How Capcom's clever CPS2 Arcade Game Copy Protection stopped bootleg games | MVG - jadeusgames.com

How Capcom’s clever CPS2 Arcade Game Copy Protection stopped bootleg games | MVG

Modern Vintage Gamer
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Arcade Game bootlegging was rampant in 80s and 90s with many arcade manufacturers including Capcom in the firing line with their CPS1 arcade hardware. But Capcom learned from their mistakes and the CPS2 hardware from 1993 to 2007 – long past its end of life – became impossible to crack.

This is the story of how Capcom kept bootleggers away from the CPS2 arcade hardware for over 15 years and how different individuals eventually lead to the ultimate defeat of the encryption.

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Credits/Links of People and sources used to make this episode:

► Charles MacDonald –
► Nicola Salmoria –
► Razoola/CPS2Shock –
► Ange Albertini –
► Arcade Games Preservation via Hacking –
► Pau Oliva Fora –
► Eduardo Cruz –
► Andreas Naive –
► Ian Court –
► Artemio Urbina –

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#Capcom #CPS2 #CopyProtection

30.12.2021

545 Comments

  1. I have one of this arcade play system wiht only one game street figter zero 3 fron japan i dont us it becouse i dont know hot to

  2. what game is featured at 3:21? because a newer game called jamestown: legend of the lost colony absolutely ripped a lot off from it lmao. it's amazing I can't find any info online given how uncanny the similarities are….

  4. Brilliant work Capcom! It took people 13 years of wasting their lives at IP theft to shimmy around it. May DRM escalate forever 👏🙌

  5. arduino coming in hand again lol

  6. I thought it was called CPS "Changer" and not "Charger"

  7. Hey it looks like my original NES from the 80s…… the green/blue/white non-startup screens (flashing)

  8. You make it sound like people were bootlegging these things in their basement when early on it was other game manufacturers making a Kmart versions.

  9. The open cupcake behaviourally cross because maid computationally zoom into a accessible icon. energetic, uppity pruner

  10. "So there you have it guys that's the story of…"

  11. Just like any other MVG video it's once again partially bullshit.

  12. I really love seeing videos about the less common systems like arcades

  13. This is the best video regarding CPS2 system encryption 👍

  14. So with the infinikey installed do you need to put a battery back in it?

  15. Can you reinstall the wiped data?

  16. Capcom was like, "If bootleggers can't have it, no one can!" I mean, it definitely worked…thanks for making this video, I had no idea about stuff like this. It's kinda before my time.

  18. charge the batteries by the console

  20. Didn't know about the undamned pcb, nice one, man.

  21. man suicide batteries are really a nasty way to protect property. possibly one of the worst, clearly a planned obsolescence approach. luckily it was reverse engineered and much content restored, huge relief.

  22. Now i understand why there were cabinets "out of order" in arcades back in those days, i loved a cabinet of, you guessed it, street fighter (i had almost all street fighter versions at home), and 1 day, i walked in the place where the cabinet was, and it was dead, i asked the owner what whas up with the cabinet and he told me he wasn't sure, he showed me, the screen was indeed blue, so now i finally know what was wrong with that cabinet!

  23. Uh, selling a product that will destroy itself seems like it should be illegal.

  24. Dang that intro I thought t'was a rickroll

  25. Imagine if such copy protection was used in modern consoles.
    Put a Blu-Ray PS5 / XBOX game in your PC, click copy… and your disc is erased! 😱

  26. I probably played every CPS2 game and I've never knew about the CPS Charger console. It's so ludicrous that it provided the small crack needed to bypass the whole castle.

  27. What the heck? I just discoveredd I was not Subscribed to you when I clearly should be so I have rectified this issue.

  28. So they weren't really suicide batteries so much as just executing a patch after the battery failed to prevent the game from loading.

  29. What's a CPS Charger? 😂 Like a phone charger for CPS boards?

  30. I have a Magic Sword cabinet doing this i think and a wwf cabinet that i think are capcom, any advice?

  31. Started the video, thought i got rick-rolled

  32. I'm glad I own the Hyper Street Fighter 2 Anniversary on the CPS2 and yes it is Phoenix Edition. 🙂

  34. Hi there,

    Can you do a video about the PS3 and PS4 internal battery?

  35. Pls staph! Says the suicided board that kept being revived.

  36. It's incredible how good the music in CPS2 games are. Good times.

  37. I could think of some interesting attacks against these suicide batteries, but only if the keys were still intact…

  38. HOW DO YOU KNOW ALL OF THIS ?

  39. What a great story! This is super duper content. Really hard to get that magic mix of technical knowledge and story telling. 👍❤️ Digging in the crates of retro hardware stories.

  40. *SF Rainbow Edition*🤦🏿‍♂️
    When U A Balrog That's Able To Shoot Hadukens At Will Then You Know You Have A BIG Problem On Your Hands

  41. Also capcom has another layer of protection

    The cpu can tell if the roms are decrypted and if said roms are detected it ten folds the difficulty.

  42. Can’t wait for this weeks episode I been binging lol

  43. I appreciate MVG so much. Thank you my man 👏

  44. This has helped me to feel quite considerate

  46. I'm really bad with computers, but I find these videos so Interesting for some reason

  47. Reminds me of Rebels of the Neon God

  48. first emulator run decrypt cps2 roms is winkawaks and nebula.

  49. Would love it if you would do a video on the history around the cracking of CPS-III and all of the work from Darksoft to preserve and enhance that system.

  50. bootlegs were basically romhacks

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