FYI the Zeebo games video is not out yet! Unfortunately had to delay that one to get this video done. Based on our planned production schedule, there’s going to be a few other videos that will likely come out first because I want to make sure and give the Zeebo its due. So I guess like and subscribe in the meantime?? Sorry I don’t have a definite date yet!
Can't wait for it! The original concept for Zeebo was great at the time. Games downloaded over its own 3G network for low prices and all in Portuguese was way ahead of its time. Too bad they insisted in comparing the console with PS2. 3D gaming on it was SLOW - one of the release titles, "Need for Speed" was faithful to its name - it really NEEDED SPEED. If they focused instead on 2D games - and actually gave a chance to a TON of brazilian developers/studios who wanted to make games for it (I blame QUALCOMM for not giving access to anyone other than Tectoy their Brew devkit), maybe this story would have had a different ending. It's sad, really. It was a great idea.
One more thing... Tectoy had another console released AFTER the Zeebo. The "Mega Drive 4 Guitar Idol", which ISNT a Mega Drive - but a console that emulates the Mega Drive and can even play MP3s - and had some unique games made (by Tectoy) for it. (That Guitar Hero clone game and the FIFA one doesn't run on a normal Mega Drive! Other games do run, but for example "Os 12 Trabalhos de Jongo", which is a Master System game, on a regular console some sprites will disappear. Apparently the "sprite limitation" was removed in this Mega Drive 4!) I would bet (by looking at some files dumped from that system a while ago) that this uses BREW too... A Brazilian video showing a bit off of it: th-cam.com/video/dmwHp3-rTtI/w-d-xo.html Another in Portuguese, showing games (even Need for Speed in 3D) th-cam.com/video/DGUQDQJMkIs/w-d-xo.html Found a video in English of it: th-cam.com/video/WM_uzjYizQA/w-d-xo.html
@@IconGamesBR I was there for the PCWorld video too. I distinctly remember that the sound emulation Mega Drive games was quite bad, specially on games like Shinobi III. Quite a disappointment. PS: You can still buy a NEW Mega Drive from Tec Toy, the re-release from 2017. It is based on "Genesis on a Chip" technology, and can run games from an SD Card. The emulation was flawed in the original firmware, but the community stepped up and produced a patched version which fixes things up. Today, TecToy sells the Atari Flashback and an Android "TV Box" with licensed games, many of them from Data East.
Hi, i'm from Brazil, i liked your video a lot, very informative, thank you for the care with the zeebo. And if i had to say, i personally never heard or see a zeebo around here at the time. Just when i was older that i learned about it's existence. But like, i was a kid with around 12, at the time it launched, so i didn't see much about a lot of things at the time too. Lol. But yeah the console i knew about was the ps2 and the x360, at the time the war between those two was the talk of the moment around here. And it was of course 'cause of the piracy of those two consoles.
When launching a game console in Brazil, you always have to ask the question: "why would anyone play this instead of a modchipped PS2 in which you can buy/burn pirated games for dirt cheap?"
Just a quick example to let you gringos understand just how much piracy is present in Brazil: I am a Brazilian 30 years old man. My parents were upper middle class and I attended private schools my whole life. Most of my friends had PS1 or PS2 growing up. Some of those friends were also middle class, others were quite rich. And, despite all that, I have never - I mean NEVER - seen in person an original PS1 or PS2 disk TO THIS DAY. I mean, it wasn't until a couple years ago that I found out online that PS1 CDs were black.
Fun fact: in the commercial at 24:20, the guy who's presenting the zeebo was a presenter for a kids show on open tv that had segments between cartoons where kids would call and play some games for a opportunity to win a random roulette prize that included a PlayStation 2 (and eventually 3) This show was very popular in the mid to late 2000s, so when the internet became popular in Brazil, the guy in the ad became a meme in Brazilian circles as the "PlayStation Guy" It has been almost 15 years since he left the show and he still has that reputation in Brazil.
As a brazilian, I remember seeing the Zeebo on magazines back in the day. Everyone realized right away that it sucked, but there was still a sliver of proud, because it was "our" console.
Honestly it could have worked out very well. If you can get players mobile devs will bend over backwards to make their games work. The Qualcomm bs ultimately killed what could have been the first successful mobile app console.
I'd met some people at the time who said they were interested in the console solely for patriotic reasons. I'd already watched gameplays and was horrified. None ended up buying it anyway as 499 turned everyone off.
Thank you for the understanding take on brazilian piracy. I feel like a lot of people are very judgy when it comes to piracy, probably due to living in countries where it wasn't back breakingly expensive to get games or movies, and growing up being bombarded with anti piracy ads. There are tons of brazilian people on the comments talking about their stories, so I won't share mine, but I wanted to point out how good it feels to be understood in that regard. Brazilians (and people from other markets like southeast asia or other latin american countries) don't pirate out of anything but sheer necessity. And this is something that has been changing as things become more accessible, largely on PC thanks to steam, but the console market is fucked and has always been fucked here.
One thing about consoles though, is that at least in Indonesia (where I'm currently living in) the console pricing is actually a bit more sensible now. For example, this July I got myself a PS5 for ~US$700. That's the console with bundled game (Horizon Forbidden West) and an extra controller (the console itself has 1 bundled in, and I bought it with an extra one to play 2 player games). Series X can be had for $500, PS4 for $250, as is the Series S, and PS3 for like $100. The caveat of course is that the price is still disproportionate to income of most people, but it's still better than years ago when it was out of reach by anyone but the rich. Middle class people here can actually buy consoles now.
This channel does such a service to the video game community. There is just nobody else to keeps these weird and odd corners of the industry alive with as much passion. Long live the Zeebo and long live SSFF!
I mean literally everyone from Ashens to Larry Bundy Jr and even Gameranx have covered it... But okay. LOL. I mean literally Ashens started this all... And Nostalgia Nerd... And Slopes Games Room... And Top Hat Gaming... And Kim Justice... And Octavius Kitten.... And Did You Know Gaming... I mean these are just the UK based ones... Metal Jesus Rock, LGR and AVGN have probably covered it as well. The first mistake you can make is thinking you are the only person to have an idea. You aren't. The telephone, television and vacuum cleaner are all examples of how true that statement is. This is why you need something to make yours stand out. SSFF usually do by actually doing stuff slightly more unique like Punching Wight. This for me... This isn't their best. Americans when it comes to things like this tend to be too.... Well ... Amercentric. They cannot see from outside their own existence. Like how it starts off saying Brazil is weird because Nintendo lost... Nintendo lost in a lot of places... Most of Europe was more Sega. The UK which is one of the biggest economical markets, especially during the 90s... Well they picked Sega. Nobody, and I mean pretty much nobody, owned a SNES or a NES. More people owned Atari ST and Amiga than those. And that is the truth. In the 16 bit generation the SNES didn't even finish in the top 3 because of micros. So like in this they fail to mention perspective. The way I put it is if you want a movie you go to the Americans... They are amazing at doing visuals and that whole thing. Everything so polished and well made... But you want something like a documentary? They are the last you should ask. Look at their "educational" tv... It's mostly adverts and every show is "coming up on the show" "after the break" "before the break" and then they recap the whole episode at the end. Watching anything is infuriating cause it feels like Americans must either have adverts so long they forget what happened or they have the memory capacity of a sea cucumber!
My wife is Brazilian and I've spent the last few years learning Portuguese, visiting Brasil, and becoming obsessed with their early grey markets (visiting a few in Liberdade) and I can't tell you how happy it made us to see this video this morning. We both paused the video and just smiled at your Pão de Queijo public service announcement. Thank you for this. It's mindful, well researched, and brings light to such a fascinating and unique part of gaming history. Muito obrigado c:
As a 40 year old Brazilian who lived through almost the entirety of the Brazilian gaming history I am impressed with the accuracy of the information displayed here. It is noticeable how much effort, care and love was put into the research and production of this video. SSFF: congratulations. Keep up the good work! (and, yes, Pão de queijo is delicious.)
As a Brazilian, and someone that follows your channel since 2009, this is the first time I comment on one of your videos and I must say that you did a fantastic job explaining the import situation in Brazil and telling the story of the Zeebo which even most Brazilians never heard of. Keep it up Derek, love your channel.
As a 34 yo Brazilian myself, I expected no less from SSFF. Most people outside of Brazil don't get the amount of BS we had to get through just to play videogames. It isn't that much better today, as emulation and steam helped things a lot, but consoles are still very pricey. Aside the zeebo being on the title and the main subject, the little doc about piracy is an obvious recommendation from me to anyone who wishes to understand a bit better how crazy it was in the 90's here. Thanks man, you're the best :) AND PÃO DE QUEIJO RULES
Mexican here, the situation for us was somewhat similar as piracy was king. You could buy PS1 games for $30 pesos, which back then was 3 USD. The difference was of course by being right next to the US it was way easier to just buy consoles and games across the border and sell it at a premium in Mexico, what we used to call "fayuca". Or just asking the cousins in the US to buy it for you.
Wow awesome video, so sad I only found about this so late! I worked at Tectoy and Zeebo Interactive Studios from before Zeebos's launch until we were closed, all your infos are incredibly precise! I particularly liked how much fun you made out of Qualcomm and Brew, it was pretty much the exact sentiment on our side as well hahah! Not sure you're even going to see a comment so long after this video was published but if you have any questions I'd love to answer them!
If I could pick your brain about the games themselves! I've had a mega video reviewing every single Zeebo game on the back burner for months now. But any insight into the actual development of Zeebo games would be great! I'd love to chat, stopskeletons@gmail.com
I'm from Mexico and I remember when the Zeebo came out here... Every kid I knew thought it was lame. The problem was much the same as in Brazil: Mexico is infamous for its videogame gray market. For that Money (2,400 pesos) you could find a ps2 with a mod chip to play pirate games or even a brand new PSP that you could mod yourself at home. It was just pointless.
Mi amigo, todos nós aqui só sabíamos zoar (chistear/bromear) esse console kkkkk no hay console más inútil (pero tenemos un poquito de orgullo de nuestro hijito)
Here in the northwest... uh... we pretty much never knew it existed. It was far easier try to smuggle a second hand console from USA and hope you don't get a red light at the custom checkpoint. And even if you got sent to inspection, it was a question of paying the fine (or bribing the custom agent, whatever was cheaper)
@@mrxmgs3768 you are saying there is a market for getting consoles across the border into Mexico?(I figure this is the nation you are discussing since you said Northwest and border customs.)
I understand that there is a temptation to paint Tectoy and the Zeebo as a sort of an underdog story, despite the company gross incompetence in nearly every area; but if you know TecToy history, you know there is more than a tinge of malice in there. You see, games are extremely expensive on Brazil thanks to arcane tax laws; which considering the immense income disparity, make it actually profitable for gaming stores, since for rich people, there is no practical difference between something costing R$3000 or R$5000. Hence why luxury markets in Brazil have always been profitable (well, that and money laundering). So for those laws to be kept, you can bet your ass someone somewhere fought them to keep it that way. Those laws have been maintained way past the point in which stuff like Steam and the mobile market upended completely how the legal market works in Brazil. And for over 30 years, the sole benefactor of those laws was Tectoy, (among other opportunists such as the Polystation guys), manufacturing hardware it for cheap, because since being a Brazillian company, they were exempt from those taxes/ allowing they to sell outdated, foreign technology for truly unrealistic values since the 90's. Their selling of Master Systems for ridiculous prices, when even a cheap phone could emulate those games, in a poor country like Brazil, is for me deeply anti-ethical. (Also, is good to remember that despite being only profitable national game-adjacent company for decades, they never invested a single cent in local developers or original games; even their localized games were just translated reskins of Sega titles.) if you want any more evidence of the embezzlement-level of their practices, their newest product is literally a cheap tv box emulating some old-ass arcade roms that they have the gall to charge the equivalent of $200 dollars for: www.tectoy.com.br/legends-core-tectoy-p464
Bribing the government to keep arcane and outdated laws is quite common here in the US. Our government subsidizes the oil industry in the US, even though the industry makes more than enough to sustain itself. It can use this extra money to pay for politicians campaigns in exchange for those politicians continuing to give them money. Our government pays the oil industry to pay the government to pay the oil industry.
I don't think SSFF was painting them in a competent light at all (if that's what you're saying at the beginning). I just finished the video and I had the opposite impression.
@@walnzell9328 The CIA is not always involved in choosing people to betray their own country based on their own benefit so that they become leaders in said countries.
The Double Dragon zeebo has exclusive characters and incredible animations, and Action Hero brings an amazing concept! Thanks so much for covering our brazilian stuff internationally better than anyone else! Some suggestions, since we are talking about BREW and Master System: ➡️ Devil May Cry 3D: 998KB game for Sony Ericsson with air combos, tons of stages, 9 endings and weapons with all the movesets from ps2. Can be emulated with JL-Mod on android only ➡️Jang Pung 3: an OUTSTANDING Master system fighting game made in South korea with tons of characters and stages that if Tectoy ever licensed that in Brazil, it would be a franchise nowadays. Its performance is leagues ahead of tectoy's SF2. Agradeço muitíssimo Derek!
@@gambiarraswiiu8141 EVERY time people talk about digital games and delisted content I bring up Double Dragon Zeebo. I've never had a chance to play it but just looking at it, it appears to probably be the best game in the series. And I HAVE played the delisted mobile enhanced port-ish thing and can confirm THAT being amazing despite being slower and having less moves than the Zeebo version (on the plus side, it has Deena). So yeah, fingers crossed for Zeebo emulation or a Switch port or something one day.
FACT: if anyone needs dmc 3d dev model viewer and a save with ALL weapons, I can provide it. Same goes if its jl mod emulator too, for better recording
Man, this was… kind of a rough one. The guys making this had so much positivity and optimism about them, and it seems like they might’ve stood a chance without Brew holding the system back. I mean, yeah, they also fundamentally misunderstood their own market, but I could see a niche wanting a product like this. Then again, Ouya also kind of flopped, so maybe this whole idea was doomed from the start.
I'm brazilian and the gaming community here is strong, but games are way too expensive rn and like most of the time it has been like that, consoles like Atari in the 90's and Snes and Genesis in early 2000 were a thing, and it's crazy to think that on the PS2 era it was rare to find a real ps2 game, piracy was everywhere in that time lol
Matheus, i saw only after i became adult, well in the middle of the PS4 life time 🤣 that is a rare sight here in Brazil, like a endangered animal species
@@MatheusSM1000 my first original ps2 disc was guitar hero world tour, i bought it with all the instruments, but i mainly used the instruments to play a pirate copy of smash hits
I have my original copy of Zone of the Enders till this day, i bought it a month after the launch because of hype (i like that game a lot). But that was the only one.
I'm a Brazilian gamer and I must say that Zeebo totally flew under my radar. Only heard about it after it was deemed a flop. BTW love how cute your pronunciation of "Pão de Queijo" sounds. I also love Pão de Queijo, and it is considered one of our bests original treats. Thank the state of Minas Gerais for this!
