“This Cartridge Is A Tiny Time Bomb” – Limited Run Accused Of Selling Carts Which Can Damage Your NES – Time Extension
GuestLogin | Sign UpTime ExtensionGuestUser”So far, I’ve caught them doing it with Rugrats and PioPow”Update [Wed 19th Feb 2025, 8am]:Limited Run has issued a statement:My email from Limited Run. Looks like my copy of Rugrats will just stay in the box.Original Story: Physical publisher Limited Run Games has been accused by one of its customers of selling NES cartridges which can potentially damage consoles.Jordi Gutiérrez Hermoso got in touch with Time Extension to explain the situation, pointing out that Limited Run has been publishing carts which cause voltage issues with original hardware. This is a topic that was explored in some detail by DB Electronics a few years ago; the problem is that there’s a mismatch between the 3.3V carts and the 5V systems they’re being used on.”So far, I’ve caught them doing it with Rugrats and PioPow,” Gutiérrez Hermoso tells us. He complained directly to Limited Run, pointing out that, although the cart has a voltage regulator, “it has no logic level translation. This means that the parts on the board constantly draw power from signals that are not intended to provide power and will damage the cart and my NES. This cartridge is a tiny time bomb for my electronics.”Gutiérrez Hermoso also points out that the game itself “has logical errors, which have since been patched on the Steam release, such as a 2-player softlock that will affect almost all players in a co-op run” and adds that he is “dismayed by the quality” of the product. “They agreed to give me a 50% refund and keep the game, which I have done,” he tells us.After submitting this complaint, Gutiérrez Hermoso received PioPow and found that it, too, was using the wrong voltage. “As you yourself have covered, Josh Fairhurst has reportedly said that bad production quality is fine because most customers never open the box, let alone play the game.”Gutiérrez Hermoso isn’t the only person who has flagged this issue; this Reddit post highlights the same problem but has been removed by moderators of the Limited Run subreddit.However, a reply is still visible, which says:I’m also out of patience with LRG due to lack of quality control on their NES boards they choose to publish on. The past 2-3 games I’ve purchased from them don’t function correctly because they’re clearly sourcing the cheapest boards possible.It’s very sad and upsetting that the only official release of Piopow was published on such low quality hardware. Find someone who has dumped the rom and save yourself from having to put this trash board in your NES.I’m actively lobbying NES developers to avoid publishing with LRG. These releases are an embarrassment to the NES development community.We’ve reached out to Limited Run Games and will update this piece when we hear back.”Kenji Eno deserves better than this”Update: Limited Run cites “restrictions””We will strive to do better” PrevNext About Damien McFerranDamien has been writing professionally about tech and video games since 2007 and oversees all of Hookshot Media’s sites from an editorial perspective. He’s also the editor of Time Extension, the network’s newest site, which – paradoxically – is all about gaming’s past glories. Comments 42With all the stories I’ve read of LRG’s quality control issues, I am amazed anyone trusts them with anything, devs or players.LRG really does not have any kind of quality control, do they?Wow, they’re the worst. How do they stay in business.I liked my Arzette special edition stuff, and am currently wearing said t-shirt under my work shirt. So good on THAT, but yeah, LRG been taking loads of Ls lately.Thanks for this information. I’ve been a LRG defender for some issues (e.g., open pre-orders are fine and not artificial scarcity IMO), but the number of problems with their vintage reprints is troubling. I will still use LRG for Switch releases, all of which I’ve been happy with, but I won’t consider them for NES/GB cartridges anymore.At this point their reputation is just garbage. I won’t be buying anything from LRG anymore and I really hope publishers start to use the other companies that make physical versions of games.Will LRG’s “SuperFX 3” version of Doom be using the wrong voltages? I bet id Software won’t be happy if LRG’s carts start bricking SNES consoles.It’s no wonder Josh Fairhurst seems to have disappeared online lately, this isn’t a good look.Buying standard physicals for modern consoles will be fine since they order game cards or discs from the platform’s own manufacturers, but this is really disappointing to hear their vintage stuff isn’t up to snuff.Yeah in the past months I’ve noticed this, gotten another NES cart with a loose chip in the shell (a bunch of solder points all let go together I guess), and they kept swapping my ‘defective’ Maniac Mansion carts until I realized they’d used a universal CIC and you just have to tap reset 3 times to set it to NTSC mode once then it is good forever, but they didn’t seem to know. I also was one that got the 3DO CD-Rs which at least they replaced, but only after saying it was because it was the only way they could find, but other have had no issues releasing homebrew on pressed disc for 3DO, nor did LRG once people were mad.I’ve given them up long ago. They should stick with modern releases where the console makers are still primarily making the carts/discs from what I understand. It should at least be true with Switch… but then you run into issues even then like LRG had with the Doom Classics set on Switch. All around bad QA.