Chinese OSSC clones

Members of the community have spotted a few sales for the device on Ebay and a few other sites and it was noted to be exactly the same ossc that Marqs sells on VGP, but they have no involvement whatsoever. After calming down and looking further into this, these ossc’s appear to be the exactly the same as the original. It looks like the manufacturing company that was contracted must have let the plans “slip under the table” or be shared by some other means and due to the open source nature of it’s development, I doubt it’s even a real knockoff.

I have a lot of mixed feelings about this because of where it’s coming from now and the fact China has NOTHING to do with the retro gaming community. I would have rather seen more people in our circles take up further development and build improved models, but all this is going to do now is take profits from people uninformed of where all this came from. It’s a real shame.

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It is literally called ‘Open Source’ though?

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I’m thinking China probably has their own retro gaming community… That speaks chinese :smiley: How bizarre would it be if a Micomsoft Framemeister successor was just an OSSC?!

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This was always going to happen. It’s just the way the world works.

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It would be bizarre in a way, one community that we can hardly communicate with. * shrug

Bucko has his concerns on how the components will hold up and I’m not sure if anyone on the forums will be able to provide as much help if there’s changes made. I’d hate to see something eff’d up in the firmware or anything that can potentially damage the equipment it’s hooked up to.

It’s only natural for the original OSSC guy to spread FUD about the competitor. But that doesn’t make it right.

Perhaps this new version does use cheaper components, but I’d have to see a direct comparison before I started freaking out or dismissing the device or this new manufacturer, who may well be the same manufacturer as the official device!

a risk people have taken and generally understand with other chinese variants of open source projects like the sd2snes. but that doesn’t mean that they shouldn’t be able to make it, they are perfectly within their rights to do so. the fact that it is coming from a non native english speaking country is absolutely irrelevant.

and btw china has a massive arcade and retrogaming scene with a lot of very talented players, many of whom go to events like stunfest etc.

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That’s what I’ve heard someone mention already, so who knows if it’s exactly the same thing.

the old bastard communism

As someone who doesn’t see alternate/clones of the OSSC as unexpected or a bad thing I still wouldn’t call component concerns “FUD”. It is a standard statement to make about not being able to guarantee the components of “non official” devices and make sure potential buyers know that there may be a difference since if these clones do start failing or have other issues it may reflect bad on the product itself if there isn’t a clear distinction.

But yeah, the only thing that is surprising to me about this is that it wasn’t already cloned.

If it means more people will have access to an OSSC because they will be able to afford it, then I only see that as good thing.

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FUD = Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt

= Fear

= Uncertainty

= A little doubt, maybe

So allow me to shed light on to what happens in China. If you are lucky you work with a broker that has enough business to keep the factory busy. Because if another broker comes to the factory it’s pretty much a free for all. Your parts and projects are sitting in the lobby and someone can just buy it.

If you have a design patent all it stops your country’s competition from importing but everything can be produced by someone willing to pay the factory. Sometimes the product comes off your run. We’ve been importing for more than half a century and have moved factories from Japan to Taiwan to China. This stuff never happened in Japan. We’ve dealt with very honorable and very unscrupulous factories. Producing in China is cheap but it’s always a good idea to find a factory elsewhere or maybe produce bits of your product in different places to avoid your end product getting in the hands of someone stealing your design.

Lucky for us we partner with another large producer for a lot of our products and we keep the factory busy enough to be pretty much help stop this nonsense. Also what I make has dozens of alternatives that are cheaper to produce and someone looking to cut costs isn’t going to build our version.

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Yes, that is what the abbreviation means and taken literally what it would entail. Just as every game is an RPG because you play a role in them, but the literal meanings and the implied meanings of a phrase can differ.

Although it may be my own misunderstanding but I’ve always taking the phrasing of “spreading FUD” to have a negative and/or skeptical condensation which I don’t think fits with accurate/realistic concerns the creator has.

Again, this isn’t me talking down about these clones or clones in general and I do, and will continue to, purchase them when I feel the need. I just don’t think there is anything negative about the original creator’s response and desire to make sure potential buyers know it is a separate product and as such he can not speak to the quality of.

My point is that it seems not enough is known at this point, so the creator saying anything about it seems a little premature. Just my opinion of course. Rather wait for so the facts, make one statement, job done. But I guess the community will run rampant with their own story regardless?

How cheap are these things? Has anyone reviewed them? We could tip off Bob at RetroRGB or someone like Smokemonster and I’d say they will be eager to order one and look it over, right?

I think the people making the OSSC will be fine. The OSSC seems to be readily available, and its a fair price. So unless these knock offs come in at like 70 - 100 bucks I don’t think they’ll have to worry. It’s a much different situation than the GDEMU, where the dude who makes it does batches of like 20 once every third blue moon, and releases them in the middle of the night for 2 minutes. I wouldn’t be surprised if at some point this year the number of knock off GDEMUs installed in machines out numbers the number of official ones. Hell I’m heavily considering getting a knock off myself of that one.

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One problem could be similar to what Krikzz faces, which is people complaining and returning DOA or malfunctioning products… but they aren’t made by him.

Those aren’t open source, they’re just straight up stolen, but I can see something similar happening with the OSSC.

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I’ve been following this thread from the beginning and that is not an accurate summary of the comments being made here. When large generalizations are made about whole groups of people based on something someone saw on eBay, yeah, that’s a problem.

Furthermore the product is open source and it’s unclear to me what exactly has been stolen. There hasn’t been any article written or investigation performed, just speculation and conjecture.

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