I've said it on the Patreon and will say it again: this is easily one of the best videos of SSFF! As a brazilian I can say the market stuff was incredibly respectful, well-reaseached and insightful. And it's impossible to not admire what they accomplished on mobile tech: internet capabilities, a Wii sports clone, a RE4 port with grape-flavored zombos... How more Punching Weight can you get? Also, I'm glad you guys used my sugestion to include the amazing Zeebo rap! 🤣
I was the lead artist on Ridge Racer by NAMCO for Zeebo back in day. I Hi-Rez’d Ridge Racer from the PlayStation 1 and added polys new textures, designed the UI and fonts… fun times! This video is great to understand the behind the scenes and so cool to see my work at 38:00.
@@key099able considering the game could literally kill the system, I'd say the criticism was fair. Also I'm pretty sure making the guy who made this comment has no connection to the guys who coded it.
Interesting information, especially since I wrote the console UI for this device, but never heard the first parts of what is said here (and cannot verify or challenge it's veracity). I was working on this at a different company via a contract with Zeebo for initial development. I did end up eventually working for Zeebo (both companies were a bit shaky to me at the time, but Zeebo had Qualcomms' backing so seemed a better choice, but still I wasn't terribly confident it was going to be successful - both were out of business by 2012). You are completely correct about the nightmare that was Brew. The Qualcomm "SDK" for Brew was essentially a bunch of macros that attempted to simulate an Object Oriented "language" using C. So much fun. The phone OS had essentially no memory defrag capabilities, so I had to write code to unload the OS, then reboot the device with a different boot "script" to be able to run most of the games (I read several years later that the early Sony PlayStations did something similar), affecting the startup times unfortunately. Like most games on consoles, to speed up things, large chunks of memory were pre-allocated at the start of games to preload graphics and such , and so many could not start without this. I did know that the goal was to sell these devices in Brazil and India (to start with) and that the Qualcomm backing was mainly to garner interest in games on their OS (not just for Zeebo, but for phones). Note that the games were ported in Brazil, in Campinas, NW of Sao Paulo (using Flash for some of it interestingly enough), where I visited several times. Wonderful group of people , very talented, but limited in what they could do in Brew. So yes, Zeebo moved on. We did begin development on an Android version as mentioned at the end, and a new "console" was built to run it on. This was using Android 3 (and 4 eventually) which itself had some issues to be dealt with requiring rewrites of some of the OS. This was going to be an Educational software only centered device, and was much smaller, smaller than many cell phones now. But the company shut down before it ever shipped. Much of what is mentioned in this video was unrelated to development, and I worked remotely most of the time, so can't comment on a lot of what is said here. If true, then some of it is "news to me!" I had little interaction with the business side of things.
I used to work at this Campinas studio! I was a lowly junior artist back then, so I guess we were never introduced but makes me happy that you remember us fondly. I did a lot of the UI work using Flash for our games, most of it for Zeebo Xtreme. We used Flash to generate a XML file with the images coordinates and tweens. It was very crude at the beginning, but some of those late educational Zeebo games had lots of fullscreen animations so we improved it to export nested movie clips information and some basic action scripts functions, like "go to frame 3". It was a great hacky solution to our complete lack of tools for Brew.. the developers used to call this "tech" XUI. It was a nerdy joke of a recursive name: What XUI stand for? XUI User Interface...... :D....... I worked there till the end, still have some art for a small game we've made for the android tablet that never saw the light of day... it was kinda sad on those final days, we were working on it fully knowing that the whole project was doomed. But I've made friendships there that lasts to this day, I'm currently working with some of them in another games company. Although someone always jokes about our work back then, it was a bonding experience for all of us. We'll always have an amazing story to tell at the bar: "Hey, have you ever heard about Zeebo, the Brazillian game console?" ;D
@@marceloapsilva85 Yea, those were actually good times for the most part. I don't remember names much, I mostly intereacted with one of the guys in charge, Renaldo I think his name was, and in some group meetings. I and my boss up here in California were primarily visiting to go over details about the UI and the graphics and stuff for that, and issues with running some of the games. Best boss I ever worked for, and I've mostly had good ones so that's saying a lot. :-) I'm still bummed it failed . . . I still have one of the Android devices that was made for Education attempt, and I had an original Zeebo Device with my name etched on it - from the first shipment! I can't find it now, and don't know what happened to it, I wouldn't have intentionally disposed of it :-( Very nice to hear you are doing well! I'm pretty much retired now...
It's great to see more people talking about Zeebo and being better known by collectors, I had a Zeebo and despite knowing that it was an absurd failure I can say that it was one of the consoles that most marked my life, at the time of my father I had no money to give me a PS3 or Xbox 360 and not even a Wii, Zeebo turned out to be a cheaper option (at the time it only cost R$300 which was equivalent to something around $60), I still remember how I woke up early on a super excited Sunday morning to go there to buy my Christmas present. I remember that I thought it was amazing that it connected to the internet without the need for any cable or adapter (it would still take 2 years to find out what Wi-Fi was xD ) and with that I spent hours using the browser, visiting forums and social networks like MSN and Orkut on my Zeebo (at the time I had to share the PC at home with the whole family, so Zeebo having an internet browser was a big bonus for me), besides the games being extremely cheap compared to other platforms, I had never bought So many games like this on other console, I know it's a failure, but it was thanks to him that I got more interested in games like Tekken 2, Quake 2, Zenonia and Double Dragon, I also loved playing Zeebo FC Super League and Um jogo de Ovos which were surprisingly good games, I made a lot of friends that I still talk to today on a forum called ''Zeebo Club'', I loved the events that TecToy did that gave away physical prizes or games and store credits (I never won any, but it was fun xD). I know Zeebo was a failure but it really was an important part of my life and even though I have a PS4 in my living room today I still keep this console in my room with great affection, I just wish it had more support from the hacker community, it would be interesting to see an easier jailbreak method or even some ports and homebrews to the console ( come on, I want to see Doom running on the Zeebo xD ), but I don't think that will ever happen. But anyway... I'm very grateful to have won a Zeebo and I believe I wouldn't be the gamer I am today if I didn't have it. PS: Sorry for my english, Brazilian here. o/
Outstanding job at both documenting this piece of videogame history, as well as nailing all the Brazilian idioms and quirks. I really felt included and respected as a different culture. I wish more content makers could be aware of how important that is for us, from the countries that are being talked about.
Well, there are plenty of "Zebu" cattle here in Brazil, which is what I think of any time I hear the console's name. But the spelling makes more sense to English speakers than to Portuguese ones since the rare words we have with "ee" in them are pronounced quite differently (like "reerguer")
Oh yeah, I remember when the Zeebo started selling on Mexico... I never saw one but I do remember the commercials. Also, you mentioned the price of the Zeebo was 2,500 MXN, the thing was it came way too late to the market. I don't exactly remember what year it was but, at that time, everybody owned an either an Xbox 360 or a Wii, so by that price it was, and I quote some friends, "a no brainer, if I had 2,500 I'd buy two games." The Zeebo was overshadowed because everyone had the latest generation of consoles, at least in the US frontier where I live. In the end, the Zeebo was compared to the equivalent of a "plug n' play console but expensive for some reason".
fun fact when the zeebo was released in mexico it costed more than a wii or a used xbox 360 and both of them had their own piracy methods,the wii with the usb loaders and the xbox with burned disc,the only expensive console back then was the ps3 due to the blue ray stuff so in comparation it was a really bad deal but i remember the publicity for this thing trying so hard to hit sales especially with televisa network and his program "en familia con chabelo" a sunday morning program where they did competitions where the rewards where zeebos,the publicity went from using every time the same "un juego de huevos" commercial and the competitions where made by putting some kids playing the original zeebo games and ending with a drawn playing el juego de huevos to win the console,look at that it was a decent campain cosidering the success of "una pelicula de huevos",one of my cousins got one and i honestly feel bad for him because apparently he had to choice beetwen an xbox 360 or zeebo,i remember perfectly that cosnsole since i got to "play" with it when i come to visit him,it barely worked and the always advertised "free internet" never worked at all even the store to buy games shut down stupily fast and he only played some preinstalled games while browsing trought some of the adversited games on the ui honestly a really bad console and the controller is no joke on how bad it feels, i know this comment would be lost but i wanted to share my experience as a mexican who lived this whole mess with the adversitments showing this console like if it was the second coming of christ
Came here expecting to learn more about the Zeebo, and while I did, the main thing I learned is that I need to try Brazilian food, particularly white cheese and guava paste on a pão de queijo.
as a brazilian gamer from the 80s, thank you SO MUCH for this video, Derek. It shines a bright light at the situation in the country and all we went through. a thing of beauty, really.
I think that your interpretation of the Brazilian market was surgically precise. People outside the country seems to think that bootlegs are the boogeyman of the game industry, but there was literally no choice at the time. Nowadays Its way more affordable to legally own some games around here considering the online stores. Great video!
This episode is so well made. Thanks a ton. I think you translated our Brazilian gaming landscape very well. As a Brazilian, I'm not proud, but I know how to hack every console generation. You guys saw the prices of these games. It's like we never got a choice. When I was a kid in the 90's I was entitled to buy one single (bootleg) game per year for how expensive it was. And may I say that my family was not poor. But on my young adult days, steam is, and it still is, the godsend for me. I don't even remember the last time I pirated a game and even that games are still pricey now, the big sales they do make possible for me to game.
I totally agree with that! I can't remember the last time that I've pirated any game, even if I'm not sure I'll like it. Only Nintendo is allowed to be pirated hahaha
Steam saved the gaming landscape in Latin America, in my country PC hardware only has a 3% tax, while consoles have 55% tax because the government deems it a "luxury item", while PCs are treated as a basic everyday necessity hence the low tax, which means building PCs is cheap and the hardware including GPUs cost the same or even lower than in the US or Europe in some cases, couple that with Steam and its sales and local regional pricing and it makes an unbeatable combo, in fact it makes consoles stupid and obsolete in my country and it's the same thing in many other countries. That's why millions of Latinos play on PC nowadays even more than on console. Steam has singlehandedly almost completely killed piracy and bootlegs in my country.
It’s not common for us brazilians to feel proud of ourselves, but this is one of those rare situations. Glad you enjoyed some of the most famous dishes from here. I can see that you enjoyed your time researching about it. Cheers from Brasil, mate!
i always thought the polystation had original games that were inspired in super nintendo games, i had not idea it was just an older version of the nintendo
@@devforfun5618 huh? It’s a bootleg that hardly contains any internals/chips and I think the games are a couple ROM hacks built. It’s definitely not a Nintendo console. The ROMS
yalls content is perfect, i love these past mortem episodes the most though, so interesting to see how games are played around the world. also a modded $250 ps2 vs a $1000 xbox 360? i feel really bad for anyone that bought the 360, probably red ringed in the first few months of owning it.
Damn right, there were tons of class lawsuits against Microsoft. I remember watching on TV interviews of parents crying because they made year-long savings just to buy a 360 that broke in a week.
My dad bought me an Xbox 360 in 2009 for around $450 with a modchip, whereas he had bought a PS2 in 2006 for $350, also modchipped. That Xbox 360 eventually red ringed, but only 6 years later, by which time I already had another 360 for playing online, since the first one got banned from Xbox Live because of the modchip, and said modchip wasn't relevant anymore, with most pirated games coming out not being compatible with it. I ended up selling both to a store for around $60 in 2015. I only knew one other person that had an original Xbox 360, everyone else only managed to afford one when the newer model came out.
Hey, THAT'S ME at 20:49! That's from the Zeebo review I did while at PCWorld. I REALLY loved the initial batch of games (the Double Dragon port, Galaxy on Fire and Zenonia were great) and the concept, but as you said, the hardware was behind its time. Keep in mind that digital distribution for full games was something inexistent even on more established consoles (Like the PS3) at the time. And that you could use the network and download games at NO connection cost, even if you did not have a broadband connection at home. Everything ran over a 3G network called Zeebonet, ran by Claro in Brazil. Today, we take it for granted to download a game on the launch date, but for the time, this was unheard of. I always say that the Zeebo was not made to compete with the PlayStation or Xbox, it was made to drag the Master System crowd into the 21st century. And with better management and resources, it could have succeeded.
I'm from Brazil. I already adimred your channel since the first video i watched, but this is something else. Your attention to our culture, the respect you had as every joke landed, verything was really amazingly done! I can't thank you enough for this video, Derek and Producer Grace. You are really something else!
This speaks to me a lot! Back when Tectoy begun their operations with the Zeebo, they also started a game dev studio specifically for Zeebo and mobile games. At the time, it was unheard of, a game development company based in Brazil... As a high school sophomore at that time, it made me want to persue game development as a career, which paid off really well! Thanks for the in-depth research and amazing video, Derek. It brought me back so many memories!
Not really 'unheard of' - there were gamedev studios in Brazil since the 80s ;) Icon Games itself, had its first game made way back in 2004, "Penguin Racer" and a year later I'd release my "Bola de Gude" (Virtual Marbles / Murmeln 3D outside Brazil) game :)
Brazilian here, Derek. There is a great reason why Zeebo used DMX as the base for their jingle... It played on Marlon Wayans' White Chicks, this movies is massive here in Brazil.
Honestly, amazing job on all the research and paying respect to some of Brazil's culture (hopefully you learned enough but not enough to feel what we Brazilians feel lol). You probably did more for the legacy of the Zeebo than any Brazilian (not working on Tec Toy) ever did. Can't wait for the Punching Weight episode and hopefully you recorded your first impressions of each or at least the more well known games of the console.
I can't stop rewatching this video. The historical context, the food cameos, the utter weirdness of the Zeebo (as someone who lives in the UK) It's why I love this channel
Man as a brazillian I loved the dedication you put into learning our culture and a bit of our history, when you ate "romeu e julieta" it really made me smile :)
Man I'm so happy this channel is still going. I remember being stoked finding hvgn and two best friend play. And now Matt and Derek are friends and both making insanely good content. Thanks for being there Derek. You're the best. P.s video was top notch.
As a brazilian (and mostly Nintendo) gamer ever since I was a kid back in the 90s, I knew about the zeebo, but I could have sworn it failed and never released. To me, it was obvious that it wouldn't be successful. Yeah sure, the regular consoles were and are still expensive here, but there was simply no reason to buy a zeebo over them. Funny story, I met a guy who did QA for some Zeebo games and he admitted it was pretty bad.
Hi, Brazilian here from Rio. Boi you did your homework! It's almost a *need* to have your console chipped...everything in gaming was (and still is) expensive as hell and its 10x harder than 1st wolr countries to get a job and make sure you had a roof over your head. We don't pirate because we want to but because we have to in order to enjoy the gaming scene. I still remember going to the bootleg Markets for games and yugioh card packs and see what monstrosities and bangers were available. I was lucky enough to afford a family pc with a dvd writer so I eventually learned how to do it myself and inded up with 2 shoeboxes full of dvds roms...good times
The whole "Announce a price drop before the console ever launches" idea is seriously just a variant of the Osbourne Effect, which is named after the Osbourne Computer Corporation, which literally announced new & more powerful computers not long after releasing the Osbourne 1 in 1981. While said new computers wouldn't come out until 1983, the fact that they were announced so early in advance meant that people simply didn't buy the Osbourne 1 anymore, instead deciding to wait for the better stuff later on, and even harsh price drops didn't help sales. This was over 20 years before the Zeebo! Truly, no one actually bothers to learn from history.
