Yes that's a very common thing. I don't know how extensive NA's hardware reference is. Bootgod's site is probably better but even he is missing stuff.
Http://Bootgod.dyndns.org:7777/...

Wait, how long has this been here? Holy hell it's about time. And yeah as said above, it's a Nintendo custom chip, anything marked with Nintendo's numbers obviously isn't a generic chip, so it's real.

When I have a moment I'll see about making better pictures for the 2nd post guide. But the surest way to protect yourself is to trust in product codes. NintendoAge seems to have nearly every product code entered into the NES and SNES database lists. Just open your suspect game, look up the game title on NintendoAge and see if the product code is written on the ROM(s).

That makes sense.  There are probably tons of hardware profiles for some games.  I didn't see mine on his site either, though he has a few more than the NA database. Your comment here is very valuable for future enquirers.  Just because your specific chip numbers don't show up in a hardware database, that doesn't mean your board is fake. 

Very good information all around. I think that we could improve the second post by incorporating Vectex's comment on bootgod, possibly with some text explaining the database. I also think that a more nuanced explination of EPROMs would be helpful. I think explaining that some games had them stock, and some manufactures (Wisdom Tree) are know to have used EPROMs and mask ROMs on the same title.

EEPROMs work fine for NES repros. OTP EPROM = one-time programmable, which means you get one shot to get it right. They aren't erasable like windowed EPROMs. Otherwise they function the same.

Also if anyone else has questions, this is the place to ask. Would rather keep all this fenced in to one place on the boards.

My Little Samson board doesn't look quite like the one on bootgod. Notice the hole missing in the top right corner? My copy also has the older short text back label. Does anybody else have one that looks like this, just kinda worried.

Nothing to worry about, very common for a revised board to be used during production. What is the revision number along the right side (NES-TLROM-XX)?

LS is found with either back label. Lots of data to verify that. No worries if you have one or the other.

03

That's the same as the one in bootgod's list. Kind of funny that circle is different, but otherwise they appear identical. It's a trivial thing since everything else checks out. Mask roms look legit and that's the major thing. The board and components, other than that circle, are legit too.

Side by side comparison for anyone who's interested.

I had been researching a while how to spot fake/reproduction SNES games and I never fully understood what to look for until I found this thread this morning.

Below is a photo of my PAL copy of Secret of Mana, now I understand that and read somewhere that I can type the number of the masked rom into Google, the chip that is in the to left of the PCB board in this image. My question is, which one do I search for? I know there are 4 lines and one of them came up with no results as where at least 2 came up with results that were rubbish.



EDIT:

Noticed that the image is too small to see the info on the masked rom chip, so here is a cropped and close up version:

You want line number 3, the one that says "SPAL-K2-0". The other numbers pertain to metadata about the ROM chip.

SPAL means Super NES PAL. In America it would say SNS. In Japan, it would say SHVC.

K2 is the game's product code given by Nintendo. You can look up nearly all product codes here on NintendoAge's database. K2 is Secret of Mana.

0 denotes the revision of the game code. 0 means revision 1.0, or REV00 as you sometimes see online. Some games had one or more revisions.

Many thanks for the info, much appreciated. I am now checking my DKC 3, which the chip says A3CP which matches that on the database, I am right believing that this is also authentic?

Yes, it's authentic. The product code Nintendo used appears in two forms. There's "SNS-K2-0" and "SNS-AK2E-USA".

For your DKC3 product code "A3CP", the A doesn't mean a whole lot, the P means PAL. 3C refers to the game itself, like K2 means Secret of Mana.

I suspect that my copy of Super Dodge Ball might be a bootleg. The chips look like originals but the copyright on the board says 1987 and the back of the cart says 1985 but the game was not released until 1989.

Can anyone here tell me if it's fake or not?

^ product code (NES-ND-O) matches up:
http://nintendoage.com/index.cfm?...

Those dates don't matter, since the same boards and cart shell designs were used for many games over the years.

Ok, that's good to know. Thanks for the info!

I have no idea how the hell I missed this thread - the information in here is invaluable.

Thank you to everyone who answered common questions I've been wondering about forever!

I made an update to the first post with some picture guides, let me know what you guys think.

So I have a guy who is offering an Aero Fighters cart as part of a trade and I want to know what to look for. Scanning ebay auctions it seems there are a bunch of questionable carts sold. In particular I'm looking at this one:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/161569572...

1st, what's up with the label? It looks different than the obviously legit label, but I don't know if it's a brazil label or a straight up fake or what.
2nd, what's up with the board? snes central says there should be 2 mask roms, and that single rom doesn't have the game code anywhere on it. is it an old pirate or brazil or legit or what?

That Aero Fighters cart in the eBay listing looks like a modern bootleg to me. The label has tell-tale signs of fuzzy lines and low resolution, not enough for tiny details to appear sharp. That and the ROM inside looks to be an EEPROM or a OTP EPROM, going by the lack of Nintendo product code and the MX parts number printed instead.

wow you're right, 29f1615pc is an EEPROM. the legit Nintendo cic was throwing me off. I can't believe somebody went in for $500 on that.

Looks like it's time to start hocking fake SNES games if they sell that easily and that high.

SMH

Thanks for this is thread. Bookmarked.

It's sad how many fake games are being made and sold now adays on eBay.

NA and in the wild is the only place I'll trust any high end games.