How to tell if you got a fake rom cart?

[Heilman11085]

Is there any indication that you may have a fake rom cart? Like is there any thing that displays on the scene? I had just heard stories of people buying games on eBay and they ended up being fake. So I wanted to check all the ones I have to make sure they are legit. Thanks!

[Super GDubs Fighter II Turbo: Championship Edition III]

if you're talking GBA, look at the bottom of the pins and look into the game.  If it has "Nintendo" in official font without the ring around the nintendo logo, it's legit.  Sometimes you'll see one with the oval ring around the logo.  More than likely, those are fake. Youtube it!

[pumanchero]

Is there any indication that you may have a fake rom cart? Like is there any thing that displays on the scene? I had just heard stories of people buying games on eBay and they ended up being fake. So I wanted to check all the ones I have to make sure they are legit. Thanks!

Open them up. The game code should be printed on the board (not always, take black box series games for the NES as an exception to the rule).
For NES games you can check this database http://bootgod.dyndns.org:7777/

[Heilman11085]

I am most worried about SNES games. From what I was told, if they have wires like this photo they are fake.

[pumanchero]

Yup, those are easy to tell fakes, but there are pirates that doesn't have wires at all, that's why you need to check for the game code. Take this Super Copa for example, the game code appears on the left chip (SNS-75).


There are VERY clever cons out there, specially when it comes to the SNES rare titles.

[BadChad]

Yeah, thats a reproduction cart.

For the most part, all you need to do is look for wires. No original board should have wires running around inside. Theres also the TSOP method to make reproductions, which is basically a programmed rom with specific assigned pinout locations so theres no need to use wires.

Those look like this:
http://i.imgur.com/OFNotJw.jpg

To be honest, you shouldnt have any issues telling if its fake or not once you look inside the cart. Its usually pretty obvious. From the outside, maybe not so easy if buddy knows how to make good quality reproduction labels.

EDIT: Heres a forum thread on NA about a couple people who bought Hagane reproductions on ebay.
http://www.nintendoage.com/auth/forum/messageview.cfm?StartRow=1&catid=8&threadid=90036

Apperently one guy even went out of his way to find Blockbuster Void stickers to put on the carts after he built them. Then said he got them from a closing out Blockbuster store. Talk about Greeeeeeeeeeeeheeeeheasy! And the funny thing was, we were just talking about this a few days about if there was any websites that sold reproductions of retail games. And I said I knew this kind of thing would happen sooner or later if you could. Now Im sure smost of the fakes so far, are probably sold by the people making them themselves, but imagine if everyone could just buy a reproduction of a retail game from a website advertising they do so? They'd be all over the place.

I hope the kinda shit comes to end REAL fast!

[Heilman11085]

Dude that Hagane game looks fucking amazing!

[tiktektak]

As an avid NG collector I can say the best way to tell a repro is by looking at the solder points. Even the best conversion or repro will have hand soldering!