@@pokehybridtrainer Apple recently did it too, they released the 12 & 13 on the same damn day for some reason. Like,, wtf? The 12 is only $100 cheaper so it’s not even that much of a save
@@pokehybridtrainer it always will, because marketing 101 always teaches people “offer a cheaper alternative for the lower class” even though most lower class people are just gonna save for the more expensive one anyway, so it’s kinda rendered pointless out of the gate
i had a Zeebo growing up ("koé" from Brazil) and even though i regretted choosing it instead os a PS2 like everybody else, i still had my share of fun with the Need For Speed Carbon and Peggle versions the console had. Also, having Bejeweled 3 on a big screen was my mom's favourite thing, so we used to share this time together, and that's nice
Don't feel too bad, my cousin had a Zeebo which I was shocked, it seemed hard to find. I was lucky to have a 360 in 2008 at the time, thanks to a friend that brought it from the US and that's when the pirate scene was booming (Fúria 360, ISO Burn, DVD-R) so yeah, I kinda scoffed at the Zeebo at the time
Gaming in the 90s and oughts in Brazil was wild man... Didn't own a single legitimate copy of a game up until late Xbox 360 era. Buying fake ass (and often modded) PS2 games from local street sellers and burning copies for your homies is pretty much engraved in Brazilian millenial culture. It's gotten way better with Steam and all, but shit's still waay too expensive. Hard to fault people for piracy when the alternative is not gaming at all. Anywho, really appreciate the effort you put into this my dude! Wholesome stuff. c:
Some considerations that were not mentioned: - The PS5 costs the equivalent of 800 dollars, but for you who live in North America, 800 dollars is just a fraction of the average American salary (around 5 thousand dollars a month?), we Brazilians have a devalued currency, and we earn at an average of $500 a month, this means that a single video game console can cost much more. The cost of living in North America is high (I believe that on average 3 thousand dollars, rent, meal, heating, electricity...) while in Brazil this is cheaper compared to the American one, but Brazilians earn on average LESS than necessary to cover these costs (that's why most people don't live alone, they need to "pool" their salaries to make up the cost of living, so in the end it would be more or less like a PS5 costing 8 or 10 thousand dollars. This, of course, is not limited to video games, TVs, appliances, and basically anything that needs foreign components, even if they come from China (since they are bought in dollars). Now, add this value to the fact that our products are manufactured with a lower quality compared to yours (thinner plastics, lower speed chips, smaller memory capacity, Chinese televisions and appliances), third world countries are a big opportunity for low quality Chinese products due to low consumer purchasing power. One more aggravating factor: People cannot just use and throw away, things are very expensive, so there is this tendency to use the same thing for many years, if it breaks, it is feasible to repair it due to our workforce being undervalued, and the new product is very expensive. Currently in 2022, Playstation 3 is still easily found in our homes, even the PS2. PS4 is still a reasonable investment, even second-hand. Cars around here are used on average for 40 years! Piracy is high here, because of the price of the PS5, games end up being a "luxury item", even digital versions, have a significant cost, our weak currency, combined with low purchasing power makes it impossible to purchase original games , add to that a government that wants to take money from people at all costs with abusive and unnecessary taxes (we pay tax every time the product changes hands, we pay tax for the circulation of goods, for imports, for manufacturing in national territory, in , several taxes are added, several times). If a Brazilian wants to import something, even if it is a simple purchase of something used on ebay, we will pay dearly. An example: An item that costs 80 dollars from ebay, let's say it costs 20 dollars shipping, I will pay with my currency, about 5x that amount, and that's 1/4 of what I get for 1 month of work. Do you think it ended there? As soon as the goods arrive in my country (about 15 days) it will be stopped at customs, and it will stay there for about 30 days, they will open the package, and check how much it should be worth, to make sure it is really worth the that has been declared. So, they will notify me and charge me a tax of 60% of the value of the product + shipping ($80+$20 = $100, so there will be another $60 of tax, totaling $160) now the value has become around 800 reais, that is, almost 40% of what I would earn for a month of work, remembering that the cost of living here is higher than a month of work can provide! Many Brazilians would give their own mother to live in even the worst place in detroit, as we are used to lack of public security and other basic services. Some people might say that we have a free healthcare system, but that's not true. We pay a very high tax, we have in exchange a low quality system, with low quality professionals, poorly paid, generic drugs with low effectiveness, long waiting lines for surgeries... Many of us would prefer not to have this system, pay a lower tax, and when you get sick, pay for a good quality hospital.
Great video. As a brazilian, I'm glad more people are aware of the potential of our market. I mean. It's not like we won't buy games legaly. It's just so expensive. Shout outs to companies like SNK, Ark System Works and Capcom for cutting the prices here. Guilty Gear Strive and KoF XV go for less than jalf the price compared to the US.
As a brasilian player, bootlegs and piracy were essential to just be able to play something at all. At the time the Zeebo were a thing horever, most kids who gave a care about videogames knew their way back and foruth around where to buy or just burn playstation games for a fraction of the price, sometimes just the cost of the blank writeable CD or DVD for Playstation 2 which both held much more impressive titles. Just as a price comparisson: In December 2009, i got my PS2 with unlocked chip (some BIOS workarounds for running pirated games) 8 games and a extra controller and memory card for EXACTLY R$499 And i already knew how to burn games and a guy who worked in a lan house who knew how to burn ISOs
Asked one of my buddies who's brazillian about this video and here's what they had to say: "Yeah, he did a really outstanding job. One thing he didn't mention though is that upon the end of our military dictatorship, our politicians made a new constitution from scratch to start a new political era. Nothing about imports changed really, they kept it pretty much the same. Also, he talked a fair amount of the legit prices around here which used to be R$200,00 for a game back in the day and nowadays it's usually R$500,00 (so much so I got my Legends Arceus last week for 450 after some bargaining, for an example). But he didn't explain the fact that (at least for PS1, 2 and Wii) the price for a pirated version was either R$ 5,00 or R$ 10,00 depending on the place! Can you imagine getting New Super Mario Bros. Wii, AT LAUNCH, for just R$ 1,00 (at today rates)? Cause I did that.". Personally i first heard about the Zeebo from Hardcore Gaming 101's Double Dragon retrospective where they mentioned that Zeebo DD exists but for understandable reasons weren't able to cover it.
About the price thing: that's half a lie. Physical Nintendo games are expensive, but you can easily find Arceus with R$400 price (even Amazon is selling around that) but digital are R$300 at most. And this applies only to Nintendo, too. Sony and Microsoft aren't that expensive, they're still expensive, don't get me wrong, but not as much as Nintendo. And usually they're expensive just at launch, around R$300 to 350, but the price goes down eventually, and have a lot of sales too. Resident Evil village for exemple, it launch with R$300 price, now you can find it for $180 to 200. R$500 games are deluxe version, with season pass, or a collection. But yeah, that's still a lot for us Brazilian. Not easy being a gamer here
as a brazilian gamer, I was so surprised a foreign was able to understand the historical problems we've been facing since the dawn of times, and thank you very much for preserving such important part of brazilian game history
Had the Zeebo been beefier and used a custom version of Android tailored for gaming (Along with the price cut), I'm pretty certain it would've had some success
Im a patreon but I'd rather have 1 short video every 2 weeks and 1 big one every 6 months then no video for 3 months at all. Personally for me I like the Resident Evil videos, Bad games that I love, your strategy guide collection videos... Those kind of videos are my favorite.
Seeing the Polystation briefly mentioned made me very happy. There was no way my parents could afford an official console. I loved that thing and it was my childhood. When it eventually broke down I already knew about emulators, so I've been replaying the same NES, SNES, N64, GBA and DS games all these years, and there's always the hacks when I want to replay Pokemon or Fire Emblem but not the vanilla version. Yeah, as an adult consoles are still ridiculously expensive where I live so I'm never leaving emulation. It's the only way I can experience those games. Well, I did get to play some games on the real thing in rental places where you pay per hour and they have a bunch of consoles lined up against a living room wall, but that was during the 90s and mid 00s, and those places are quite hard to find nowadays and their selection of games is usually not to my cup of tea.
As a Mexican, I can tell you back then I remember that Zeebo "Un juego de huevos (Spanish pun for: A game with balls, although we say egg (huevo) to mean well ... your balls)" contest that happened. The PS2 was at that point... biggest console you could ask for, again, we don't suffer as badly as the Brazilian bros, but we also had (and still quite have) a piracy problem, there is a reason the original xbox was so popular over here, it basically came soft modded 99% of the time, 1% were the ones in WalMart that were sent to be modded after taking it out from there. The Zeebo had no place in Mexico for the same reason the PS2 dominated in Brazil, PS2, Xbox, Wii, Dreamcast and IF YOU WERE RICH, the 360, became very popular for being very expensive consoles to get, but by having piracy, who cares, you can get them with pretty new games in the market. You can still sell PS2's to this day if you offer it with a pirate KoF 2002 UM and GTA disc, lmao. This was both very interesting, very sad, and very nostalgic for me. Greetings from the taco lands.
Ver esas imágenes de "Un juego de huevos" me despertó recuerdos jajaja recordaba la consola, pero los comerciales de ese juego estaban bien enterrados.
Are PS units, Xboxs and Wii expencive over in Mexico? Here in Australia consols resonally priced. You can pick up so deals on second hand market over here in sunny Australia.
On top of what you mentioned about it making MUCH more sense to just buy a PS2 from the grey market (seriously, as soon as the price was revealed, everyone's reaction here was "why?"), it should also be noted that the Zeeboo came at a TERRIBLE timing as well. In 2009, 2010, our economy was booming, while the US was still dealing with the 2008 financial crisis (which didn't affect Brazil significantly). So our currency was almost 1:1 with the US Dollar - I vividly recall 1 dollar being like R$1,70, R$2 at most That meant that gaming was more accessible than ever: not only was pirated games as common as ever for the PS2, Wii and 360, but even the PS3 was benefitting, despite not being jailbroken at the time - people in the middle class who were more internet and gaming savvy, soon found out how insanely easy it was to just buy games from a foreign store, and import it to Brazil - people, myself included, were shopping games on eBay like normal. There was the risk of getting taxed when the game arrived at the country, but from my experience, that was quite rare, and it was ALWAYS worth it. Demand was so high, that certain stores (like the british ShopTo, iirc) actually started making Portuguese versions of their pages, and giving support to Brazilian customers... with 1 british pound being like... a little over R$2, Brazilians were able to import brand-new releases such as, say, God of War 3, for around R$120-130. (but since our customs and postal service is kinda shitty, that also meant a lot of games were "lost" on their way here, so after a while, those same stores started putting limitations to people buying from Brazil, or outright refusing to sell, whoops) Truly, a perfect (shit) storm for the Zeeboo. Sweet mercy. (side note, since you've enjoyed pão de queijo and brigadeiro, I also want to suggest bolinho de chuva. Sweet mercy are they good, and very easy to make! Just google the recipe and off you go)
As a brazilian fan of the show for years, I'm so grateful that you guys document the history of Zeebo, and with the usual quality when it comes to dumb shit. Cheers, Derek and Grace!
@@blunderingfool Brazil has a long history when it comes to comics. We have numerous brazilian artists of all genres. The first comic book series published in Brazil was in 1869. The first magazine entirely dedicated to comics (O Tico-Tico) was published in 1905, compiling several series by different artists. When it comes to american comics, licensed brazilian publishers were/are responsible for official translations, localizations and publications here. DC Comics began to be published in Brazil in 1938, and Marvel Comics began in 1940, all in portuguese . Other publishers followed the same path, they were soon released in Brazil through national publishers, all officially, without bootlegs. Comic books have always been a big deal here, manga too.
I worked at the Nintendo World Store (now Nintendo NY) from December 2007 - April 2011 and I will say outside of events like the Nintendo Power event and EVERY mainline Pokémon event, anywhere between 60%-70% of our clientele came from Brazil. Whenever any us started conversations with a client from there, although there was the occasional language barrier, the one thing that was consistent was them telling us how high the taxes were for the Wii. Then when Wii Fit released, oh wow, virtually every Wii they bought was accompanied with a Wii Fit purchase. Thanks to this video, even without you going into details with regards to political story behind why imported goods are heavily taxed, that was more than enough information for things to really click with me and my experiences with Brazilian clientele during my NWS days. The other thing that was asked was if we sold were R4 cards for the DS. Although some of us knew what they were and where one would be able to purchase one, since we were representatives of Nintendo, we had to deny knowledge of knowing what they were and what they do as Nintendo and all the major tech companies are against piracy. Little did I realize that they were inquiring about the R4 cards as if I was inquiring about getting a vanilla ice cream at Carvel's; it (R4) is just a common thing in Brazil and other areas where the big 3 aren't really present or if they are, it's expensive as heck to modern game. At that time I was against media piracy but years later I understood why people do it. Gaming, watching a show, etc can be just as therapeutic as seeing a therapist for many folks and like most forms of therapy, it's expensive and if it's out of one's reach, we'll look for the next cheaper alternative.
Sometimes, I’m all “I wish they uploaded more.” Then, a monthly video shows up, and the beautiful god-I-missed-you-guys feeling reminds me why this is better.
You did a grade A+ homework in studying Brazil's culture, take all the love we send you, you did way better than the best average TH-camr has ever did in regarding my country. I hope to see other countries being talked in this channel, you have a talent for it! TL;DR in a region of the multiverse, Zeebo dropped with the Nokia OS and the Zeebo 3 would be rivaling in global level with PS4 and XBOX X. really sad...
Nintendo has been stuck with that mentality for a long time Hell they seel their games here in brazil for like double the price and they dont even translate it So why would i but a pokemon game here if i can just download it and have the same experience except i can eat this month? And i can even get a fan traslation too to portuguese if i want
I need to say this might be my favorite video game-related video on TH-cam. The work you put into this plus the comedic value is top notch. I find myself coming back to this for a laugh and makes me feel good :) Thank you
Im brazilian and i had a Odyssey 2 when i was a kid! It was actually from my auntie, she failed a year in school because all she did was play her video game (that minning game you showed being one of them and here it was called "Didi na Mina do Tesouro") and as punishment my grandfather locked it away in an old closset only for me and my brother to discover that misterious eletronic device locked away in there! Fun times!
I still have mine - working ;) And the game is actually "Didi na Mina Encantada", based (yeah, right - they just renamed the game, changed the words in the manual and nothing else!) on the movie "Os Trapalhões na Serra Pelada". Still, it is the first console game "adapted" to brazilian culture :)
Great video. You nailed in every aspect, covering from the politics scenario, to how much more the "normal" consoles costs in Brazil converting the prices back to USD (so you can try to feel the pain), and finally making references to the Brazilian culture without cliches. Loved the zeebo to "pao de queijo" weight ratio.
Essa é uma excelente oportunidade para lembrar aos compatriotas, e qualquer um que entenda português, para não perder o excelente podcast "Primeiro Contato" lançado ano passado pelo grupo Overloadr em 12 episódios. Ele conta a história dos jogos no país, o início dos jogos eletrônicos no país, entre as décadas de 1980 e 1990. Excelente para quem viveu parte daquela época e quer relembrar ou para quem nasceu depois e desconhece. A série é repleta de entrevistas e fontes primárias com os responsáveis pelo início dos jogos e vídeo games no país (sempre lembram da TecToy, mas a Brasoft foi tão ou mais importante quanto).
