Gaming my leafgreen looks like it has a bootleg chip (just some research)

[migles]

i dissembled my leaf green to find the save memory is not a mx chip like all the other ones.
i was expecting either some MX or samsung memory however this thing doesn't even have a brand...
this cartridge is not fake, (note the rest of the board, it's the real deal) it is european (originally from netherlands, it had a dutch box)
all the other cartridges in the picture are american except for sapphire which is also european (i noticed that other than a different sticker, there is no difference...)

if you see closely, the board of leafgreen was printed with the size of that chip into account (not sure of the others also has the "stripes" behind their chips...

i am wondering.. is this a repaired\refurbished cartridge or is one of the later cheaper production batches?
the game is the 1.1 version btw (there exist 2 english versions)
can soneone iddentify the brand and if this thing is actually reliable or is some chinese knock off chip?

 

[Tom Bombadildo]

Googling the serial number on the chip brings me to some Japanese blog of someone who also takes a look at carts, but the Google translation was too shoddy to make out anything concrete. The most I could find was that they assumed it was made from MX, but was just a later reproduction.

Other than that, I found absolutely nothing about it anywhere. I've checked some of the more popular fakes, and none of them appear to be the same as far as I can tell.

 

[Kannisto]

Edit. Nevermind.

 

[tvoretz]

I'm going with it being a later production run, and whoever made the chip was able to shrink it down to save on raw materials.

 

[migles]

Leaf green and fire red don't use batteries. The other pokemon games do tho. Sorry it looks like you've got a bootleg.

hu?

the 3 top ones are emerald saphira and ruby, they do have a battery for RTC..
my leaf green doesn't (and didn't) have a battery.. and look at the pcb, i am sure they are all genuine..

could you explain more?

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------

Googling the serial number on the chip brings me to some Japanese blog of someone who also takes a look at carts, but the Google translation was too shoddy to make out anything concrete. The most I could find was that they assumed it was made from MX, but was just a later reproduction.

Other than that, I found absolutely nothing about it anywhere. I've checked some of the more popular fakes, and none of them appear to be the same as far as I can tell.

thanks tom, i just searched on google at random and found a cart that looked like mine which this blog talks about theese being latter production
https://chieftain20.wordpress.com/2014/05/17/complete-guide-to-authentic-gba-pokemon-games/

 

[Lumstar]

I was under the impression that typically bootlegs of these games try to look American. You're safer with Europe and Australia ones.

 

[Melter]

definitely not fake. that's just a reprint using smaller chip to save on production costs. It's probably a player's choice print of the game.

 

[poipo32]

I don't remember where I stumbled on one of those before, but I can tell you that a collector was able to confirm this was a real cartridge.
He had purchased it new and still had the box it came in.

I have also seen this type of chip on other GBA games I opened, and I can assure you those were originals.
Also this cartridge has no usual tell of being a bootleg, one of the most damning tells is when you start the game, a bootleg will say something along the lines of "The save file can be played", whereas a real game will not say anything unless you turned it off while it was saving.