so I'm pretty new to this stuff but I always hear folks mention wanting to see the circuit board before purchasing rarer games.  I was wondering how one is able to verify a games authenticity by looking at its board?  Is there some sort of known serial number printed on it?

After I make this post, can we sticky this thread?

Look carefully at this picture, using SNES as an example. NES and Genesis boards look similar.



Where it says ROM is the part of the board you want to look at. In that picture, right now that ROM chip is a mask ROM. That is what every retail NES / SNES / Genesis cartridge should contain.

If you see this (EPROM):



Or this (one time programmable EPROM):


Or this (TSOP flash on adapter):



IT IS A FAKE.

If you're at all confused, IN PRODUCT CODES WE TRUST.

Since pictures are better than text. Here's a couple picture guides for you:





Every Nintendo game is given a product code. Here's the one for Super Mario World:

SNS-MW-USA

That product code is printed on the box, manual, cartridge label and mask ROM for Mario World. If the Mask ROM has no Nintendo product code, it will probably be a OTP EPROM instead, thus fake.

NintendoAge has nearly every product code for NES and SNES listed, just search. Here is Mario World's entry:

http://nintendoage.com/index.cfm?...

Lastly, sometimes a non-valuable game will have a replacement for the mask ROM, or there will be two ROM chips and only one is a mask ROM. These are probably repairs, not fakes. Not everything of this sort is malicious with the intent of scamming.

MOD EDIT: If you're not sure about NES games, you can always compare them to the board scans available on http://bootgod.dyndns.org:7777...
If some of the numbers on the chips don't match, that doesn't necessarily mean your game is fake. It usually only means that the game was produced at another date.

thanks boss. That was super helpful

Good post Guntz! Bookmarked for future reference.

Very valuable information there. Can't stress enough how import Guntz post is.

Sticky bump

With the ammount of fake posts being made every day i agree this info should be stickied so new users have something to reference.

That TSOP flash just looks messy, that would be a red flag for me even if I knew nothing about this. Thanks for the great post!

The pictured TSOP flash adapter is an ugly example. Properly installed ones look a lot better. Most of the popular SNES repros (like RPGs) contain such an adapter, otherwise you'd need multiple EPROMs tied together with some logic hardware, which is significantly less reliable than a flash chip on an adapter.

Yep, sticky this. Also, if you're buying NES stuff, this site is your best friend

http://bootgod.dyndns.org:7777/...

This is a worthy stick, I agree. Great info.

Sticky worthy based on the superb combo or Guntz's and Vectrex's post.

Anybody have more great resources to contribute? Might as well,get as much in here as we can.

I'm in favor of a sticky as well. Will definitely help in the long run. Especially with the amount of makes going around now and having this information as our fingertips would be a blessing.

Am I mistaken, Guntz, or is your 2nd chip an EEPROM, which wouldn't be a OTP, that would be the EPROM?

I could gather some more pictures for extra clarification.


The site said it was a OTP EPROM. I don't think the average EEPROM would work in place of a ROM chip.

There are some Amtel EEPROM's that I've used for Earthbound Zero and some others. OTP's generally have the window while solid ones are EEPROM's, though I suppose there could be the oddities, or I'm just thinking of something else and I'm completely wrong, which is very possible lol

Please sticky for our decendents

Are people selling fake versions of the three Panisan games we all know about? Just curious because I'm thinking about investing in bubble bath babes soon. I assume I need shots of the board and I'll post them here to verify before payment.

The Panesian games are one of the only exceptions to the guide I posted, but really most unlicensed games shouldn't be counted like officially licensed games. I'm pretty sure they use EPROMs. As for the boards, I don't know. The shells are apparently unique to Panesian, but are similar looking to Color Dreams / Sachen.

As long as you know what the real Panesian carts look like, I don't think you'll see too many truly authentic-looking fakes.

Though I could be wrong too.

Panesians definitely use EPROMs. I've seen pics of their boards and did a research to find that they do use EPROMs.
This also means that all Panesians will stop working at some point.

Thank god.

We'll most likely be all gone before they stop working. Besides, if they use EPROMS, it would take a minute to fix it

Huzzah, it has been stickied! Hopefully we will have fewer repeats of this kind of thread now.

Thanks, now I know what to look out for

I just got a copy of Donkey Kong Jr. Math, and I just read this thread so I used that game to test out the process here.  I have no reason to believe that someone faked that game, and I believe that the board is legit.  However, it doesn't match the Hardware Profile here: http://nintendoage.com/index.cfm?...

I think I just have an older board.  Am I right?  Can there be different boards for a game and ones that aren't listed in the NA database?  If so, is there a way to get the database updated to include them? 

Here is a pic of my board:



Thanks!