Fantastic video, really well researched on Zeebo itself and everything else surrounding it. I worked on Tectoy Digital from 2008 (when the studio also developed DS and mobile games) to 2011 (by that time it had already been renamed Zeebo Interactive Studios and focused exclusively on Zeebo). It has always felt like Qualcomm was trying their best to make it flop: BREW was an incredibly unfit system for a console, and yet they showed no interest in making a trimmed down, Zeebo-friendly version. Every single game suffered from it, from being not as good as it could be (in the best cases) to a complete trainwreck. I doubt Zeebo could ever be the grey market killer it was supposed to, but had it been able to pull off everything that was expected (mainly the Dreamcast ports) things could have been very different. It was never said explicitly, but it soon became clear that Qualcomm had little interest other than injecting some life in its obsolete BREW OS (that by that point was already doomed, with iOS out and Android in the works) and finding a use to the aging MSM chipsets that had already been replaced by their own Snapdragon. It's no surprise they weren't terribly concerned with making it succeed. The sad thing is: everybody else was. OK, Namco not so much (Tekken 2 and Pacmania are great, Ridge Racer and Alpine Racing feel like incomplete betas). But most games had a lot of work behind them - yes, even NFS Carbon (that one almost broke the studio btw). Crunch days and all, that was a very good period for me, mostly because of how good the environment was. Those people were the best I ever worked with.
Most of us in Argentina grew up with bootleg consoles like the "Family Game". Most who don't play games anymore but did so in their childhood don't even know what a Famicom or NES is.
I got so caught up in the Master System section that I forgot I was even watching a video about the Zeebo despite being hyped for weeks to hear about the Zeebo. Maybe we could get a Punching Weight in the future dedicated to some of the Brazil exclusive Master System games? The sleeper success of that console is just fascinating to me.
TecToy made a lot of exclusive games and even exclusive console model for both the Mega Drive and Master System. They even localized a RPG for the Saturn. Between the death of the Dreamcast and the Zeebo TecToy many Master Systems with the same name "Master System 3 collection". My first console was one of them, I even made a video about it.
It’s kinda wild that I’ve never heard about the zeebo until you guys started mentioning it on the channel. Maybe the marketing was only focused on the southeastern Brazil market or something, though Tec Toy’s propaganda machine was kinda lame even back in the 90s up north where I grew up at least. And I appreciate your effort in trying to say “pão de queijo”, not the easiest thing for beginners.
I hope one day you talk about the Dynacom company, they made a lot of Atari and NES clones in Brazil. When i was a kid , i had the Dynavision 4, it came with a cartridge of 64 games (Castlevania, Battle City, etc) and 2 slots to read american and japanese cartridges.
I'll never forget that my uncle brought a new PS2 in box in a well known store here in Brazil and it was unlocked out of the box, just like it would came from a factory like that. Weird.
we had to tell everyone in the store i worked that our ps3 couldn't be unlocked yet because it was a newer version, we only tried to sell ps3 for rich people, because there was no point in trying to sell a locked console for the average client when other stores were selling them unlocked
As someone who used to love the show 'Game Makers' on G4TV years and years ago, I just wanted to thank you for your work making these in-depth looks at weird and unusual stuff like the Zeebo. I've been a fan of your channel for looking into bizarre gaming stuff and I love the effort you put in for your content. Keep up the great work, SSFF!
Hi, just another brazilian passing by the comments! I've been waiting on this video for so long, and man you never disappoint! The research work and nods to our culture are remarkable. Even as a zoomer I can confirm that polystations and modchipped PS2s are an inescapable part of childhood.
As soon as you mentioned Qualcomm I was worried that BREW would come up. Back in 2004 I was doing mobile game development, and had to target J2ME and BREW. J2ME was painful, but tolerable. BREW was absolutely horrific. I can't believe that anyone actually made a "working" console based on that platform.
If It wasn't for piracy, I wouldn't have some great memories of watching my mom playing RPGs, learning english by playing games and nowadays I just pirate older games, but I still don't see piracy as negative, it's a necessity for when the products are unavailable due to pricing and politics
As someone who was in the industry, almost all developers don't care if you pirate their games, it is just the studio executives and their business/accounts who give a damn about profit. Most are just happy when people enjoy their work at all because game development is a labor of love for them. And even the few devs who do care would cease to once their game isn't up for sale legally anymore. There's a good reason almost all game credits say Thank You For Playing.
@@Casanuda there is a site that sell game keys, a bunch of keys are bought with stolen credit cards, or the keys thenselves were stolen by a publisher, a bunch of studios told players to just pirate their games because it was cheaper for them than people buying bad second hand keys piracy has zero cost for them, the bullshit publishers do can be worse because sometimes they move paying players away
My favorite bit of Brazilian game lore is how every Brazilian 80s and 90s kid is intimately familiar with everything about SNK and Neo-Geo classics. I don't think a single Brazilian in their 30s right now doesn't know who Kyo, Terry, or Haohmaru are.
Lmao the only reason why i love old games and old stuff in general is because of piracy, i was born in '99 and was enjoying my nes clones my snes, and a ps1 in the mid 2000s, until i got the hot new console, the ps2, in the late 00s, where my most favorite game was an emulator compilation, with pretty much all games from the nes, sms, snes and genesis. Piracy was so common and necessary here for gaming, that when i was a dumb kid, i thought original ps1 and ps2 games didn't exist lmao
I got a chipped PS1 and some games as a kid and never even realised it was piracy until I was older. I just thought games came on discs with handwritten titles.
I absolutely loved to see a video talking about this weird and strange piece of Brazilian Gaming History, as a brazilian game dev, I'm glad to see that the first person I saw cover the Zeebo internationally was you Uncle Derek, SSFF is my favorite channel and will always be, especially because you're willing to do such a wonderful job on telling the story of the market that I love Thank You, Uncle Derek, Producer Grace and everyone from the SSFF team, for giving me this much needed moment of happiness in the time I'm in need the most much love from Brazil and PÃO DE QUEIJO FOR THE WIN
Good call using footage from cloth map, HIGHLY recommend that channel for more insight on the Brazilian bootleg gaming scene as well as Cuba’s DIY intranet infrastructure. Very awesome channel, and they are filming on location, not just some nerd in a game room (lol, love this channel. great video as always Grace nDerrick)
The craziest thing for me is that it took like, till android boxes or certain phones before someone just said, 'why don't we just make a phone you can hook into the TV...and not call it a console?" Currently, I can play ps1 games on my Walmart Onnbox, for the cost of about $45 (needed extra hardware included), with Bluetooth controllers, stream from my PC, and play most android games. So the fact the Ouya and the Zeebo both tried to be consoles and do the same thing, but fail miserably and be overpriced boggles my mind. Granted, Google gets a cut and overhead via their ecosystem, but a Stadia capable Android TV box is just as much a console as a PS4 nowadays, meaning they've managed to do the impossible but at the same time nobody really cares.
How interesting. I’ve seen this brought up in the past in passing, nothing this comprehensive. Great work as always! As always this comment is for your metric pleasure!
Absolutely amazing vídeo as always. SSFF continues to establish itself as one of the very best channels for gaming culture content. As a Brazilian, owner of a Zeebo containing all apps and games since 2010, and a member of the ZeeboClub for a few years, I’d like to humbly correct a piece of information mentioned in the video: There’s actually only 56 games released on the Zeebo, not 58. Zeeboids is just an app for Zeeboids creation and Zeebo Clube is just another app that allowed access to the Zeebo store and general news and info on the console, so they are not games and they no longer work properly due to the Zeebonet being closed. I’d also like to add a few comments: The second version of the controller, the so-called Dragon, does have a more comfortable design and better hand grip but it is, in fact, a much worse controller in overall quality and durability. I have a pair of each controller released for the console and the original controllers, called Z-pads, might not be as comfortable as the Dragons but they are more resilient, still work well, and respond much better than the Dragons. Both of the Dragons I own were brand new but started having issues in just a few months, such as unresponsive buttons. The absolute best controllers to use to play the Zeebo games are the Logitech Dual Action or the Logitech Rumblepad 2. The Logitech controllers were used as templates for the development of the Zeebo controllers so these two Logitech gamepads work natively with the Zeebo, you just plug and play. They even allow the player to use analog sticks on games that can only be played with the D-pads on the Zeebo official controllers. All you have to do is activate the analog function on the Logitech pads. The only minor issue is that the position of the numeric buttons on the Logitech controllers is a little different from the Zeebo pads but you quickly figure out which buttons to press in each game. Another interesting thing that wasn’t mentioned in the video, is that the SD card slot and the USB slot in the console could not be officially used by Zeebo owners, only by technical staff to repair or test consoles. They can only be used by a Zeebo owner if the console has been “unlocked” or modded and it is the way to be able to install games in the console. Also, the Zeebo had only 1gb of memory but with the user interface called Z-wheel taking so much space and the Brew OS taking some more, with only 56 games and the two (now useless) apps installed, there is practically no more room for new games in the system so if they had released any more, without some accessory or addon to improve internal space (things that were never planned to be released as far as I know), Zeebo owners would have to delete some games to install new ones…
@@StopSkeletonsFromFighting Happy to help, Derek. I know a lot more about the Zeebo, including very interesting anecdotes from both the Zeebo fans community and the employees that worked on developing games for the console. Contact me if you are interested in knowing these. All the best for you and the SSFF team! Your work is greatly appreciated.
What an immense dedication to research in Brazilian market and culture, kudos to you. Zeebo was a total fiasco and your conclusion was spot on: We were fixing the issue of games with grey market for years. I was already an adult, 22 years old in 2009, but I was still pretty much into games, however I had already ditched consoles for them being overpriced, last video game I had was a N64, I moved to PC master race back then, (and pirating overpriced triple AAA games, although I never bought bootlegs back in the 16 bit era). When I saw the zeebo comercial I laughed of how pathetic it was, it was a common joke among all my friends and gaming communities, as a glorified "Tupiniquim polistation", a sucker to kids that will be screwed over by parents that didn't know better and decided to save a buck not buying the newest wii thinking any video game would make their kids happy... Poor bastards. I respect the attempt of national attempts to compete in international markets, but Tec Toy was never a serious company and whas only interested in white labeling imported stuff with a very low effort high margins. Not a respected company at all. Zeebo simply wasn't good enough, it felt like a second class product but was still expensive, a punch in the face of the population. Teenagers are not that stupid, they don't want second class video games just because they don't have money, we rather have the all new best games, and we will do a "jeitinho" to do it: Which meant going into the grey market. That was what most people did back then: Got an unlocked Xbox 360 in 12 installments and stick a full hard drive of pirated games in it. Zeebo had no chance. By the way, one correction, PS2 was launched in Brasil in 2002, All my friends had it back in 2003~2005. I don't know what this "official" launch in 2009 is all about, I THINK this was the locally fabricated version, with lower prices, whereas before that it was imported with higher price due to tax, but PS2 games were officially sold in all game and department stores as early as 2002.
To be honest, in Brazil the Zeebo was seen as a joke since it was pitched. Nobody ever took it serious, and the only people who bought it were parents. The kids that got it when they asked for a videogame for Christmas probably got really mad. Also, when we thought a game was crap we would say "oh, this could run on a Zeebo". This is how bad it's reputation was.
A little perspective: in the 90's, an original PS1 game cost the equivalent of a full, and I do mean full, minimum wage at the time. Imagine dropping a full month worth of salary on 1 game. Meanwhile, modding a PS1 was ridiculous easy, bootlegs were easily available everywhere and cost the equivalent of 5 dollars or less
![Secrets of the Dreamcast VMU | Punching Weight [SSFF]](/img/n.gif)
FYI the Zeebo games video is not out yet! Unfortunately had to delay that one to get this video done. Based on our planned production schedule, there’s going to be a few other videos that will likely come out first because I want to make sure and give the Zeebo its due. So I guess like and subscribe in the meantime?? Sorry I don’t have a definite date yet!
Can't wait for it!
The original concept for Zeebo was great at the time. Games downloaded over its own 3G network for low prices and all in Portuguese was way ahead of its time.
Too bad they insisted in comparing the console with PS2. 3D gaming on it was SLOW - one of the release titles, "Need for Speed" was faithful to its name - it really NEEDED SPEED.
If they focused instead on 2D games - and actually gave a chance to a TON of brazilian developers/studios who wanted to make games for it (I blame QUALCOMM for not giving access to anyone other than Tectoy their Brew devkit), maybe this story would have had a different ending.
It's sad, really. It was a great idea.
One more thing... Tectoy had another console released AFTER the Zeebo. The "Mega Drive 4 Guitar Idol", which ISNT a Mega Drive - but a console that emulates the Mega Drive and can even play MP3s - and had some unique games made (by Tectoy) for it.
(That Guitar Hero clone game and the FIFA one doesn't run on a normal Mega Drive! Other games do run, but for example "Os 12 Trabalhos de Jongo", which is a Master System game, on a regular console some sprites will disappear. Apparently the "sprite limitation" was removed in this Mega Drive 4!)
I would bet (by looking at some files dumped from that system a while ago) that this uses BREW too...
A Brazilian video showing a bit off of it:
th-cam.com/video/dmwHp3-rTtI/w-d-xo.html
Another in Portuguese, showing games (even Need for Speed in 3D)
th-cam.com/video/DGUQDQJMkIs/w-d-xo.html
Found a video in English of it:
th-cam.com/video/WM_uzjYizQA/w-d-xo.html
@@IconGamesBR I was there for the PCWorld video too. I distinctly remember that the sound emulation Mega Drive games was quite bad, specially on games like Shinobi III. Quite a disappointment.
PS: You can still buy a NEW Mega Drive from Tec Toy, the re-release from 2017. It is based on "Genesis on a Chip" technology, and can run games from an SD Card. The emulation was flawed in the original firmware, but the community stepped up and produced a patched version which fixes things up.
Today, TecToy sells the Atari Flashback and an Android "TV Box" with licensed games, many of them from Data East.
Hi, i'm from Brazil, i liked your video a lot, very informative, thank you for the care with the zeebo. And if i had to say, i personally never heard or see a zeebo around here at the time. Just when i was older that i learned about it's existence. But like, i was a kid with around 12, at the time it launched, so i didn't see much about a lot of things at the time too. Lol. But yeah the console i knew about was the ps2 and the x360, at the time the war between those two was the talk of the moment around here. And it was of course 'cause of the piracy of those two consoles.
Will be looking forward to it! I need to know more about that game with the egg people getting wasted on wine.
When launching a game console in Brazil, you always have to ask the question: "why would anyone play this instead of a modchipped PS2 in which you can buy/burn pirated games for dirt cheap?"
"we're going to Brazil"
And then later "on a modded 360"
Buy? We produce. Kkkkkk
The REAL question is "Is it a Master System?"
Just a quick example to let you gringos understand just how much piracy is present in Brazil:
I am a Brazilian 30 years old man. My parents were upper middle class and I attended private schools my whole life. Most of my friends had PS1 or PS2 growing up. Some of those friends were also middle class, others were quite rich. And, despite all that, I have never - I mean NEVER - seen in person an original PS1 or PS2 disk TO THIS DAY. I mean, it wasn't until a couple years ago that I found out online that PS1 CDs were black.
Fun fact: in the commercial at 24:20, the guy who's presenting the zeebo was a presenter for a kids show on open tv that had segments between cartoons where kids would call and play some games for a opportunity to win a random roulette prize that included a PlayStation 2 (and eventually 3)
This show was very popular in the mid to late 2000s, so when the internet became popular in Brazil, the guy in the ad became a meme in Brazilian circles as the "PlayStation Guy"
It has been almost 15 years since he left the show and he still has that reputation in Brazil.
