Nintendo / Pokémon

How to spot fake Pokémon games

Even before Pokémon product prices shot started shooting through the roof (I’m blaming L*gan P*ul and his rich white boy ass), fake Pokémon carts were rife. The above image was taken by a Redditor who spotted a fake and real copy of Pokémon SoulSilver in a Gamestop, both selling for £44.99. In the UK, CEX regularly stocks fake Pokémon GBA games at exorbitant prices. They’re difficult to detect if you don’t know the signs but Nadine Dornieden has put together a great guide to help you spot the fake ones for iMore.

Note: Nadine’s iMore guide only covers Pokémon games for the Nintendo DS (DPP, HGSS, BW/B2W2) but the principles are still the same—check the cart!

Real US copy of HeartGold (left) and EU copy (right), via Nadine Dornieden / iMore

The key tips are to find a picture of a real cart’s front and back and compare it to what you see out in the wild. Logos will be different as will the fonts and printing quality. Of course, if you don’t care about authenticity, it won’t matter as much but vendors are selling fakes at the same price as real ones when the fake ones could fail much quicker and lose save data. You can actually trade with fake ones (I’ve tried and succeeded) but you could also get ROM-loaded cartridges for much cheaper if you just want to play the game or download them if you know where and how.

Read the guide and save some money.

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