I thought some folks might find this of interest, so I'll crosspost:

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I finally got me a tri-wing screwdriver dirt cheap, so I thought I'd start opening <b>everything ever</b> that uses those silly screws. Namely, my Gamecube controller to try and fix the C stick, and some GBA cartridges.

Once upon a time, a buddy gave me his Advance Wars 2 cart, because he suspected it of being a pirate, and he wanted a real version. It's not very hard to determine the legitimacy of it, considering the back says <b>Nintondo</b>.



But upon opening it, it's clearly cheaply made, using big'ol epoxy splotches to cover the roms instead of using actual chips. It also uses an actual battery with some sram, instead of a nice piece of flash memory. I opened up my genuine Zero Mission cart so you can get a good idea of the difference in quality:



This company has probably taken Nintendo for hundreds of thousands of dollars selling these bootlegs, possibly millions depending on how many different carts they produce, so it's really no wonder companies like Nintendo go to so much trouble to add region checks and all that sort of stuff, in at least some small attempt at preventing everybody and their brother from producing pirated versions.

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If anyone else has any pirate or bootleg stuff, I'd be curious to see that as well!

He ordered it from Ebay, I believe. Though I can't remember if he paid normal price or what. He musta gotten it somewhat cheaper to have warranted getting it there as opposed to a store.

One time I had shoes that I found out were made with about the same craftsmanship as that cart.

They later exploded.

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If you think you're right, you're probably wrong.
If you think you're wrong, you're being negative.
My thoughts are definitive; the universe is frequently wrong.