I am a big pokemon fan, and a big fan of the GBA and DS libraries in general, like a lot of people on here. I am attempting to build/rebuild my personal collections of games, particularly Pokemon, but also first party Nintendo in general. Lots of the GBA games in particular have never been re-released.

And unfortunately, hunting for them is incredibly difficult because the second hand market for these consoles is flooded with fakes and counterfeits! You search for them on eBay, overwhelmingly fake. I don’t mind paying a few quid for a genuine copy if it guarantees it is genuine, but I’ve seen the expensive ones have obvious fakes too. I’ve seen Cex selling fake cartridges too, multiple times. It’s extremely frustrating.

Rant over

Never even realised this was a thing until recently. I suppose spotting fakes when you have them in your hand is easy enough if you know what you're looking for, but how can you tell if something listed on eBay is a counterfeit?

Alex79uk wrote: ↑October 30th, 2020, 11:53 am Never even realised this was a thing until recently. I suppose spotting fakes when you have them in your hand is easy enough if you know what you're looking for, but how can you tell if something listed on eBay is a counterfeit?

It depends, some are real obvious. To go back to Pokemon cartridges, they are all coloured specifically, so you can tell straight off if the cartridge colour is wrong. Or the labels are often wrong, printed wrong. Other than that, it’s mostly taking a chance.

You see it a fair bit with Megadrive stuff on eBay as well. They tend not to care to hide it that well though, obvious things like US Genesis artwork but on a Japanese shaped cart shell etc...

But yeah, for some reason the Nintendo handhelds suffer incredibly badly for it.

Flabyo wrote: ↑October 30th, 2020, 4:07 pm You see it a fair bit with Megadrive stuff on eBay as well. They tend not to care to hide it that well though, obvious things like US Genesis artwork but on a Japanese shaped cart shell etc...

But yeah, for some reason the Nintendo handhelds suffer incredibly badly for it.

I had no idea US and JP mega drive cartridges were different shapes.

Japanese carts have a notch in the side and won’t turn on without that because the power switch slides in, like on the original gameboy.

Western ones don’t have the notch, but the shape of the cart viewed from the bottom is different, you can’t physically fit a Japanese one into the slot of a western machine.



Most bootlegs come in a shell that’s the shape of the western cart, but with the notch cut in as well so it’ll fit both types of console.

Flabyo wrote: ↑October 30th, 2020, 8:42 pm Japanese carts have a notch in the side and won’t turn on without that because the power switch slides in, like on the original gameboy.

Western ones don’t have the notch, but the shape of the cart viewed from the bottom is different, you can’t physically fit a Japanese one into the slot of a western machine.



Most bootlegs come in a shell that’s the shape of the western cart, but with the notch cut in as well so it’ll fit both types of console.

I did not know that, that’s interesting. Was there any reason for it?

Our bad if we failed to cover this in the Mega Drive special.

The blog post that image is from should give you all the proper context:

https://nicole.express/2020/trademarks- ... locks.html

ratsoalbion wrote: ↑October 31st, 2020, 12:29 am Our bad if we failed to cover this in the Mega Drive special.

It’s possible you did and my fluff brain forgot.

Flabyo wrote: ↑October 31st, 2020, 8:31 am The blog post that image is from should give you all the proper context:

https://nicole.express/2020/trademarks- ... locks.html

Thanks!

I may be wrong about this, but I *think* the most common fake carts for GBA games say GAME where originally they said Nintendo?

Even when the GBA was still in production it was a problem, I ended up with at least two games off Ebay that were fakes (I was like 12, I didn't know better). Nintendo customer support was kind enough to replace one of them for me when it stopped working after a week.