@Hastor LRG used to really genuinely push for preservation in their releases and printing cards with the latest and most-likely final updates, but as of late they’ve opted to print physicals as pre-orders for upcoming digital releases.I had this with Ninja Five-O and Glover, where the physicals arrived much earlier than their digital launches.Like you say, QA issues too. Ninja Five-O has pretty shocking issues in the v1.0 build where the animated video intro after the splash screens doesn’t play on Switch when in docked mode, and where the box art and manual sections of the gallery fail to display images. These aren’t small things, and for a project of this scope these sorts of issues shouldn’t be here.Specifically mentioning this because this was an LRG published and developed release under their “Carbon Engine”.People really shouldn’t give these charlatans any money.I actually feel a bit sorry for small developers having to deal with all this very nuinced crap that they probably didn’t forsee when the decided to get into the business of selling these cool retro games. But it is what is, and they now need to make sure everything is legit and not going to cause any potential serious issues for consumers.Worst in business for so many reasons and I can’t wait for companies to realize it and stop working with them. This is probably the most egregious, not caring about potential damage to old and valued hardware while supposedly being aligned with a very dedicated segment of gamers.That’s what they get for injecting each individual cart with Reptar Cereal.As someone who prefers to buy physical copies of games whenever possible, I appreciate what LRG does…But I can’t fathom why they would produce carts, with the intent of people using them on original hardware, if they have the potential to fry your hardware. They really need to test their products before selling them the way they do.Keeping to official modern console published games from LRG is your best bet. Those games are printed by the console companies themselves. So no worry with those. You run a risk when you get these retro releases anywhere, including Limited Run Games.@GeekAffinity – it’s not a mystery and something that’s been discussed in the past, there was outcrry many years ago regarding Everdrives being similar, which have all been corrected and those have been fine for a long time.Overall the reason is pretty simple – cost – and the games still ‘work’ just like your car works on a rough road, but wears the tires more quickly. But also, good luck proving to anyone that it was definitely that road that did it and not just that your tires weren’t as good as you thought etc. It is a case where it is difficult to measure or observe any damage realtime, but over time, it isn’t great. They drove it down that road once, the tires still look fine, road must be fine. Use the cheaper pavement!I don’t think they are unaware of any of this, they just know most people will never complain and chalk up a dead NES to being old, if they even open the game. They sell enough that never open it to where that would be worth doing it for them.Just look at Doom Classics for Switch, they even offered a free replacement, but it required opening it to send in the cart. The replacement carts are very rare and worth $300+ now cause people didn’t want to unseal theirs, which are not worth that much now, as being sealed shows it wasn’t swapped out.I invite the person who submitted this to show more about what they found. From the description alone, I don’t have quite enough information to fully jump on board with this analysis, as there do exist 3.3v flash roms with long life clamping diodes for interfacing with 5v systems, though they should still use resistor packs to limit current.It’s definitely a yellow flag in my mind, but not necessarily egregious. I’m willing to withhold my usual LRG gripes until seeing it.@mrbogus it isn’t a risk anywhere – many retro cart makers and devs are very aware of this and use PCBs and parts that are compliant. It’s become a lot less common with homebrew. It can happen if buying random games and not paying attention to who they are from yeah. But I also expect better from a company with QA resources like LRG that should know better and ensure better, compared to someone doing their first game on Kickstarter (though I’ve had better luck with those than LRG by percentage for sure). It isn’t unavoidable by any means. It is also something retro players have become more aware of over the years.
