I am vexed by the fact the Game Boy Advance and DS second hand market is saturated by fake games

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chase210
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I am vexed by the fact the Game Boy Advance and DS second hand market is saturated by fake games

Post by chase210 »

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
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Alex79
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Re: I am vexed by the fact the gameboy advance and DS second hand market is saturated by fake games.

Post by Alex79 »

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?
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chase210
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Re: I am vexed by the fact the gameboy advance and DS second hand market is saturated by fake games.

Post by chase210 »

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.
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Re: I am vexed by the fact the gameboy advance and DS second hand market is saturated by fake games.

Post by Flabyo »

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.
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chase210
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Re: I am vexed by the fact the gameboy advance and DS second hand market is saturated by fake games.

Post by chase210 »

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.
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Re: I am vexed by the fact the gameboy advance and DS second hand market is saturated by fake games.

Post by Flabyo »

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.

Image

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.
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chase210
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Re: I am vexed by the fact the gameboy advance and DS second hand market is saturated by fake games.

Post by chase210 »

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.

Image

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?
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Re: I am vexed by the fact the gameboy advance and DS second hand market is saturated by fake games.

Post by ratsoalbion »

Our bad if we failed to cover this in the Mega Drive special.
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Re: I am vexed by the fact the Game Boy Advance and DS second hand market is saturated by fake games

Post by Flabyo »

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

https://nicole.express/2020/trademarks- ... locks.html
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chase210
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Re: I am vexed by the fact the gameboy advance and DS second hand market is saturated by fake games.

Post by chase210 »

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!
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Re: I am vexed by the fact the Game Boy Advance and DS second hand market is saturated by fake games

Post by Megadirt »

I may be wrong about this, but I *think* the most common fake carts for GBA games say GAME where originally they said Nintendo?
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Re: I am vexed by the fact the Game Boy Advance and DS second hand market is saturated by fake games

Post by JadePhoenix »

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.
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