Inlay

Profile

I write about gadgets at @Verge. Former @CNET @Gizmodo @Engadget. Avid gamer, lucky husband, happy dad! Maybe too blunt.

Sean Hollister

But they were BOTH BOOTLEGS! Real carts don't have dabs of black ooze, and they certainly aren't made by "Hihiohoo."

I stand corrected, black blobs of epoxy resin do appear in a few real games. Like my copy of Tetris:

With Game Boy carts, the best current way to tell if a cart is original Nintendo — other than opening it up — seems to be the two-digit code stamped into the label. Thankfully there are also other small signs in case bootleggers do that too.

bsky.app/profile/sean...

Here's my favorite example. Which of these Game Boy cartridges do you think is real?

Did you guess the Game Boy cart on the left was fake and the one on the right was real? That's what the GB Operator thinks too!

games are art, games increasingly let you create art with their art, and one person's even getting paid to help make that experience wonderful

Fake video game cartridges are widespread these days. Can this awesome USB-C gadget tell the difference? I took over 70 photos so you can see for yourself. www.theverge.com/games/902910...

Here are some real Golden Sun: The Lost Age carts (including my original one from when it was new) and how they look inside by comparison.