Let's not forget he was in the iconic reality show A Fazenda along with Brazilian subcelebrity legends Rita Cadillac and Andressa Urach
I grew up with Bom Dia & Cia!
playstation!playstation!playstation
The Brazil references in this video are crazy good!!!
Glad you like the Cheese Breads "Pão de Queijo" :D
Hells yea!
O Pão de Queijo é uma maravilha!
The automatic english subtitles recognized the "pão de queijo" as "pound equation" hahahahahaha
Coloniaaa
Krai, até o Sr. Wilson por aqui. xD
I'm brazilian and I've never seen a gringo say our currency "reais" so fluently. Well done, sir!
As a brazilian, I remember seeing the Zeebo on magazines back in the day. Everyone realized right away that it sucked, but there was still a sliver of proud, because it was "our" console.
that should have been their angle, giving brazilian develpers a platform were they would not be crushed, but *Qualcomm* would make it hard
Listening to this video, it sounded like a pretty good idea... Until he got to the BREW rap, then I knew it was doomed.
I was wrong going to Brazil is ok?
Honestly it could have worked out very well. If you can get players mobile devs will bend over backwards to make their games work. The Qualcomm bs ultimately killed what could have been the first successful mobile app console.
I'd met some people at the time who said they were interested in the console solely for patriotic reasons. I'd already watched gameplays and was horrified. None ended up buying it anyway as 499 turned everyone off.
Thank you for the understanding take on brazilian piracy. I feel like a lot of people are very judgy when it comes to piracy, probably due to living in countries where it wasn't back breakingly expensive to get games or movies, and growing up being bombarded with anti piracy ads. There are tons of brazilian people on the comments talking about their stories, so I won't share mine, but I wanted to point out how good it feels to be understood in that regard. Brazilians (and people from other markets like southeast asia or other latin american countries) don't pirate out of anything but sheer necessity. And this is something that has been changing as things become more accessible, largely on PC thanks to steam, but the console market is fucked and has always been fucked here.
You wouldn’t download a car???
One thing about consoles though, is that at least in Indonesia (where I'm currently living in) the console pricing is actually a bit more sensible now.
For example, this July I got myself a PS5 for ~US$700. That's the console with bundled game (Horizon Forbidden West) and an extra controller (the console itself has 1 bundled in, and I bought it with an extra one to play 2 player games). Series X can be had for $500, PS4 for $250, as is the Series S, and PS3 for like $100.
The caveat of course is that the price is still disproportionate to income of most people, but it's still better than years ago when it was out of reach by anyone but the rich. Middle class people here can actually buy consoles now.
Guilty!
I mean, yes, I understand.
Anybody who judges pirates is a boot licker and not to be trusted.
How are arcade doing?
This channel does such a service to the video game community. There is just nobody else to keeps these weird and odd corners of the industry alive with as much passion. Long live the Zeebo and long live SSFF!
Cloth Map’s video (shown a bit here) was very good.
It is not the only thorough video on the zeebo, did you even searched here? :0
I mean literally everyone from Ashens to Larry Bundy Jr and even Gameranx have covered it... But okay. LOL.
I mean literally Ashens started this all... And Nostalgia Nerd... And Slopes Games Room... And Top Hat Gaming... And Kim Justice... And Octavius Kitten.... And Did You Know Gaming... I mean these are just the UK based ones... Metal Jesus Rock, LGR and AVGN have probably covered it as well.
The first mistake you can make is thinking you are the only person to have an idea. You aren't. The telephone, television and vacuum cleaner are all examples of how true that statement is. This is why you need something to make yours stand out. SSFF usually do by actually doing stuff slightly more unique like Punching Wight. This for me... This isn't their best. Americans when it comes to things like this tend to be too.... Well ... Amercentric. They cannot see from outside their own existence. Like how it starts off saying Brazil is weird because Nintendo lost... Nintendo lost in a lot of places... Most of Europe was more Sega. The UK which is one of the biggest economical markets, especially during the 90s... Well they picked Sega. Nobody, and I mean pretty much nobody, owned a SNES or a NES. More people owned Atari ST and Amiga than those. And that is the truth. In the 16 bit generation the SNES didn't even finish in the top 3 because of micros.
So like in this they fail to mention perspective.
The way I put it is if you want a movie you go to the Americans... They are amazing at doing visuals and that whole thing. Everything so polished and well made... But you want something like a documentary? They are the last you should ask. Look at their "educational" tv... It's mostly adverts and every show is "coming up on the show" "after the break" "before the break" and then they recap the whole episode at the end. Watching anything is infuriating cause it feels like Americans must either have adverts so long they forget what happened or they have the memory capacity of a sea cucumber!
@@MrIwantmymtv I clearly mean in a general sense
Lady decade..
My wife is Brazilian and I've spent the last few years learning Portuguese, visiting Brasil, and becoming obsessed with their early grey markets (visiting a few in Liberdade) and I can't tell you how happy it made us to see this video this morning. We both paused the video and just smiled at your Pão de Queijo public service announcement.
Thank you for this. It's mindful, well researched, and brings light to such a fascinating and unique part of gaming history.
Muito obrigado c:
As a 40 year old Brazilian who lived through almost the entirety of the Brazilian gaming history I am impressed with the accuracy of the information displayed here. It is noticeable how much effort, care and love was put into the research and production of this video. SSFF: congratulations. Keep up the good work! (and, yes, Pão de queijo is delicious.)
Pão de queijo e uma das melhores das comidas que eu já comi em uma padaria
As a Brazilian, and someone that follows your channel since 2009, this is the first time I comment on one of your videos and I must say that you did a fantastic job explaining the import situation in Brazil and telling the story of the Zeebo which even most Brazilians never heard of. Keep it up Derek, love your channel.
As a 34 yo Brazilian myself, I expected no less from SSFF. Most people outside of Brazil don't get the amount of BS we had to get through just to play videogames. It isn't that much better today, as emulation and steam helped things a lot, but consoles are still very pricey. Aside the zeebo being on the title and the main subject, the little doc about piracy is an obvious recommendation from me to anyone who wishes to understand a bit better how crazy it was in the 90's here. Thanks man, you're the best :) AND PÃO DE QUEIJO RULES
SSFF is hands down the absolute best retro-related channel on TH-cam.
Mexican here, the situation for us was somewhat similar as piracy was king. You could buy PS1 games for $30 pesos, which back then was 3 USD.
The difference was of course by being right next to the US it was way easier to just buy consoles and games across the border and sell it at a premium in Mexico, what we used to call "fayuca". Or just asking the cousins in the US to buy it for you.
SIM É VERDADE
Wow awesome video, so sad I only found about this so late! I worked at Tectoy and Zeebo Interactive Studios from before Zeebos's launch until we were closed, all your infos are incredibly precise! I particularly liked how much fun you made out of Qualcomm and Brew, it was pretty much the exact sentiment on our side as well hahah!
Not sure you're even going to see a comment so long after this video was published but if you have any questions I'd love to answer them!
If I could pick your brain about the games themselves! I've had a mega video reviewing every single Zeebo game on the back burner for months now. But any insight into the actual development of Zeebo games would be great! I'd love to chat, stopskeletons@gmail.com
@@StopSkeletonsFromFighting Awesome! Just sent you an email!
@@StopSkeletonsFromFightingHey quick question what was the song used at 8:23?
I'm from Mexico and I remember when the Zeebo came out here... Every kid I knew thought it was lame. The problem was much the same as in Brazil: Mexico is infamous for its videogame gray market. For that Money (2,400 pesos) you could find a ps2 with a mod chip to play pirate games or even a brand new PSP that you could mod yourself at home. It was just pointless.
Yep, I worked as electronic retail and the only ones that bought it were clueless parents.
Mi amigo, todos nós aqui só sabíamos zoar (chistear/bromear) esse console kkkkk no hay console más inútil (pero tenemos un poquito de orgullo de nuestro hijito)
Here in the northwest... uh... we pretty much never knew it existed. It was far easier try to smuggle a second hand console from USA and hope you don't get a red light at the custom checkpoint. And even if you got sent to inspection, it was a question of paying the fine (or bribing the custom agent, whatever was cheaper)
@@mrxmgs3768 you are saying there is a market for getting consoles across the border into Mexico?(I figure this is the nation you are discussing since you said Northwest and border customs.)
I understand that there is a temptation to paint Tectoy and the Zeebo as a sort of an underdog story, despite the company gross incompetence in nearly every area; but if you know TecToy history, you know there is more than a tinge of malice in there.
You see, games are extremely expensive on Brazil thanks to arcane tax laws; which considering the immense income disparity, make it actually profitable for gaming stores, since for rich people, there is no practical difference between something costing R$3000 or R$5000. Hence why luxury markets in Brazil have always been profitable (well, that and money laundering). So for those laws to be kept, you can bet your ass someone somewhere fought them to keep it that way.
Those laws have been maintained way past the point in which stuff like Steam and the mobile market upended completely how the legal market works in Brazil. And for over 30 years, the sole benefactor of those laws was Tectoy, (among other opportunists such as the Polystation guys), manufacturing hardware it for cheap, because since being a Brazillian company, they were exempt from those taxes/ allowing they to sell outdated, foreign technology for truly unrealistic values since the 90's. Their selling of Master Systems for ridiculous prices, when even a cheap phone could emulate those games, in a poor country like Brazil, is for me deeply anti-ethical.
(Also, is good to remember that despite being only profitable national game-adjacent company for decades, they never invested a single cent in local developers or original games; even their localized games were just translated reskins of Sega titles.)
if you want any more evidence of the embezzlement-level of their practices, their newest product is literally a cheap tv box emulating some old-ass arcade roms that they have the gall to charge the equivalent of $200 dollars for:
www.tectoy.com.br/legends-core-tectoy-p464
Bribing the government to keep arcane and outdated laws is quite common here in the US.
Our government subsidizes the oil industry in the US, even though the industry makes more than enough to sustain itself. It can use this extra money to pay for politicians campaigns in exchange for those politicians continuing to give them money.
Our government pays the oil industry to pay the government to pay the oil industry.
I don't think SSFF was painting them in a competent light at all (if that's what you're saying at the beginning). I just finished the video and I had the opposite impression.
@@walnzell9328 It is because they have a puppet government in favor of the USA; don't expect things to get better because the answer will be no.
@@ramonandrajo6348 Oh yeah. The CIA made sure of that.
@@walnzell9328 The CIA is not always involved in choosing people to betray their own country based on their own benefit so that they become leaders in said countries.
The Double Dragon zeebo has exclusive characters and incredible animations, and Action Hero brings an amazing concept! Thanks so much for covering our brazilian stuff internationally better than anyone else!
Some suggestions, since we are talking about BREW and Master System:
➡️ Devil May Cry 3D: 998KB game for Sony Ericsson with air combos, tons of stages, 9 endings and weapons with all the movesets from ps2. Can be emulated with JL-Mod on android only
➡️Jang Pung 3: an OUTSTANDING Master system fighting game made in South korea with tons of characters and stages that if Tectoy ever licensed that in Brazil, it would be a franchise nowadays. Its performance is leagues ahead of tectoy's SF2.
Agradeço muitíssimo Derek!
The Zeebo Double Dragon is actually the best Double Dragon in my opinion, to bad there's not a emulator for the Zeebo.
@@gambiarraswiiu8141 EVERY time people talk about digital games and delisted content I bring up Double Dragon Zeebo. I've never had a chance to play it but just looking at it, it appears to probably be the best game in the series. And I HAVE played the delisted mobile enhanced port-ish thing and can confirm THAT being amazing despite being slower and having less moves than the Zeebo version (on the plus side, it has Deena). So yeah, fingers crossed for Zeebo emulation or a Switch port or something one day.
This DMC 3D sounds really interesting :)
@@edmundventura th-cam.com/video/lFt8ci1B4AA/w-d-xo.html gameplay for you, its the only proper recording I found on yt
FACT: if anyone needs dmc 3d dev model viewer and a save with ALL weapons, I can provide it. Same goes if its jl mod emulator too, for better recording
Man, this was… kind of a rough one. The guys making this had so much positivity and optimism about them, and it seems like they might’ve stood a chance without Brew holding the system back. I mean, yeah, they also fundamentally misunderstood their own market, but I could see a niche wanting a product like this.
Then again, Ouya also kind of flopped, so maybe this whole idea was doomed from the start.
I'm brazilian and the gaming community here is strong, but games are way too expensive rn and like most of the time it has been like that, consoles like Atari in the 90's and Snes and Genesis in early 2000 were a thing, and it's crazy to think that on the PS2 era it was rare to find a real ps2 game, piracy was everywhere in that time lol
I legit have never seen an original ps2 disc in my life, and a lot of my favorite games are on the ps2 lol
Matheus, i saw only after i became adult, well in the middle of the PS4 life time 🤣 that is a rare sight here in Brazil, like a endangered animal species
@@MatheusSM1000 my first original ps2 disc was guitar hero world tour, i bought it with all the instruments, but i mainly used the instruments to play a pirate copy of smash hits
10 real 3 jogo
I have my original copy of Zone of the Enders till this day, i bought it a month after the launch because of hype (i like that game a lot). But that was the only one.
I'm a Brazilian gamer and I must say that Zeebo totally flew under my radar. Only heard about it after it was deemed a flop. BTW love how cute your pronunciation of "Pão de Queijo" sounds. I also love Pão de Queijo, and it is considered one of our bests original treats. Thank the state of Minas Gerais for this!
I've said it on the Patreon and will say it again: this is easily one of the best videos of SSFF!
As a brazilian I can say the market stuff was incredibly respectful, well-reaseached and insightful.
And it's impossible to not admire what they accomplished on mobile tech: internet capabilities, a Wii sports clone, a RE4 port with grape-flavored zombos... How more Punching Weight can you get?
Also, I'm glad you guys used my sugestion to include the amazing Zeebo rap! 🤣
Thank you for bringing it up!!
Except other compagnies did more on mobile tech. It was weaker than most high end phones.
I was the lead artist on Ridge Racer by NAMCO for Zeebo back in day. I Hi-Rez’d Ridge Racer from the PlayStation 1 and added polys new textures, designed the UI and fonts… fun times! This video is great to understand the behind the scenes and so cool to see my work at 38:00.
And Derek finally covered it in an video now, was the criticisms fair?
@@key099able considering the game could literally kill the system, I'd say the criticism was fair. Also I'm pretty sure making the guy who made this comment has no connection to the guys who coded it.
Interesting information, especially since I wrote the console UI for this device, but never heard the first parts of what is said here (and cannot verify or challenge it's veracity). I was working on this at a different company via a contract with Zeebo for initial development. I did end up eventually working for Zeebo (both companies were a bit shaky to me at the time, but Zeebo had Qualcomms' backing so seemed a better choice, but still I wasn't terribly confident it was going to be successful - both were out of business by 2012). You are completely correct about the nightmare that was Brew. The Qualcomm "SDK" for Brew was essentially a bunch of macros that attempted to simulate an Object Oriented "language" using C. So much fun. The phone OS had essentially no memory defrag capabilities, so I had to write code to unload the OS, then reboot the device with a different boot "script" to be able to run most of the games (I read several years later that the early Sony PlayStations did something similar), affecting the startup times unfortunately. Like most games on consoles, to speed up things, large chunks of memory were pre-allocated at the start of games to preload graphics and such , and so many could not start without this.
