Are these SNES Pirates?

[ClassicGamer]

I just found a lot of SNES games on Kijiji, and noticed that some of them look at bit off.
What's going on with Super Mario World, Super Tennis, and Super Ghosts and Ghouls? The bottoms of the cartidges look different.


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• __KGrHqV__pcE_v8GkcE_BP3Jp6TyH___48_20.jpg (116.66 KB)

[Awesome Panda]

I'm not familiar with US SNES carts, but I assume they are. It looks like whoever made them got confused with the Super Famicom/European cart designs or something.

[Pepper-98]

Yeah, the others are typical U.S. carts, while the games in question seem to be a mixture between U.S. and European/Japanese carts.  I've never seen official carts over here with that oval slit at the bottom, so whoever bootlegged them likely got their designs mixed up.

[Awesome Panda]

Qiezei

Jun 18 2012, 07:27:10 AM

Yeah, the others are typical U.S. carts, while the games in question seem to be a mixture between U.S. and European/Japanese carts.  I've never seen official carts over here with that oval slit at the bottom, so whoever bootlegged them likely got their designs mixed up.[/quote]Sounds about right. Seems kind of pointless as well, as I doubt those carts would fit in a European SNES.

[taizou]

Maybe they were made to fit in both. Can't see any other reason why they would have done it, other than maybe to get around a design patent on the original cart.

[codeman38]

They're legit. The first generation of North American carts were designed like that. (I had a first-gen US SNES, and that is exactly what the bundled Super Mario World looked like.)

They were designed this way so that the cartridge couldn't be removed while the system was powered on-- the power switch was connected to a plastic bit that slid into the notch when the switch was pushed in.

I can't recall why they changed it or when... something to do with cartridges being too easy to get stuck, I think?

Edit: Looking around other forums... there's no official explanation, but the consensus seems to be that yeah, the design was changed because people tried to yank the cartridge out without the power switch all the way in the 'off' position and ended up breaking their systems that way. -_- Guess even Nintendium has limits on its indestructibility...

[taizou]

ah, I never knew that - I only ever had European carts, I thought the US versions had used the later design from the beginning. Wonder why they thought that change was necessary in the US but not in any other region?

[ClassicGamer]

So would I need a first-gen SNES to play them?

[Pepper-98]

I think they would work on any U.S. SNES system.  Nothing got changed that would make it not fit into it.

[taizou]

Nah - if my understanding is correct, any US SNES will play either revision of cart. Can't see any reason why not anyway.

edit: oh Qiezei beat me to it. by seconds!