However I don’t expect it from a company like LRG that is definitely more about the profits, even if it means refunding a few people who both opened it and decided to complain, than to spend the money to do it right. Going chreap pays off for them it seems.
It is a good idea to know what’s in any new NES cart you get though, as it is true they aren’t alone, but they have the least excuses.@mrbogus I can only speak for Piopow, but there’s 4 items on the board – two 39VF010 70-4CWH flash memory chips (3v chips), a 3.3v voltage regulator, and a CIC lockout chip. That’s it.@BulkSlash I’m not experienced in the field, but I’m told appropriate voltage ROM chips aren’t produced anymore by chip fabricators.I’m guessing is that what the voltage regulators are supposed to address?I bought a reprint copy of the Japanese Battletoads but I’ve avoided playing that on my official Famicom for that reason. I guess I’ll have to wait and obtain a clone console at some point before playing.Probably not a popular opinion, but I fail to see the attraction of any of these retro releases, anyway.Without the Nintendo or Sega branding, and weird stuff like funky coloured cartridges, they all look ***** to me.PCEWorks put out a bootleg MD Darius release a few years back, complete with all the knockoff Sega branding these ‘official’ releases can never use, and it looks incredible!Maybe one day Nintendo and Sega will see the benefit of releasing some of their back catalogue on the original format (well done Atari in this respect), but until then, I’ll give them a pass.@cawley1 I fail to see why you commented on an article that would only be of interest to people that do care. I don’t need Nintendo or Sega to make money off a release in order for me to enjoy a physical copy. I didn’t with Tengen games on my NES back then, and these are (or should be) no different.
They ARE licensed by the game owners, just not the console maker.
I don’t want them to cost more cause they had to pay for licensing, and the other option would be no physical games at all for them, which would stink.@KingMike that’s right. 5V ROM chips have been out of production for a little over a decade now, and while we do have 3.3V ROM chips that behave the same way, there’s a list of considerations that need to be addressed before plugging them together.Usually using a transceiver or one-way buffer is enough to get you by, but those are pricey in the grand scheme, so a lot of manufacturers limit the current via resistors low enough that the ESD clamping diodes shunt the excess power away. It’s a hack. It’s ugly. But it’s cheap.I made a comment above wanting to know the layout because flash manufacturers have caught into this happening and some are now purpose-built to stand up to that abuse for the entire lifetime of the chip without getting excess current draw or heat build-up. LRG may have selected such a part, but it’s also LRG, so maybe not.@avcrypt do these chips also output 5v back to the device? That’s one issue here. While there is a 3.3v voltage regulator to drop the voltage for the chip (and based on the article, that’s not enough), what would keep such chips from undervolting the signal back to the NES, which isn’t good for it either?
Also, I’ve read the datasheet I could find on the chips used in Piopow and unless I missed it, it seems like their tolarance only goes to 3.6v.
The chips getting too many volts is bad for the cart, but sending 3.3v to the NES is bad for it, and I’m more concerned about my console than one game. If the game crapping out was the biggest worry, it wouldn’t be as big of a deal (but still an issue).Oh look, it’s this myth again. People will believe anything.@Hastor I did look it up and it is indeed abusing the clamping diodes. So that isn’t fantastic.”what would keep such chips from undervolting the signal back to the NES, which isn’t good for it either?”