I did know that the goal was to sell these devices in Brazil and India (to start with) and that the Qualcomm backing was mainly to garner interest in games on their OS (not just for Zeebo, but for phones).
Note that the games were ported in Brazil, in Campinas, NW of Sao Paulo (using Flash for some of it interestingly enough), where I visited several times. Wonderful group of people , very talented, but limited in what they could do in Brew.
So yes, Zeebo moved on. We did begin development on an Android version as mentioned at the end, and a new "console" was built to run it on. This was using Android 3 (and 4 eventually) which itself had some issues to be dealt with requiring rewrites of some of the OS. This was going to be an Educational software only centered device, and was much smaller, smaller than many cell phones now. But the company shut down before it ever shipped.
Much of what is mentioned in this video was unrelated to development, and I worked remotely most of the time, so can't comment on a lot of what is said here. If true, then some of it is "news to me!" I had little interaction with the business side of things.
Hi, if you interested there are big community of games preservation that maybe very happy to have you in
I used to work at this Campinas studio! I was a lowly junior artist back then, so I guess we were never introduced but makes me happy that you remember us fondly. I did a lot of the UI work using Flash for our games, most of it for Zeebo Xtreme. We used Flash to generate a XML file with the images coordinates and tweens. It was very crude at the beginning, but some of those late educational Zeebo games had lots of fullscreen animations so we improved it to export nested movie clips information and some basic action scripts functions, like "go to frame 3". It was a great hacky solution to our complete lack of tools for Brew.. the developers used to call this "tech" XUI. It was a nerdy joke of a recursive name: What XUI stand for? XUI User Interface...... :D.......
I worked there till the end, still have some art for a small game we've made for the android tablet that never saw the light of day... it was kinda sad on those final days, we were working on it fully knowing that the whole project was doomed. But I've made friendships there that lasts to this day, I'm currently working with some of them in another games company. Although someone always jokes about our work back then, it was a bonding experience for all of us.
We'll always have an amazing story to tell at the bar: "Hey, have you ever heard about Zeebo, the Brazillian game console?" ;D
@@marceloapsilva85 Yea, those were actually good times for the most part. I don't remember names much, I mostly intereacted with one of the guys in charge, Renaldo I think his name was, and in some group meetings. I and my boss up here in California were primarily visiting to go over details about the UI and the graphics and stuff for that, and issues with running some of the games. Best boss I ever worked for, and I've mostly had good ones so that's saying a lot. :-) I'm still bummed it failed . . . I still have one of the Android devices that was made for Education attempt, and I had an original Zeebo Device with my name etched on it - from the first shipment! I can't find it now, and don't know what happened to it, I wouldn't have intentionally disposed of it :-( Very nice to hear you are doing well! I'm pretty much retired now...
It's always nice to have some insider's insights so thank you both for commenting. :D
@@marceloapsilva85 Lost Media wiki will want to know more
You have to respect how stunningly honest the Brazilians were.
It's great to see more people talking about Zeebo and being better known by collectors, I had a Zeebo and despite knowing that it was an absurd failure I can say that it was one of the consoles that most marked my life, at the time of my father I had no money to give me a PS3 or Xbox 360 and not even a Wii, Zeebo turned out to be a cheaper option (at the time it only cost R$300 which was equivalent to something around $60), I still remember how I woke up early on a super excited Sunday morning to go there to buy my Christmas present.
I remember that I thought it was amazing that it connected to the internet without the need for any cable or adapter (it would still take 2 years to find out what Wi-Fi was xD ) and with that I spent hours using the browser, visiting forums and social networks like MSN and Orkut on my Zeebo (at the time I had to share the PC at home with the whole family, so Zeebo having an internet browser was a big bonus for me), besides the games being extremely cheap compared to other platforms, I had never bought So many games like this on other console, I know it's a failure, but it was thanks to him that I got more interested in games like Tekken 2, Quake 2, Zenonia and Double Dragon, I also loved playing Zeebo FC Super League and Um jogo de Ovos which were surprisingly good games, I made a lot of friends that I still talk to today on a forum called ''Zeebo Club'', I loved the events that TecToy did that gave away physical prizes or games and store credits (I never won any, but it was fun xD).
I know Zeebo was a failure but it really was an important part of my life and even though I have a PS4 in my living room today I still keep this console in my room with great affection, I just wish it had more support from the hacker community, it would be interesting to see an easier jailbreak method or even some ports and homebrews to the console ( come on, I want to see Doom running on the Zeebo xD ), but I don't think that will ever happen.
But anyway... I'm very grateful to have won a Zeebo and I believe I wouldn't be the gamer I am today if I didn't have it.
PS: Sorry for my english, Brazilian here. o/
This is such a lovely story.
Awwww ❤️
E eu tinha totalmente esquecido de ZENONIA, vou ver una vídeos agora kkkkk
História legal, Sarito :3
Your English is very clear, no need to apologize
@@teen_laqueefa Thanks xD
Outstanding job at both documenting this piece of videogame history, as well as nailing all the Brazilian idioms and quirks. I really felt included and respected as a different culture. I wish more content makers could be aware of how important that is for us, from the countries that are being talked about.
Brazilian here: Zeebo doesn't mean nothing in our language, it's totally made up.
Well, there are plenty of "Zebu" cattle here in Brazil, which is what I think of any time I hear the console's name. But the spelling makes more sense to English speakers than to Portuguese ones since the rare words we have with "ee" in them are pronounced quite differently (like "reerguer")
Oh yeah, I remember when the Zeebo started selling on Mexico... I never saw one but I do remember the commercials. Also, you mentioned the price of the Zeebo was 2,500 MXN, the thing was it came way too late to the market. I don't exactly remember what year it was but, at that time, everybody owned an either an Xbox 360 or a Wii, so by that price it was, and I quote some friends, "a no brainer, if I had 2,500 I'd buy two games." The Zeebo was overshadowed because everyone had the latest generation of consoles, at least in the US frontier where I live. In the end, the Zeebo was compared to the equivalent of a "plug n' play console but expensive for some reason".
fun fact when the zeebo was released in mexico it costed more than a wii or a used xbox 360 and both of them had their own piracy methods,the wii with the usb loaders and the xbox with burned disc,the only expensive console back then was the ps3 due to the blue ray stuff so in comparation it was a really bad deal but i remember the publicity for this thing trying so hard to hit sales especially with televisa network and his program "en familia con chabelo" a sunday morning program where they did competitions where the rewards where zeebos,the publicity went from using every time the same "un juego de huevos" commercial and the competitions where made by putting some kids playing the original zeebo games and ending with a drawn playing el juego de huevos to win the console,look at that it was a decent campain cosidering the success of "una pelicula de huevos",one of my cousins got one and i honestly feel bad for him because apparently he had to choice beetwen an xbox 360 or zeebo,i remember perfectly that cosnsole since i got to "play" with it when i come to visit him,it barely worked and the always advertised "free internet" never worked at all even the store to buy games shut down stupily fast and he only played some preinstalled games while browsing trought some of the adversited games on the ui
honestly a really bad console and the controller is no joke on how bad it feels, i know this comment would be lost but i wanted to share my experience as a mexican who lived this whole mess with the adversitments showing this console like if it was the second coming of christ
Imagine he choose the phone console than
superior consoles like 360,Wii,PS3 it so awful
OMG ARE YOU KIDDING ME I THINK I BLOCKED THIS IN MY MEMORY SOMEWHERE
Fascinating stuff, I was wondering what in the world was that game with egg-people getting wasted on wine.
thank you for this comment, my impression as a brazilian was that this thing never actually left our shores at all
Damn ur English is good homie. Absolutely can't tell it's a second language to ya.
Came here expecting to learn more about the Zeebo, and while I did, the main thing I learned is that I need to try Brazilian food, particularly white cheese and guava paste on a pão de queijo.
as a brazilian gamer from the 80s, thank you SO MUCH for this video, Derek. It shines a bright light at the situation in the country and all we went through. a thing of beauty, really.
I think that your interpretation of the Brazilian market was surgically precise. People outside the country seems to think that bootlegs are the boogeyman of the game industry, but there was literally no choice at the time. Nowadays Its way more affordable to legally own some games around here considering the online stores. Great video!
This episode is so well made. Thanks a ton. I think you translated our Brazilian gaming landscape very well.
As a Brazilian, I'm not proud, but I know how to hack every console generation. You guys saw the prices of these games. It's like we never got a choice. When I was a kid in the 90's I was entitled to buy one single (bootleg) game per year for how expensive it was. And may I say that my family was not poor.
But on my young adult days, steam is, and it still is, the godsend for me. I don't even remember the last time I pirated a game and even that games are still pricey now, the big sales they do make possible for me to game.
Wow, so Gabe was right then.
@@seymorbuns5363 of course he was right. Steam is huge worldwide because it (somehow) manages to have cheap games (that are still quality) everywhere
I totally agree with that! I can't remember the last time that I've pirated any game, even if I'm not sure I'll like it. Only Nintendo is allowed to be pirated hahaha
Steam saved the gaming landscape in Latin America, in my country PC hardware only has a 3% tax, while consoles have 55% tax because the government deems it a "luxury item", while PCs are treated as a basic everyday necessity hence the low tax, which means building PCs is cheap and the hardware including GPUs cost the same or even lower than in the US or Europe in some cases, couple that with Steam and its sales and local regional pricing and it makes an unbeatable combo, in fact it makes consoles stupid and obsolete in my country and it's the same thing in many other countries. That's why millions of Latinos play on PC nowadays even more than on console. Steam has singlehandedly almost completely killed piracy and bootlegs in my country.
It’s not common for us brazilians to feel proud of ourselves, but this is one of those rare situations. Glad you enjoyed some of the most famous dishes from here. I can see that you enjoyed your time researching about it. Cheers from Brasil, mate!
Seeing the Polystation being mentioned in this was really surprising. I had one when I was a kid.
Right? It's not something you expect an American to ever be aware of. They get better stuff 😂😂
@@TheIzzyNobreShow oh yeah. If piracy wasn't a thing here in Brazil, I'd never be able to enjoy the PS2 later when I got it.
Oh god you played that thing? I know it from Ashens poking fun.
i always thought the polystation had original games that were inspired in super nintendo games, i had not idea it was just an older version of the nintendo
@@devforfun5618 huh? It’s a bootleg that hardly contains any internals/chips and I think the games are a couple ROM hacks built. It’s definitely not a Nintendo console. The ROMS
yalls content is perfect, i love these past mortem episodes the most though, so interesting to see how games are played around the world.
also a modded $250 ps2 vs a $1000 xbox 360?
i feel really bad for anyone that bought the 360, probably red ringed in the first few months of owning it.
Damn right, there were tons of class lawsuits against Microsoft. I remember watching on TV interviews of parents crying because they made year-long savings just to buy a 360 that broke in a week.
My dad bought me an Xbox 360 in 2009 for around $450 with a modchip, whereas he had bought a PS2 in 2006 for $350, also modchipped. That Xbox 360 eventually red ringed, but only 6 years later, by which time I already had another 360 for playing online, since the first one got banned from Xbox Live because of the modchip, and said modchip wasn't relevant anymore, with most pirated games coming out not being compatible with it. I ended up selling both to a store for around $60 in 2015. I only knew one other person that had an original Xbox 360, everyone else only managed to afford one when the newer model came out.
Hey, THAT'S ME at 20:49! That's from the Zeebo review I did while at PCWorld. I REALLY loved the initial batch of games (the Double Dragon port, Galaxy on Fire and Zenonia were great) and the concept, but as you said, the hardware was behind its time.
Keep in mind that digital distribution for full games was something inexistent even on more established consoles (Like the PS3) at the time. And that you could use the network and download games at NO connection cost, even if you did not have a broadband connection at home. Everything ran over a 3G network called Zeebonet, ran by Claro in Brazil.
Today, we take it for granted to download a game on the launch date, but for the time, this was unheard of.
I always say that the Zeebo was not made to compete with the PlayStation or Xbox, it was made to drag the Master System crowd into the 21st century. And with better management and resources, it could have succeeded.
Are you sure it was Vivo's 3G connection? AFAIK, here in Rio they were using Claro's network for that. Maybe that changed on a state by state basis?
@@IconGamesBR You're right, it was Claro, not Vivo. Mixed those up. Tks!
Nossa vc não envelheceu quase nada
no matter how unknown, mistreated, unsuccessful, mishandled, misdesigned a game system can be, its death is always sad.
I'm from Brazil. I already adimred your channel since the first video i watched, but this is something else. Your attention to our culture, the respect you had as every joke landed, verything was really amazingly done! I can't thank you enough for this video, Derek and Producer Grace. You are really something else!
This speaks to me a lot! Back when Tectoy begun their operations with the Zeebo, they also started a game dev studio specifically for Zeebo and mobile games. At the time, it was unheard of, a game development company based in Brazil... As a high school sophomore at that time, it made me want to persue game development as a career, which paid off really well! Thanks for the in-depth research and amazing video, Derek. It brought me back so many memories!
Not really 'unheard of' - there were gamedev studios in Brazil since the 80s ;)
Icon Games itself, had its first game made way back in 2004, "Penguin Racer" and a year later I'd release my "Bola de Gude" (Virtual Marbles / Murmeln 3D outside Brazil) game :)
Brazilian here, Derek. There is a great reason why Zeebo used DMX as the base for their jingle... It played on Marlon Wayans' White Chicks, this movies is massive here in Brazil.
Honestly, amazing job on all the research and paying respect to some of Brazil's culture (hopefully you learned enough but not enough to feel what we Brazilians feel lol). You probably did more for the legacy of the Zeebo than any Brazilian (not working on Tec Toy) ever did. Can't wait for the Punching Weight episode and hopefully you recorded your first impressions of each or at least the more well known games of the console.
Tbh that's a really cute detail with every game having a 3DS style animated splash screen on the home menu
Zeebo's entire history can be summed up as "we lost, but at what cost"
"There has always been loss."
-Reinaldo Normand 32:15
I can't stop rewatching this video. The historical context, the food cameos, the utter weirdness of the Zeebo (as someone who lives in the UK)
It's why I love this channel
25:00 Damnit it brew!🤣
Man as a brazillian I loved the dedication you put into learning our culture and a bit of our history, when you ate "romeu e julieta" it really made me smile :)
Man I'm so happy this channel is still going. I remember being stoked finding hvgn and two best friend play. And now Matt and Derek are friends and both making insanely good content. Thanks for being there Derek. You're the best.
P.s video was top notch.
As a brazilian (and mostly Nintendo) gamer ever since I was a kid back in the 90s, I knew about the zeebo, but I could have sworn it failed and never released. To me, it was obvious that it wouldn't be successful. Yeah sure, the regular consoles were and are still expensive here, but there was simply no reason to buy a zeebo over them.
Funny story, I met a guy who did QA for some Zeebo games and he admitted it was pretty bad.
Hi, Brazilian here from Rio. Boi you did your homework!
It's almost a *need* to have your console chipped...everything in gaming was (and still is) expensive as hell and its 10x harder than 1st wolr countries to get a job and make sure you had a roof over your head. We don't pirate because we want to but because we have to in order to enjoy the gaming scene.
