Japanese Game Boy (original) revisions.

[Shador]

As one might already know, Japanese Game Boys came with manual marked with revision number. I ran into "Rev. 5" (http://i.ebayimg.com/00/s/OTYwWDEyODA=/$(KGrHqFHJDkE-NtEMEnkBPpT641BLw~~60_12.JPG) most of the time and only twice - into "Rev. 3" (http://i302.photobucket.com/albums/nn89/sktuemvie/ZEB12/DSC00395.jpg)
Does anyone know if there is any difference between consoles themself in a releases with different revisions and if it's real to find "Rev.1" (or whatever should be written on the manual of the very first revision like it was on April 1989)?

[ave]

Just checked some old pictures and I happen to own a complete/boxed Rev. 3 DMG-1. Bought it in 2006 for around 20 Euros on ebay.

Honestly, I never payed any attention to "rev" on the manual. It kind of strikes me that it says

Toriatsukai Setsumeisho
(Rev.3)

To me this looks as if Rev.3 only applies to the manual itself, so maybe they made some changes in terms of layout/language/drawings? I can't quite recall the contents of the JPN GB manual after all these years, but I think there were some screenshots in there. Maybe they have been replaced with screenshots of later games?
This has certainly been done before with other consoles. Can't give you any specific examples, but I remember it very clearly - the Famicom at the very least received a revised manual with different pictures after the square-button Famicom was revised one year later in 1984.

[Shador]

Thanks for your help. Could you tell me if there are any dates mentioned in your Rev. 3 manual? Or maybe you could at least name the games from which screenshots are present there, so I can have at least some estimation of when this Rev. 3 was launched? I'm hunting for the very first, launch model of Game Boy and this is why having all the info possible regarding its apparel and packaging is vital to me.
And the fact I don't read Japan is making things even more complicated. :(

[ave]

I'm afraid my GameBoy is wrapped up in some moving box around 1000km away from where I am right now. :S

But I agree, it's kinda hard to find info on import DMG-1 GameBoys. For some reason it seems to be rather unattractive for import collectors, I hardly see them in collection (other than JPN Game Gears or JPN consoles in general).

[Shador]

Ok, then another question here. I was lucky enough to get brand new American Game Boy in this packaging: http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-urSo7b5e8q...GameBoyBox.jpg (I believe this is the very first US one)
So I wanted to know if there are any difference between this and Japanese model. AFAIK all the hardware is the same, still there is a possibility regional information is coded somewhere in Game Boy memory. Do you have any knowledge on this?
P.S. Yes I know it is cartridges who carry regional information (even though it is not used in 99% of all the GB games) but still nothing was preventing Nintendo from putting different ROM state in Japanese and US models, so just curious if anyone knows anything about this.

[ave]

Sorry, no idea. That's getting too technical for me ;)

[Lum]

JPN Game Gear has good reason to put in collections. It runs Japanese language mode rather than English. Affecting a few games.

At least two Japan-only titles even contain localizations, that require English hardware to access. So neither side of the pacific could "officially" see their translation!
Puyo Puyo 1
Ronald McDonald in Magical World

[Shador]

Yes, although being offtopic, i would gladly find and buy brand new Japanese Sega Game Gear myself.

But actually I'm looking for Japanese Game Boy in order to play US carts on it. Do you mean it's not "officialy" allowed? Game Boy (as well as Game Gear) is region-free after all.

[Lum]

Yeah it's complicated to describe. By that I was referring to the uncommon situation of: No matter where you are, importing was mandatory when playing the game by official methods.
Such content cannot be viewed without owning hardware never released in the game's own country.

While I'm not aware of a concept demo confirming it, we also can safely assume Game Gear had the unused ability to employ that feature as region lock. Given a comparable approach worked for Genesis.

To anwser your general question... I don't know. First we have to confirm if Game Boy even had a memory location games could poke to determine the system's region. Then (and only then) we'd need to find out if any games in fact contain differences depending on the hardware region they're run with.

[Shador]

But I mean - is it not "officially" to import consoles (say from Japan to US) and then play US games on Japanese Game Boy since DMG-01 (and Game Gear) is region-free? Shouldn't any game from any region "officially" work on any console from any region?

[Lum]

Yes. All currently known games have no region blocking.

Plausible region lock, or even confirmed possible, still doesn't mean any actual game release used it. An important distinction.

For an interesting comparison... Super Game Boy on the other hand is technically NOT region free. Since it can interface with SNES hardware, data stored on Game Boy size cartridges that's in SNES format, must respect the same region lock that applies to full SNES cartridges. Accordingly the 16bit mode of NTSC or PAL SGB Space Invaders must be run on its matching region SNES console, despite the Game Boy portions of the game being region free. It's as complex as it sounds!