Hi,

I got a copy of Turtles In Time (NTSC-SNES) recently. At first, everything seemed OK. The weight and shape of the cart seemed right to me, so I was hopeful the game was legitimate. However, when I checked the PCB, I noticed something irregular: the board appears to be lacking a capacitor near the bottom left hand corner on the reverse side (i.e. where the chips are). Please see the pictures I've attached for a better idea of the issue.

If you look at the picture labaled "turtles3b," please pay close attention to the area directly above the gold "Nintendo" text emblazoned on the board itself. In my experience, SNES games have a capacitor here whether they're NTSC or PAL so this raised a red flag with me almost immediately.

Now, I'm by no means an expert on authenticating games, and I've tried to do my due dilligence and research this; but either I'm looking in the wrong places or this is highly unusual because no other SNES game boards I've ran across seem to be missing capacitors in this area. The PCB Archive on SNES central didn't have any information about this at all, and I don't know anybody expert enough to ask IRL.

The seller has vouched for the game's authenticity, but frankly I remain doubtful. I appreciate that I'm a newcomer to the forum, but I need to know whether or not I should return this to the seller soon, so any help with this matter would be greatly appreciated. Thanks for reading.

It's legit just missing capacitor 

The ROM chip and CIC match SNES central and it looks authentic to me. I wonder if the capacitor broke off at some point.

If a capacitor is missing, shouldn't it affect the performance of the game in some way?

Thanks to all those who replied.

Yes, I was able to see the PCB's chip codes matched up to the ones pictured on SNES Central, but what really concerned me was the lack of a capacitor (either through manufacturing error or damage by a previous owner).

I'm not technically knowledgable enough to tell if not having a capacitor will render the PCB useless or not. I don't want to risk hanging on to a cart that, unbeknownst to me, might be fundamentally damaged. What do you think, everyone: should I just be cautious and return this or not?

I think a capacitor just regulates the voltage so if you can leave it on for a few hours and play through it fine then I wouldn't care. It's not any less valuable.

Just find a capacitor of the same value and solder one on. It's easy and if you can't do it I'm sure a local gamestore or electronic repair shop can do it, shouldn't cost a whole lot

Agreed
 

There is absolutely nothing suspect about that board. The unpopulated cap looks like a voltage filter and was probably determined to be unnecessary somewhere in the production history. It's 100% fine as is. For future reference do so basic reading on detecting fakes before starting a panic thread.

Thanks for replying, everyone. I genuinely appreciate it.

With respect, Lincoln, I made it clear in my previous posts that I had researched PCBs prior to posting, and I was concerned about the missing capacitor due to the lack of relevant information available - hence why I decided to reach out to more technically knowledgeable people directly for help. I didn't have the time to trawl through countless posts in the hope of finding an answer to this very specific issue; like I said earlier, I needed to know whether or not to return it quickly. In future, perhaps you should read the whole post before just assuming the worst and leaving a condescending reply.