/vr/ - Retro Games

>>9221489
Feel of cartridge, color of label, blurry font. Just carry a game bit to make sure it's legit.

>>9221489
the texture of the label is a giveaway. it will also have a combination of two numbers and/or letters printed on the back if it's legit.

>>9221489
Usually it's the bigger titles that are gonna be fakers. Super Mario RPG, Super Metroid, Chrono Trigger, Earthbound, etc.

The circuit boards of repros are often blue, and the stickers look unnecessarily glossy as well. The font is odd and blrury often as well. Anything under 20-30 bucks isn't usually repro'd as hard, but I accidentally bought a repro DKC2 once. Shit happens. Just make sure with the expensive games.

>>9221489
paper will always be glossy if it's a made in japan label, if its made in mexico they didnt use the glossy paper

check the corners on the labels, look for machine perfect rounded edges, when in doubt, tell them to fucking open the cart

pretty sure this image is lying, the right one looks real and im not even saying that because of the faded looking label. the left one's screw holes are too big and it lacks the textured plastic although that might just be lighting. anyway, aside from opening it up and looking at the board, your best bet is to look for signs of use like small scuffs that only appear when tilted and hit with direct light, or pins that have been slightly worn from inserting/removing, not to mention differences in weight, color, etc.

>>9221489
the back label usually has a number stamped into it near "important warning"

Open the cart up. "© 199X Nintendo" will be printed on the PCB in a corner on a real cart.

Buy a set of gamebit drivers and triwing screwdrivers or whatever and just check the boards
Any legit seller selling a game for more than $50 will allow you to check the board (usually they'll want to open it up themselves though if it's a store or an experienced seller)
If you're buying online ask to see pictures of the board, or just seek out listings that already have pictures (again, most experienced sellers will happily provide evidence that their real copy is actually real).

Then just know what the board looks like on a legit copy, simple as
Looking at the print quality, the texture of the paper and plastic, all that stuff - really cool, but repro cart makers have gotten really fucking savvy over the years. Some of them even match the bottom bit of the board you can check by peeking inside without opening it up. But the entire board is the one thing they don't bother trying to reproduce, so it's really the only way to know for sure

And then if a seller is like, "Woah dude, I'm not taking apart my game for some stranger" just thank them for their time and walk away. At best, they don't know what they're doing and aren't worth your time anyway.

OP here, thanks for the replies
I'm wondering, are current SNES cart prices ''high'' ? Did the Snes mini that they released a few years ago lower the price of games ?

>>9221616
The SNES mini didn't change much. The Coof shot prices up and they've never returned to "normal". So yeah they're higher than usually right now, but there's no sign that's going to change anytime soon.

>>9221616
This is a good resource, but obviously it's not the be all and end all
https://www.pricecharting.com/console/super-nintendo

I think most of the people who grew up with the SNES who will get into collecting already have, and bought up most of what they're ever going to buy, so I think prices are gonna slow down but I highly doubt they're ever going to fall in a meaningful way.

>>9221489
If you're buying off ebay, make sure they take a picture of the inside of the cart if it's an expensive game. Get yourself the tools off amazon to open carts yourself for maintenance.

>enjoy anon
>also 40 y-o boomer here
>picrel
>most of my SNES collections, sans boxes and other accoutrements

>>9221732
How do you take out a game to play with a layout like that?

>>9221750
You just pull it out. It's a drawer.

>>9221489
>, is there a sure way to tell when a game is authentic or do the ''clues'' vary for each game?
Open the cart up and look at the PCB itself. You're looking to see if it was made with actual chips and is a full-sized board. Real ones also tend to use real coin batteries, through-hole capacitors/resistors (the black and striped barrel looking things here), and the PCB should say Nintendo and the year it released. Also note that the board and chips say SHVC on them, those letters were used by Nintendo to denote that something was being made for the Super Nintendo.

>>9221489
>Something that I didn't know is there seem to be a lot of reproduction games out there
snes repos have existed since the 90s, as a child we had a repo cart the we swapped for a real one at a blockbusters cause ether repo couldn't save.

>>9221949
OP here
Are you living in North America ?
I remember buying things like Super Metroid, Super mario RPG or Final Fight 2-3 in canada for like $20-30 in Canada, in the early 2000s. We didnt have repros back then

>>9221489
the only real way to tell is to open the cart up. the pcb will be completely different.
also I am looking to get rid of my snes collection, what games are you looking for in particular/do you need the console

>>9221489
The Nintendo engraving on the back always looks completely wrong compared to a real SNES cart.

>>9221489
Are you actually going to play and enjoy the games are just hoard them?

>>9222119
>I'm going to collect stamps
>"Uhhh are you ever gonna mail any LETTERS??"

