VS System, hmm. Didn't think of that one. Yeah, I think that might be out of scope.

[portnoyd]

The bigger problem is the homebrew, like you say. Putting a time limit on which unlicensed games would be included feels kind of artificial, but it could work. The range would have to be something like "from the first official game release to the last official game release". The Famicom itself, as a system, wasn't officially discounted until 2003 and that's just way too long a time period, that'd bring in a ton of homebrew.

It really wouldn't. Homebrew development for the NES was in its infancy at this point. You had things like what Memblers and NESdev put together and Solar Wars from Chris Covell but that's really it. The vultures from NintendoAge had yet to mutate from the normal people they were on NESworld and realized they could milk the community for dollars. The majority of community grown games at that point were hacks, which no one will or should consider.

Most consider system death occurring once the last retail release for the system has been released. For NES/FC, that's 1995 at the absolute latest and a reasonable range. This will discount all homebrews anyway.

[Ghegs]

I thought there had been a bit more, but at least I remembered the homebrew scene started kicking off around the early aughts. "From the first official game release to the last official game release" should work nicely, then. So from 1983's Donkey Kong on FC to 1995's The Lion King on PAL NES.

[P]

Yeah that is a good range. Even if the Famicom was still made until 2003, the list is about the software. Nintendo probably didn't accept any new titles after a certain date, even though they continued some manufacturing and repair service several years after the last license.

Also, to be clear, bootleg carts do not count as releases here.

Sounds fair. Bootlegs, hacks and combinations of the two are probably even harder to document than unlicensed originals and should definitely be separate if included at all.

[Ankos]

Also, to be clear, bootleg carts do not count as releases here.

Sounds fair. Bootlegs, hacks and combinations of the two are probably even harder to document than unlicensed originals and should definitely be separate if included at all.

By bootlegs, do you mean counterfeit copies of FC/NES games, or original unlicensed titles with infringing material?

The second category is not always easy to separate from non-infringing unlicensed games since there are games that steal varying amounts of IP (also consider that some official games that stole IP as well), and there are unlicensed game released by companies more known for releasing counterfeit carts

I'm not entirely opposed to trying to separate the two, but without some sort of rules in place it gets difficult

[fcgamer]

It does get difficult, as people generally just want to go with what "feels comfortable" to them. Tengen's Tetris is the classic example, if it appears on any list Hummer Team's Mario World better appear alongside it, under the same classification.

[fcgamer]

Yeah that is a good range. Even if the Famicom was still made until 2003, the list is about the software. Nintendo probably didn't accept any new titles after a certain date, even though they continued some manufacturing and repair service several years after the last license.

Also, to be clear, bootleg carts do not count as releases here.

Sounds fair. Bootlegs, hacks and combinations of the two are probably even harder to document than unlicensed originals and should definitely be separate if included at all.

Not sure about that "hard to document" part though. It's all more or less been documented by this time.

[P]

By bootleg- and hack-combinations I mainly meant bootlegs of existing games with minor modifications. When they change the main character or remove copyright on the title screen etc.

Original games with copyright infringements (like Tengen Tetris and Hummer Team SMW) are not really called bootlegs. Bootlegs are illegitimate copies of existing games AFAIK, whether or not they have been modified or not.

Hacks released only as separate patches are also not bootlegs by themselves and normally not copyright infringements either (though this depends on what the hack does). But when you apply them to a ROM and put it on cartridge without permission it becomes a bootleg, though the hack itself has nothing to do with its bootleg status.


By hard to document I mean you have a lot more decisions to make and much more information to process compared to just limit yourself to Nintendo's lot check lists for example. You have a bigger market to check which spans all continents and probably multiple versions of the same title by different bootleggers, for not mentioning new bootlegs appearing all the time (though again a limited time range can fix that).