I still remember going to the bootleg Markets for games and yugioh card packs and see what monstrosities and bangers were available. I was lucky enough to afford a family pc with a dvd writer so I eventually learned how to do it myself and inded up with 2 shoeboxes full of dvds roms...good times
The whole "Announce a price drop before the console ever launches" idea is seriously just a variant of the Osbourne Effect, which is named after the Osbourne Computer Corporation, which literally announced new & more powerful computers not long after releasing the Osbourne 1 in 1981. While said new computers wouldn't come out until 1983, the fact that they were announced so early in advance meant that people simply didn't buy the Osbourne 1 anymore, instead deciding to wait for the better stuff later on, and even harsh price drops didn't help sales.
This was over 20 years before the Zeebo! Truly, no one actually bothers to learn from history.
This is still going on now. Apparently the Intellivision Amico already talked about a newer model while their console is super late for launching.
@@pokehybridtrainer Apple recently did it too, they released the 12 & 13 on the same damn day for some reason. Like,, wtf? The 12 is only $100 cheaper so it’s not even that much of a save
@@pokehybridtrainer it always will, because marketing 101 always teaches people “offer a cheaper alternative for the lower class” even though most lower class people are just gonna save for the more expensive one anyway, so it’s kinda rendered pointless out of the gate
i had a Zeebo growing up ("koé" from Brazil) and even though i regretted choosing it instead os a PS2 like everybody else, i still had my share of fun with the Need For Speed Carbon and Peggle versions the console had.
Also, having Bejeweled 3 on a big screen was my mom's favourite thing, so we used to share this time together, and that's nice
Don't feel too bad, my cousin had a Zeebo which I was shocked, it seemed hard to find. I was lucky to have a 360 in 2008 at the time, thanks to a friend that brought it from the US and that's when the pirate scene was booming (Fúria 360, ISO Burn, DVD-R) so yeah, I kinda scoffed at the Zeebo at the time
But anyway, that's a piece of Brazilian Gaming History, the Zeebo
"Also, having Bejeweled 3 on a big screen was my mom's favourite thing" Mothers in a nutshell lmao
Gaming in the 90s and oughts in Brazil was wild man... Didn't own a single legitimate copy of a game up until late Xbox 360 era. Buying fake ass (and often modded) PS2 games from local street sellers and burning copies for your homies is pretty much engraved in Brazilian millenial culture. It's gotten way better with Steam and all, but shit's still waay too expensive. Hard to fault people for piracy when the alternative is not gaming at all. Anywho, really appreciate the effort you put into this my dude! Wholesome stuff. c:
Yes, it got a little better, but i still feel were my chest got punctured for buying KOF15.
how do you guys even get computer parts to play said steam games???
@@64bitmodels66 China, sorte ou comprar em lojas caras.
@@64bitmodels66 Its mostly rich guy hobby, but many others buy the computer parts piece by piece until they get the full package.
Some considerations that were not mentioned:
- The PS5 costs the equivalent of 800 dollars, but for you who live in North America, 800 dollars is just a fraction of the average American salary (around 5 thousand dollars a month?), we Brazilians have a devalued currency, and we earn at an average of $500 a month, this means that a single video game console can cost much more. The cost of living in North America is high (I believe that on average 3 thousand dollars, rent, meal, heating, electricity...) while in Brazil this is cheaper compared to the American one, but Brazilians earn on average LESS than necessary to cover these costs (that's why most people don't live alone, they need to "pool" their salaries to make up the cost of living, so in the end it would be more or less like a PS5 costing 8 or 10 thousand dollars.
This, of course, is not limited to video games, TVs, appliances, and basically anything that needs foreign components, even if they come from China (since they are bought in dollars).
Now, add this value to the fact that our products are manufactured with a lower quality compared to yours (thinner plastics, lower speed chips, smaller memory capacity, Chinese televisions and appliances), third world countries are a big opportunity for low quality Chinese products due to low consumer purchasing power.
One more aggravating factor: People cannot just use and throw away, things are very expensive, so there is this tendency to use the same thing for many years, if it breaks, it is feasible to repair it due to our workforce being undervalued, and the new product is very expensive. Currently in 2022, Playstation 3 is still easily found in our homes, even the PS2. PS4 is still a reasonable investment, even second-hand. Cars around here are used on average for 40 years!
Piracy is high here, because of the price of the PS5, games end up being a "luxury item", even digital versions, have a significant cost, our weak currency, combined with low purchasing power makes it impossible to purchase original games , add to that a government that wants to take money from people at all costs with abusive and unnecessary taxes (we pay tax every time the product changes hands, we pay tax for the circulation of goods, for imports, for manufacturing in national territory, in , several taxes are added, several times).
If a Brazilian wants to import something, even if it is a simple purchase of something used on ebay, we will pay dearly. An example: An item that costs 80 dollars from ebay, let's say it costs 20 dollars shipping, I will pay with my currency, about 5x that amount, and that's 1/4 of what I get for 1 month of work. Do you think it ended there? As soon as the goods arrive in my country (about 15 days) it will be stopped at customs, and it will stay there for about 30 days, they will open the package, and check how much it should be worth, to make sure it is really worth the that has been declared. So, they will notify me and charge me a tax of 60% of the value of the product + shipping ($80+$20 = $100, so there will be another $60 of tax, totaling $160) now the value has become around 800 reais, that is, almost 40% of what I would earn for a month of work, remembering that the cost of living here is higher than a month of work can provide!
Many Brazilians would give their own mother to live in even the worst place in detroit, as we are used to lack of public security and other basic services. Some people might say that we have a free healthcare system, but that's not true. We pay a very high tax, we have in exchange a low quality system, with low quality professionals, poorly paid, generic drugs with low effectiveness, long waiting lines for surgeries... Many of us would prefer not to have this system, pay a lower tax, and when you get sick, pay for a good quality hospital.
Absolutely insightful!
Great video. As a brazilian, I'm glad more people are aware of the potential of our market. I mean. It's not like we won't buy games legaly. It's just so expensive. Shout outs to companies like SNK, Ark System Works and Capcom for cutting the prices here. Guilty Gear Strive and KoF XV go for less than jalf the price compared to the US.
As a brasilian player, bootlegs and piracy were essential to just be able to play something at all. At the time the Zeebo were a thing horever, most kids who gave a care about videogames knew their way back and foruth around where to buy or just burn playstation games for a fraction of the price, sometimes just the cost of the blank writeable CD or DVD for Playstation 2 which both held much more impressive titles.
Just as a price comparisson:
In December 2009, i got my PS2 with unlocked chip (some BIOS workarounds for running pirated games) 8 games and a extra controller and memory card for EXACTLY R$499
And i already knew how to burn games and a guy who worked in a lan house who knew how to burn ISOs
Asked one of my buddies who's brazillian about this video and here's what they had to say: "Yeah, he did a really outstanding job. One thing he didn't mention though is that upon the end of our military dictatorship, our politicians made a new constitution from scratch to start a new political era. Nothing about imports changed really, they kept it pretty much the same. Also, he talked a fair amount of the legit prices around here which used to be R$200,00 for a game back in the day and nowadays it's usually R$500,00 (so much so I got my Legends Arceus last week for 450 after some bargaining, for an example). But he didn't explain the fact that (at least for PS1, 2 and Wii) the price for a pirated version was either R$ 5,00 or R$ 10,00 depending on the place! Can you imagine getting New Super Mario Bros. Wii, AT LAUNCH, for just R$ 1,00 (at today rates)? Cause I did that.". Personally i first heard about the Zeebo from Hardcore Gaming 101's Double Dragon retrospective where they mentioned that Zeebo DD exists but for understandable reasons weren't able to cover it.
About the price thing: that's half a lie. Physical Nintendo games are expensive, but you can easily find Arceus with R$400 price (even Amazon is selling around that) but digital are R$300 at most.
And this applies only to Nintendo, too. Sony and Microsoft aren't that expensive, they're still expensive, don't get me wrong, but not as much as Nintendo. And usually they're expensive just at launch, around R$300 to 350, but the price goes down eventually, and have a lot of sales too. Resident Evil village for exemple, it launch with R$300 price, now you can find it for $180 to 200. R$500 games are deluxe version, with season pass, or a collection. But yeah, that's still a lot for us Brazilian. Not easy being a gamer here
@@g.andrade.s and yet the market is so big. imagine if they actually lowered the prices lol
as a brazilian gamer, I was so surprised a foreign was able to understand the historical problems we've been facing since the dawn of times, and thank you very much for preserving such important part of brazilian game history
Brazil is probably the only place where piracy is objectively right.
Had the Zeebo been beefier and used a custom version of Android tailored for gaming (Along with the price cut), I'm pretty certain it would've had some success
Im a patreon but I'd rather have 1 short video every 2 weeks and 1 big one every 6 months then no video for 3 months at all. Personally for me I like the Resident Evil videos, Bad games that I love, your strategy guide collection videos... Those kind of videos are my favorite.
Seeing the Polystation briefly mentioned made me very happy. There was no way my parents could afford an official console. I loved that thing and it was my childhood. When it eventually broke down I already knew about emulators, so I've been replaying the same NES, SNES, N64, GBA and DS games all these years, and there's always the hacks when I want to replay Pokemon or Fire Emblem but not the vanilla version. Yeah, as an adult consoles are still ridiculously expensive where I live so I'm never leaving emulation. It's the only way I can experience those games. Well, I did get to play some games on the real thing in rental places where you pay per hour and they have a bunch of consoles lined up against a living room wall, but that was during the 90s and mid 00s, and those places are quite hard to find nowadays and their selection of games is usually not to my cup of tea.
As a Mexican, I can tell you back then I remember that Zeebo "Un juego de huevos (Spanish pun for: A game with balls, although we say egg (huevo) to mean well ... your balls)" contest that happened.
The PS2 was at that point... biggest console you could ask for, again, we don't suffer as badly as the Brazilian bros, but we also had (and still quite have) a piracy problem, there is a reason the original xbox was so popular over here, it basically came soft modded 99% of the time, 1% were the ones in WalMart that were sent to be modded after taking it out from there.
The Zeebo had no place in Mexico for the same reason the PS2 dominated in Brazil, PS2, Xbox, Wii, Dreamcast and IF YOU WERE RICH, the 360, became very popular for being very expensive consoles to get, but by having piracy, who cares, you can get them with pretty new games in the market.
You can still sell PS2's to this day if you offer it with a pirate KoF 2002 UM and GTA disc, lmao.
This was both very interesting, very sad, and very nostalgic for me.
Greetings from the taco lands.
Ver esas imágenes de "Un juego de huevos" me despertó recuerdos jajaja recordaba la consola, pero los comerciales de ese juego estaban bien enterrados.
Are PS units, Xboxs and Wii expencive over in Mexico? Here in Australia consols resonally priced. You can pick up so deals on second hand market over here in sunny Australia.
Ouvir a história do nosso infame console no Stop Skeletons From Fighting é algo incrível. Acompanho esse canal há um bom tempo. Obrigado por isso!
Sim, todo mundo sabia que era uma piada mas tinha um orgulho, era a NOSSA piada.
@@Sameeer_Saker com certeza! hahaha
On top of what you mentioned about it making MUCH more sense to just buy a PS2 from the grey market (seriously, as soon as the price was revealed, everyone's reaction here was "why?"), it should also be noted that the Zeeboo came at a TERRIBLE timing as well.
In 2009, 2010, our economy was booming, while the US was still dealing with the 2008 financial crisis (which didn't affect Brazil significantly). So our currency was almost 1:1 with the US Dollar - I vividly recall 1 dollar being like R$1,70, R$2 at most
That meant that gaming was more accessible than ever: not only was pirated games as common as ever for the PS2, Wii and 360, but even the PS3 was benefitting, despite not being jailbroken at the time - people in the middle class who were more internet and gaming savvy, soon found out how insanely easy it was to just buy games from a foreign store, and import it to Brazil - people, myself included, were shopping games on eBay like normal. There was the risk of getting taxed when the game arrived at the country, but from my experience, that was quite rare, and it was ALWAYS worth it.
Demand was so high, that certain stores (like the british ShopTo, iirc) actually started making Portuguese versions of their pages, and giving support to Brazilian customers... with 1 british pound being like... a little over R$2, Brazilians were able to import brand-new releases such as, say, God of War 3, for around R$120-130.
(but since our customs and postal service is kinda shitty, that also meant a lot of games were "lost" on their way here, so after a while, those same stores started putting limitations to people buying from Brazil, or outright refusing to sell, whoops)
Truly, a perfect (shit) storm for the Zeeboo. Sweet mercy.
(side note, since you've enjoyed pão de queijo and brigadeiro, I also want to suggest bolinho de chuva. Sweet mercy are they good, and very easy to make! Just google the recipe and off you go)
As a brazilian fan of the show for years, I'm so grateful that you guys document the history of Zeebo, and with the usual quality when it comes to dumb shit. Cheers, Derek and Grace!
Hey I'm curious, how was Brazil for comics? Were there imports or bootlegs for those?
@@blunderingfool Brazil has a long history when it comes to comics. We have numerous brazilian artists of all genres. The first comic book series published in Brazil was in 1869. The first magazine entirely dedicated to comics (O Tico-Tico) was published in 1905, compiling several series by different artists.
When it comes to american comics, licensed brazilian publishers were/are responsible for official translations, localizations and publications here. DC Comics began to be published in Brazil in 1938, and Marvel Comics began in 1940, all in portuguese . Other publishers followed the same path, they were soon released in Brazil through national publishers, all officially, without bootlegs.
Comic books have always been a big deal here, manga too.
@@erickbrags Thanks, that's some interesting stuff! =D
I worked at the Nintendo World Store (now Nintendo NY) from December 2007 - April 2011 and I will say outside of events like the Nintendo Power event and EVERY mainline Pokémon event, anywhere between 60%-70% of our clientele came from Brazil. Whenever any us started conversations with a client from there, although there was the occasional language barrier, the one thing that was consistent was them telling us how high the taxes were for the Wii. Then when Wii Fit released, oh wow, virtually every Wii they bought was accompanied with a Wii Fit purchase.
Thanks to this video, even without you going into details with regards to political story behind why imported goods are heavily taxed, that was more than enough information for things to really click with me and my experiences with Brazilian clientele during my NWS days.
The other thing that was asked was if we sold were R4 cards for the DS. Although some of us knew what they were and where one would be able to purchase one, since we were representatives of Nintendo, we had to deny knowledge of knowing what they were and what they do as Nintendo and all the major tech companies are against piracy. Little did I realize that they were inquiring about the R4 cards as if I was inquiring about getting a vanilla ice cream at Carvel's; it (R4) is just a common thing in Brazil and other areas where the big 3 aren't really present or if they are, it's expensive as heck to modern game.
At that time I was against media piracy but years later I understood why people do it. Gaming, watching a show, etc can be just as therapeutic as seeing a therapist for many folks and like most forms of therapy, it's expensive and if it's out of one's reach, we'll look for the next cheaper alternative.
Sometimes, I’m all “I wish they uploaded more.”
Then, a monthly video shows up, and the beautiful god-I-missed-you-guys feeling reminds me why this is better.
the drew gooden effect
You did a grade A+ homework in studying Brazil's culture, take all the love we send you, you did way better than the best average TH-camr has ever did in regarding my country. I hope to see other countries being talked in this channel, you have a talent for it!
