Bootleg GBA game?

cyborg2040

cyborg2040

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I just bought a Japan copy of Sonic Advance on eBay. I noticed that it does't save, and the font on the front of the cart is different than my other games. On top of that the Pat pending info is missing from the back. Does anybody know if this is a bootleg, or is it a legit release?

Here are some pics of the cart.


FRONT
sonicadvance1.jpg


BACK
sonicadvance2.jpg
 
Lots of bootlegs on ebay. The best way that I know to tell if it's fake or not is to look for Nintendo printed on the pcb in front of the gold pins

A little hard to make out in thsi pictures but this has the date then nintendo then the AGB number printed on the pcb

Dscn6187e.jpg


Also if the seller was from Hong Kong and the price was too good to be true it's almost guaranteed to be a fake.
 
I found Nintendo printed on the pins on my "Link to the past" game just to make sure I was able to see it, but it's not on the Sonic Advance game.

It didn't desolve in the glass of milk though. j/k
 
[quote name='Ace Harding: Private Eye']Dip it in milk. If it dissolves, it's a bootleg.[/quote]

Apparently it's cool to say stupid things here. Been seeing it more and more lately.

Bootleg GBA titles are all over ebay. Most of them just grab the roms off the internet and push it onto flash with a fancy label. DS titles have bootlegs but they're much easier to spot due to the contacts being quite different.
 
You'd think the label would at least have the Nintendo seal somewhere seeing as it is a GBA game...
 
The thing I don't understand is this. The flash carts I've priced are anywhere from $60.00 USD to $180.00 USD. So it doesn't seem like it would be worth it to sell a bootleg copy of the game, even at retail price.

I was wanting to play old NES games on my GBA, but the price of those carts alone will prevent me from doing that.
 
On top of that the Pat pending info is missing from the back.
Click to expand...

Japan and the US don't share the same patent office or laws, so I doubt they'd list the same warnings, especially in English.
The thing I don't understand is this. The flash carts I've priced are anywhere from $60.00 USD to $180.00 USD. So it doesn't seem like it would be worth it to sell a bootleg copy of the game, even at retail price.
Click to expand...
These aren't the kind of flash carts you're talking about. This is a cheaply produced knock off that isn't meant to be rewritten to like kind you mentioned.
 
Another thing about that cart is that it appears to have a phillips head screw and not a tri-wing, that in itself is a dead giveaway
 
[quote name='BigDirty']Another thing about that cart is that it appears to have a phillips head screw and not a tri-wing, that in itself is a dead giveaway[/quote]


Yup, that and the label. Look at how sloppily the label is stuck onto the front of the cart. Its crooked and overlaps on one side. Almost like it was stuck on there by hand and not by a machine. ;)
 
No it is a tri head screw. As far as the cheap label goes, it fell off a few days ago lol.

The game plays fine (so far) but it will not save at all. At least I learned from this. Now I check all my GBA games to make sure they are the real deal.
 
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