Alright, let me see if I understand this correctly. Your company fabricates things for various other companies and holds onto the design/blueprints until the company orders you to destroy them?
Yes thats correct, though in many cases we do the designs ourselves, it depends on the situation, and the customer.
Are you saying if the department of Sega that had these cabinets ordered still existed nearly 30 years later, and ordered you to destroy them, you would have to do it without hesitation?
Yes, because it's their intellectual property in theory, many prototypes are designed only to be scrapped in development, the three cabinets I have posted from 1989 are a good example. the joystick sucked, the Genesis came out. They are useless to Sega, in fact I doubt anyone in modern Sega even knows they exist.
Do you understand that Sega
literally had to contact a Japanese design office to recover photos of their designs of their Megadrive box art in a locked filing cabinet that no longer had a key?
It wouldn't surprise me, I still get emails off Sega asking about spare parts to this day, sadly due to a massive falling out, our company chooses not to do business with them anymore.
Earlier you mentioned you were in favor of Emulation, which is the preservation of game data, yet you willingly "scrap" or destroy design documents because they "expire" and do not preserve them in any fashion? Is there legal recourse if you do not destroy them? That is a very long contract order to fill for so many years later.
I don't willingly do anything, I've hidden the bloody things on a top shelf and hope no one finds them! But in reality they will be destroyed at some point because we don't own the specs, won't ever make them, and don't own the copyright. Thats just the industry. If you don't make something for X amount of years, they are destroyed because they are obsolete. It's no different from emulation of old Snes games, the sites have been shut down to al arge degree, the games are very old but companies protect their property.
You also mention you found this thread using Virtua Fighter's "cabinet code" from the manual. I have the manual here and the only cabinet code I can find is "Model SUR-007-01", which has not been posted by the original poster glstar or is visible in any of his images. So again, I ask you, specifically which code are you speaking of that lead you to this thread?
No I think you misunderstand. I typed in one of the Codes on the pictures of the boxes I posted, note UK / EU codes are a bit different. I then found Virtua Fighter, and then found this thread. Though Virtue Fighter is in one of those boxes somewhere. Virtua fighter is HOW I found this forum.
I am sorry if I am coming off as slightly aggressive but what you have in your possession is an incredible treasure trove of gaming history which I'm sure I'm not alone in wishing it to be preserved. The reason I am so adamant is because is in your first post to this form you stated "while I was scrapping some of the old Specs for Sega amusement machines", which if I am understanding correctly you have already completely destroyed some video game history already.
Yeah it pisses me off as well, I can literally open a drawer next to my desk and see the entire specs for the various designs of Mario Cart 1 and 2 by Namco, compressor cab etc, yet I know at some point, I will be instructed to dump them into a box, then eventually throw them into a furnace. I'm just stating what happens in the industry I get paid to work in. Though to be honest, the arcade gaming machine is all but dead, the vast, vast majority of modern work is coin pushers and bandits. I'm just giving you the perspective from the other side of the fence. This is the sad reality of the industry.
great job!!!!