>>9221963
Nope Australia. Was around '98-99 when we had it as my family only bought games from pawn shops or markets as we were pretty poor.

>>9222139
Retarded comparison.

>>9221489
29yo boomer here is now the time to sell all my classic videogames for the most profit? I have a decent collection.

>>9222363
Now is the time to stop larping and get a life.

If the game runs reliably and saves reliably then it doesn’t matter.

If they’re so well nade that you need to fucking open it to tell the difference, who cares if they’re fake.

>>9222453
So yes sell all this shit to the elder millenials?

>>9222615
This is why there are twice as many earthbound carts today than there were in 1996. So many collectors dont mind owning fakes if it is a good enough fake.

>>9222453
>>9222363
Supply of retro hardware can never go up so the odds of the prices going down ever very slim.

The longer you hold onto it in good condition the more it's going to be worth. However it's up to you to decide if you'd really rather wait 20 years to sell your game for $60 rather than $30.

>>9222953
I think it's just consumer ignorance.

>>9222203
Not that anon, but I don't think it's that huge of a difference. Ultimately I think both options are valid (collecting or using). I don't think it makes sense to shame collectors because it's not like they're depriving players of something - there are a million functionally equivalent options for playing snes games that don't require the original carts, ranging from simple emulation to FPGA/repro hardware all the way up to repro carts on the original console, if the physical hardware experience is really important to you.
I also don't think it makes sense to shame players, because pretty much everything important about the cart has been archived to hell and back. That's evidenced by the fact that people can produce repro carts that, up until you literally unscrew and open it up, look and perform identically to the original thing. If the owner plays the cart and eventually it dies out, there's nothing wrong with that, and all that was lost was a sentimentally valuable chunk of plastic. The only thing irreplaceable about it is its barely tangible authenticity.

>>9222961
the problem with repros is a lot of them are chinese crap with shit build quality, and if its being scammed as a real cartridge (which they often are) you have no way of knowing if its a high quality repro or not.

>>9222203
If you don't understand why people enjoy collecting things, then to you I would say
>no YOU'RE the retard

>>9222967
Half the collectors seem to treat them as nothing more than props. They are aspiring streamers and all streamers are required to keep a shelf of retro games behind them with all labels on display. It is like the male version of the instagram whores who stage every photo to farm online credibility.

These people dont even blink at using fakes because no one is going to look close enough at their collection, it is just important they have the right mix of popular and semi-rare Nintendo titles on display. There will always be an earthbound, a chrono trigger, a megaman X, a super metroid and maybe a mario RPG. These are the core props in the “I want to look like an authentic gamer” starter kit. Maybe diversify for the cool sega stuff but that actually costs money unlike SNES reprocarts. Expensive props like virtuaboys and old failed handhelds are also popular choices.

>>9222139
Well?

>>9221489
if it's a cheap game no one's probably gonna waste time bootlegging it

>>9223003
You're talking like The Quartering is taken seriously, or even liked/respected by anybody instead of a hack grifter parasitically feeding off the culture war

>>9222957
Eventually the price drops, or plateaus, probably sooner than later.
As the economy takes a shit, the first thing people want to get rid of is stuff like this that they dont really need, so the market floods without an increase in demand to make up for it, that will cause a price drop. Additionally a majority of the value of retro games is in their nostalgia factor.
In theory, a graph of the value of a game should look like a wave, high at launch, low near obsolescence, a small peak at discontinuation, a gradual drop after that, another peak about a few years or so later from renewed interest, another drop, yet another peak about a decade after that from nostalgia purchases when the original buyers have their first amount of disposable income and time, then a drop after a few years as those people become parents, followed by a very sharp spike when those people retire and once again have disposable income and time, with an equally sharp drop when those people start to die off.
You can see it best with the car market, a lot of people would assume that cars from before 1950 would be super expensive 100k plus investments only for the rich boomers, when in reality unless they go to some well known auction house that specializes in that kind of thing, they typically only sell for 5-10k. I see stuff from the 20's and 30's going for even less than that pretty often. Granted they're not super clean showroom examples with only 20 miles on them, but they work. The people who owned them are dead, the people who had nostalgia for them are dead or dying, the market for them has fallen out and is now relegated to people who simply think its "neat".
The Atari 2600 is another good example of this. the people who were kids in the 70's already had their time with collecting it 20+ years ago. The value of those games and systems went up, and then back down. Now they're starting to retire and in the next decade or so the price will probably go back up again.

>>9221508

Why would the reproducers not just reproduce letters and numbers though? Are they stupid or something?