TL;DR in a region of the multiverse, Zeebo dropped with the Nokia OS and the Zeebo 3 would be rivaling in global level with PS4 and XBOX X. really sad...
Corporations always seem to think "... but LEGAL!" is way more of a selling point than it is.
Nintendo has been stuck with that mentality for a long time
Hell they seel their games here in brazil for like double the price and they dont even translate it
So why would i but a pokemon game here if i can just download it and have the same experience except i can eat this month?
And i can even get a fan traslation too to portuguese if i want
I need to say this might be my favorite video game-related video on TH-cam. The work you put into this plus the comedic value is top notch. I find myself coming back to this for a laugh and makes me feel good :)
Thank you
Im brazilian and i had a Odyssey 2 when i was a kid! It was actually from my auntie, she failed a year in school because all she did was play her video game (that minning game you showed being one of them and here it was called "Didi na Mina do Tesouro") and as punishment my grandfather locked it away in an old closset only for me and my brother to discover that misterious eletronic device locked away in there! Fun times!
I still have mine - working ;)
And the game is actually "Didi na Mina Encantada", based (yeah, right - they just renamed the game, changed the words in the manual and nothing else!) on the movie "Os Trapalhões na Serra Pelada".
Still, it is the first console game "adapted" to brazilian culture :)
Quase um tesouro arqueólogico
Great video. You nailed in every aspect, covering from the politics scenario, to how much more the "normal" consoles costs in Brazil converting the prices back to USD (so you can try to feel the pain), and finally making references to the Brazilian culture without cliches. Loved the zeebo to "pao de queijo" weight ratio.
Essa é uma excelente oportunidade para lembrar aos compatriotas, e qualquer um que entenda português, para não perder o excelente podcast "Primeiro Contato" lançado ano passado pelo grupo Overloadr em 12 episódios.
Ele conta a história dos jogos no país, o início dos jogos eletrônicos no país, entre as décadas de 1980 e 1990. Excelente para quem viveu parte daquela época e quer relembrar ou para quem nasceu depois e desconhece. A série é repleta de entrevistas e fontes primárias com os responsáveis pelo início dos jogos e vídeo games no país (sempre lembram da TecToy, mas a Brasoft foi tão ou mais importante quanto).
Props to Brazil, y’all have one of the coolest game scenes out there
Thank you.
Fantastic video, really well researched on Zeebo itself and everything else surrounding it. I worked on Tectoy Digital from 2008 (when the studio also developed DS and mobile games) to 2011 (by that time it had already been renamed Zeebo Interactive Studios and focused exclusively on Zeebo). It has always felt like Qualcomm was trying their best to make it flop: BREW was an incredibly unfit system for a console, and yet they showed no interest in making a trimmed down, Zeebo-friendly version. Every single game suffered from it, from being not as good as it could be (in the best cases) to a complete trainwreck.
I doubt Zeebo could ever be the grey market killer it was supposed to, but had it been able to pull off everything that was expected (mainly the Dreamcast ports) things could have been very different. It was never said explicitly, but it soon became clear that Qualcomm had little interest other than injecting some life in its obsolete BREW OS (that by that point was already doomed, with iOS out and Android in the works) and finding a use to the aging MSM chipsets that had already been replaced by their own Snapdragon. It's no surprise they weren't terribly concerned with making it succeed.
The sad thing is: everybody else was. OK, Namco not so much (Tekken 2 and Pacmania are great, Ridge Racer and Alpine Racing feel like incomplete betas). But most games had a lot of work behind them - yes, even NFS Carbon (that one almost broke the studio btw). Crunch days and all, that was a very good period for me, mostly because of how good the environment was. Those people were the best I ever worked with.
Most of us in Argentina grew up with bootleg consoles like the "Family Game". Most who don't play games anymore but did so in their childhood don't even know what a Famicom or NES is.
I got so caught up in the Master System section that I forgot I was even watching a video about the Zeebo despite being hyped for weeks to hear about the Zeebo. Maybe we could get a Punching Weight in the future dedicated to some of the Brazil exclusive Master System games? The sleeper success of that console is just fascinating to me.
TecToy made a lot of exclusive games and even exclusive console model for both the Mega Drive and Master System. They even localized a RPG for the Saturn. Between the death of the Dreamcast and the Zeebo TecToy many Master Systems with the same name "Master System 3 collection". My first console was one of them, I even made a video about it.
@@GoldenJLR 👀
It’s kinda wild that I’ve never heard about the zeebo until you guys started mentioning it on the channel. Maybe the marketing was only focused on the southeastern Brazil market or something, though Tec Toy’s propaganda machine was kinda lame even back in the 90s up north where I grew up at least. And I appreciate your effort in trying to say “pão de queijo”, not the easiest thing for beginners.
Another great video. Muito obrigado, Derek :)
AAAAAAAAAAA
I hope one day you talk about the Dynacom company, they made a lot of Atari and NES clones in Brazil. When i was a kid , i had the Dynavision 4, it came with a cartridge of 64 games (Castlevania, Battle City, etc) and 2 slots to read american and japanese cartridges.
The little brazilianisms in this video were simple, but amazingly on point. Um abraço, do Brasil!
"footage by Cloth Map'
you absolutely LOVE to see it. Awesome episode, folks.
I'll never forget that my uncle brought a new PS2 in box in a well known store here in Brazil and it was unlocked out of the box, just like it would came from a factory like that. Weird.
we had to tell everyone in the store i worked that our ps3 couldn't be unlocked yet because it was a newer version, we only tried to sell ps3 for rich people, because there was no point in trying to sell a locked console for the average client when other stores were selling them unlocked
@@devforfun5618 I'm sorry i think there's a misunderstanfing. Pls don't attack
@@JenkemJohannes69 I think they're talking about modded consoles, when the PS3 launched it wasn't able to be modded yet, so no piracy.
As someone who used to love the show 'Game Makers' on G4TV years and years ago, I just wanted to thank you for your work making these in-depth looks at weird and unusual stuff like the Zeebo. I've been a fan of your channel for looking into bizarre gaming stuff and I love the effort you put in for your content. Keep up the great work, SSFF!
Hi, just another brazilian passing by the comments! I've been waiting on this video for so long, and man you never disappoint! The research work and nods to our culture are remarkable. Even as a zoomer I can confirm that polystations and modchipped PS2s are an inescapable part of childhood.
@@Sewersyrup Acertou em cheio! DKSNKXNAND
As soon as you mentioned Qualcomm I was worried that BREW would come up. Back in 2004 I was doing mobile game development, and had to target J2ME and BREW. J2ME was painful, but tolerable. BREW was absolutely horrific. I can't believe that anyone actually made a "working" console based on that platform.
If It wasn't for piracy, I wouldn't have some great memories of watching my mom playing RPGs, learning english by playing games and nowadays I just pirate older games, but I still don't see piracy as negative, it's a necessity for when the products are unavailable due to pricing and politics
As someone who was in the industry, almost all developers don't care if you pirate their games, it is just the studio executives and their business/accounts who give a damn about profit. Most are just happy when people enjoy their work at all because game development is a labor of love for them. And even the few devs who do care would cease to once their game isn't up for sale legally anymore.
There's a good reason almost all game credits say Thank You For Playing.
@@Casanuda there is a site that sell game keys, a bunch of keys are bought with stolen credit cards, or the keys thenselves were stolen by a publisher, a bunch of studios told players to just pirate their games because it was cheaper for them than people buying bad second hand keys
piracy has zero cost for them, the bullshit publishers do can be worse because sometimes they move paying players away
Gotta preserve the games somehow.
My favorite bit of Brazilian game lore is how every Brazilian 80s and 90s kid is intimately familiar with everything about SNK and Neo-Geo classics. I don't think a single Brazilian in their 30s right now doesn't know who Kyo, Terry, or Haohmaru are.
Lmao the only reason why i love old games and old stuff in general is because of piracy, i was born in '99 and was enjoying my nes clones my snes, and a ps1 in the mid 2000s, until i got the hot new console, the ps2, in the late 00s, where my most favorite game was an emulator compilation, with pretty much all games from the nes, sms, snes and genesis.
Piracy was so common and necessary here for gaming, that when i was a dumb kid, i thought original ps1 and ps2 games didn't exist lmao
I got a chipped PS1 and some games as a kid and never even realised it was piracy until I was older. I just thought games came on discs with handwritten titles.
Eu sei exatamente que emulador de PS2 vc ta falando sobre :P
Hiryu deveria ser considerado herói nacional por causa desse emulador.
@@TheCow-j1l Era minha infância kkk
I absolutely loved to see a video talking about this weird and strange piece of Brazilian Gaming History,
as a brazilian game dev, I'm glad to see that the first person I saw cover the Zeebo internationally was you Uncle Derek, SSFF is my favorite channel and will always be, especially because you're willing to do such a wonderful job on telling the story of the market that I love
Thank You, Uncle Derek, Producer Grace and everyone from the SSFF team, for giving me this much needed moment of happiness in the time I'm in need the most
much love from Brazil and PÃO DE QUEIJO FOR THE WIN
The fact that megadrive lasted so long is hilarious. The Immortal Console.
That's Fucking Hilarious To Me
Good call using footage from cloth map, HIGHLY recommend that channel for more insight on the Brazilian bootleg gaming scene as well as Cuba’s DIY intranet infrastructure. Very awesome channel, and they are filming on location, not just some nerd in a game room (lol, love this channel. great video as always Grace nDerrick)
As someone who's Brazilian I really appreciate the level of detail and how much research you did into the game market there. Great video!
The craziest thing for me is that it took like, till android boxes or certain phones before someone just said, 'why don't we just make a phone you can hook into the TV...and not call it a console?"
Currently, I can play ps1 games on my Walmart Onnbox, for the cost of about $45 (needed extra hardware included), with Bluetooth controllers, stream from my PC, and play most android games. So the fact the Ouya and the Zeebo both tried to be consoles and do the same thing, but fail miserably and be overpriced boggles my mind. Granted, Google gets a cut and overhead via their ecosystem, but a Stadia capable Android TV box is just as much a console as a PS4 nowadays, meaning they've managed to do the impossible but at the same time nobody really cares.
How interesting. I’ve seen this brought up in the past in passing, nothing this comprehensive. Great work as always! As always this comment is for your metric pleasure!
Yo momma
I can now say I've officially watched this video enough times to notice the dog cushion inconsistencies between shots lol
Absolutely amazing vídeo as always. SSFF continues to establish itself as one of the very best channels for gaming culture content.
As a Brazilian, owner of a Zeebo containing all apps and games since 2010, and a member of the ZeeboClub for a few years, I’d like to humbly correct a piece of information mentioned in the video:
There’s actually only 56 games released on the Zeebo, not 58. Zeeboids is just an app for Zeeboids creation and Zeebo Clube is just another app that allowed access to the Zeebo store and general news and info on the console, so they are not games and they no longer work properly due to the Zeebonet being closed.
I’d also like to add a few comments:
The second version of the controller, the so-called Dragon, does have a more comfortable design and better hand grip but it is, in fact, a much worse controller in overall quality and durability. I have a pair of each controller released for the console and the original controllers, called Z-pads, might not be as comfortable as the Dragons but they are more resilient, still work well, and respond much better than the Dragons. Both of the Dragons I own were brand new but started having issues in just a few months, such as unresponsive buttons.
The absolute best controllers to use to play the Zeebo games are the Logitech Dual Action or the Logitech Rumblepad 2. The Logitech controllers were used as templates for the development of the Zeebo controllers so these two Logitech gamepads work natively with the Zeebo, you just plug and play. They even allow the player to use analog sticks on games that can only be played with the D-pads on the Zeebo official controllers. All you have to do is activate the analog function on the Logitech pads. The only minor issue is that the position of the numeric buttons on the Logitech controllers is a little different from the Zeebo pads but you quickly figure out which buttons to press in each game.
Another interesting thing that wasn’t mentioned in the video, is that the SD card slot and the USB slot in the console could not be officially used by Zeebo owners, only by technical staff to repair or test consoles. They can only be used by a Zeebo owner if the console has been “unlocked” or modded and it is the way to be able to install games in the console.
Also, the Zeebo had only 1gb of memory but with the user interface called Z-wheel taking so much space and the Brew OS taking some more, with only 56 games and the two (now useless) apps installed, there is practically no more room for new games in the system so if they had released any more, without some accessory or addon to improve internal space (things that were never planned to be released as far as I know), Zeebo owners would have to delete some games to install new ones…
I actually did not know this!! I’ll have to mention that tidbit about the memory once we make our video showcasing the games themselves
@@StopSkeletonsFromFighting
Happy to help, Derek.
I know a lot more about the Zeebo, including very interesting anecdotes from both the Zeebo fans community and the employees that worked on developing games for the console.
Contact me if you are interested in knowing these.
All the best for you and the SSFF team! Your work is greatly appreciated.
What an immense dedication to research in Brazilian market and culture, kudos to you. Zeebo was a total fiasco and your conclusion was spot on: We were fixing the issue of games with grey market for years. I was already an adult, 22 years old in 2009, but I was still pretty much into games, however I had already ditched consoles for them being overpriced, last video game I had was a N64, I moved to PC master race back then, (and pirating overpriced triple AAA games, although I never bought bootlegs back in the 16 bit era).
When I saw the zeebo comercial I laughed of how pathetic it was, it was a common joke among all my friends and gaming communities, as a glorified "Tupiniquim polistation", a sucker to kids that will be screwed over by parents that didn't know better and decided to save a buck not buying the newest wii thinking any video game would make their kids happy... Poor bastards.
I respect the attempt of national attempts to compete in international markets, but Tec Toy was never a serious company and whas only interested in white labeling imported stuff with a very low effort high margins. Not a respected company at all. Zeebo simply wasn't good enough, it felt like a second class product but was still expensive, a punch in the face of the population. Teenagers are not that stupid, they don't want second class video games just because they don't have money, we rather have the all new best games, and we will do a "jeitinho" to do it: Which meant going into the grey market. That was what most people did back then: Got an unlocked Xbox 360 in 12 installments and stick a full hard drive of pirated games in it. Zeebo had no chance.
By the way, one correction, PS2 was launched in Brasil in 2002, All my friends had it back in 2003~2005. I don't know what this "official" launch in 2009 is all about, I THINK this was the locally fabricated version, with lower prices, whereas before that it was imported with higher price due to tax, but PS2 games were officially sold in all game and department stores as early as 2002.
Que engracadinho a forma que o Tio Derek pronunciou "Gradiente" abraços dos seus fãs do Brasil! :)
"Graxiente"
To be honest, in Brazil the Zeebo was seen as a joke since it was pitched. Nobody ever took it serious, and the only people who bought it were parents. The kids that got it when they asked for a videogame for Christmas probably got really mad.
Also, when we thought a game was crap we would say "oh, this could run on a Zeebo". This is how bad it's reputation was.
Brazil is a master class on the topic how protectionist tariffs don't work.
A little perspective: in the 90's, an original PS1 game cost the equivalent of a full, and I do mean full, minimum wage at the time. Imagine dropping a full month worth of salary on 1 game. Meanwhile, modding a PS1 was ridiculous easy, bootlegs were easily available everywhere and cost the equivalent of 5 dollars or less