>>9223270
>Eventually the price drops, or plateaus, probably sooner than later.
people have been saying this since 2009

lmao, it only goes up

>>9223126
No that is all streamers ever, I don't even know who this is I just picked a random pic on someone with a generic retro prop collection. There were many to choose from.

>>9221489
>>9221732
I don't get it, why not just get a flashcart? All I'm seeing here is a lot of wasted space on unneeded plastics.

>>9223003
>quarterpounder
kek I remember his stream with metokur where he made a complete fool out of himself, good times

>>9223327
>I don't get it, why not just get a flashcart? All I'm seeing here is a lot of wasted space on unneeded plastics.

Because I've had most of these for the past 20-30 years, and bought most of the rest for really cheap in the early to mid 2000s? I've bought a few cheap and a few expensive ones since then.

>>9223346
not that anon but that's fair
any plans to get a flashcart anyway just to have all the games in one place and safeguard your saves?

>>9222957
>wait 20 years to sell your game for $60 rather than $30
Inflation halves the value of money every 20 years. So those are literally the exact same prices.

>>9223362

I have an SNES mini.

>>9223327
Cause I'm a real nigga don't care how you feel nigga

>>9221732
OP here
Looking at your games, a lot of those would interest me but unlike you I'd start from scratch with 2022 prices. Like right off the bat I'd need super metroid, Final Fantasy 2-3, super punch out and super contra. That's like $500 CAD right there

How's the SNES mini experience? I have an LG oled C1 as main tv

>>9223617
>How's the SNES mini experience? I have an LG oled C1 as main tv

It's better. I've played a game on the mini and on the SNES back to back on the same TV (OLED83C1PUA) and the HDMI inputs just make everything sound way better and look better. The Mini's scanlines are really good and it makes it look like I'm playing on a giant CRTV.

Oh shit. I just realized you have the same TV. Yeah it's CRTV good. Very happy with it even though it cost an arm and a leg.

>>9223635
Hell of a good tv isnt it?
I used to have a panasonic plasma 1080p and then upgraded to a Sony X900F 4K tv which was highly rated. But I thought it kinda sucked and missed my Plasma

41 yo boomer here

Just emulate everything.

lol

OP here
yeah fuck it I picked up a snes mini for 100 cad tonight
Will consider physical snes collecting in case I REALLY enjoy it or something

>>9224264
thats a really good deal these days

>>9224264
>paid 100 bucks for a gay miniature versiom of a console that cant even play original carts and emulates the games anyway when he could have just emulated everything for free, and better, on his PC
enjoy your purchase retard

>>9223003
Piss on my floor quarterpounder

>>9224264
You can always hack it and use it as test station to check out games you might be interested in.

>>9223275
my sealed Jag Doom i bought 5 years ago for 99 is now worth 349...

>>9223270
It will literally only go down if the economy straight up crashes and the apocalypse comes. Other than that, it's time to deal with the fact that you were like 15 years too late.

>>9223272
it's an imprint, not a print. it's probably too much hassle for chinks.

>>9221963
Repros have been around in the US for quite some time, I remember buying a loose copy of TO: The Knight of Lodis and it coming as a fake in 2003-2004. It had a limited production run and supply was scarce, causing the price for copies to go up when it succeeded beyond the expectations of the producer, so there was a lot of chink copies floating around.

Nowadays though, its so widespread that pretty much every retro game you can buy from ebay should be assumed fake without proper analysis. I don't think I'd mind too much if they were perfect reproductions and the only way to tell would be material analysis rather than visual identification, but most reproductions are off in some way.

OP here, just beat super mario world in one sitting from scratch (star portal'd my way to bowser). wont 100% it, time to move on to either zelda or ff3
snes mini pretty good so far

>>9226453
yeah mini consoles are mega comfy, idk why some of the /vr/os get so angry at the concept of them

>>9223272
They don't actually want to trick people, they're happy selling "good enough" quality bootlegs to people who like them

>>9226453
Nice. I did that for the first time ever a few days ago. No deaths, did it in about 15 minutes.

I didn't know this was a thing. A part of me wants to buy a SNES, get a SNES cartridge, burn the library of games I like on it and keep it as a backup/loan piece for friends

>>9221489
the time to buy was 10 years ago, just use an emulator

>>9221510
I got burned on contra alien wars. Didn't realize till I saw the plastic screws but it was too late to return then.

>>9221949
I did that with a bootleg FireRed, the battery wasn't seated well so I fixed it and sold it to a game store I didn't care for. I needed the money too.

>>9221489
why does it even matter?
both do the same thing

>>9227471
Not necessarily, cheap reproductions often have worse functionality. For example, newer GB and GBA bootlegs have a nasty tendency to shut the console down while saving if the battery is low.