This isn’t an actual concern. If the NES was harmed by 3.3v signaling, I’d blame Nintendo for building a truly awful product. The truth is that a 3.3v signal is a valid level-HI in TTL logic. Sending 5v signals to a 3.3v device will wear it down, but sending 3.3v signals to a 5v device is fine, with the only risk being the possibility, however unlikely, that an out of spec TTL chip floated on 3.3v. I’d be surprised if that were the case by 1985 TTL.I’ll never again buy new games for old consoles. I bought an N64 game from Piko (40 Winks) and a SNES game from retro-bit (one of the generic fighting games). They just look and feel really cheap and nothing like a proper, original game. The idea is way better than the reality. Whoever manufactures these cartridges for old consoles do not do a good job. Sounds like LRG are no better.Why do I get the feeling Josh doesn’t find poor quality acceptable when he’s the buyer rather than the seller?@avcrypt Thanks for the clarification, I’m no electrical engineer but have heard about things to watch out for in this area and go mostly by datasheets etc. and know a voltage regulator or level shifter when I see one hah.@XiaoShao you shouldn’t, even for “newer” systems. There are a few reports on the internet complaining of LRG releases bricking Switches and damaging PS4’s optic drivesWell it looks like they are surprisingly in agreement and replacing carts. I’m shocked. It will take more than this to win me back, and it could just be too many bad PRs recently and RugRats being a big one (and PioPow probably smaller and easier to handle).Right move in any case…https://imgur.com/a/2GtRpMn@WileyDragonfly Companies seldom agree with and spend money on replacements quickly over myths.It’s kinda like trying to prove a rough road is wearing out your tires faster. I just drove 20 miles on that road and don’t see any damage! When your tires go a few thousand miles earlier than usual, “it could have been anything, I don’t know what your tires went through in the past couple years!”. But it was the road…https://imgur.com/a/2GtRpMnLGR is ***** trash. They tried to pass off CDRs as actual games. Garbage company doing garbage things. How anyone could support them is beyond me.Gotta say I’m souring on these limited run companies. Definitely pulling back from them in a BIG way going forward. I currently have two games just sitting in limbo. One I’ll likely never get at this point, and the other… who knows. Maybe some day! Orders have taken so long in the past that I literally forgot about them. I had moved, and it got sent to a house I no longer even owned! Just not worth it anymore.The sad thing is LRG’s competitors are times worse as the niche collectors subsector is barely regulated. SLG for instance share LRG’s reputation for cancelled or delayed preorders, and they also have a habit of nickel-and-diming customers by selling a stripped down compilation first, then a more “complete” compilation down the line. And some of the smaller outfits such as Dispatch Games, First Press, Hard Copy, and Super Rare are apparently even worse when it comes to receiving your physical copies, with some taking years.I’m shocked, shocked to find these companies care much more about making a quick buck than a quality product that will last as long as these consoles haveI don’t support any of these repro companies because their ***** is ridiculously expensive and pray upon FOMO addicts, but in fairness I think it’s fair to ask what is the real-world chance of these damaging a console, and what might happen.Like I know you shouldn’t use AC adapters that have a much lower amperage than the OG power bricks, but I also don’t know what the actual danger is@Hastor thanks for sharing this. I agree this was the right move on their part, and like you mentioned, I want a continued pattern of quality to emerge before I consider them again.And now I’m even more sure, that they will ***** up the upcoming “Earthion” release…@Hastor Give us an example of one single console that has been damaged. Should be easy, there’s millions of cartridges out there with the lower voltage chips.@WileyDragonfly NES’s conk out all the time, including some I’ve had. Again, it is hard to prove exactly what did it, it accellerates the wear more than anything. It isn’t like pop in the cart and it dies – its just not great for it.I’m sure this release was put out by babies. 🤦♂️Really whats most surprising is LRG owning up to their mistakes Show Comments Leave A CommentHold on there, you need to login to post a comment…Creator Of New Open-Source Game Boy Disagrees That FPGA Is Superior To Software Emulation”They’re only as accurate as they’re programmed to be”Did You Know That Dreamcast Has A Hidden Menu System?Welcome to “Real Mode”Nintendo DS Emulator DraStic Pulled From Google Play StoreIt appears Nintendo might not be the culprit thoughNew Custom Firmware Update Allows You To Connect Your PSP To WPA2All thanks to a new plug-in from the PSP Homebrew Discord member Moment”This Cartridge Is A Tiny Time Bomb” – Limited Run Accused Of Selling Carts Which Can Damage Your NES”So far, I’ve caught them doing it with Rugrats and PioPow” Game ProfileTitle:Rugrats: Adventures in GamelandSystem:Nintendo SwitchAlso Available For:PS4, PS5Publisher:The Mix GamesDeveloper:Wallride, Limited Run GamesGenre:Action, Adventure, PlatformerPlayers:2Release Date:Switch eShopNintendo SwitchReviews:Review: Rugrats: Adventures In Gameland (Switch) – Captures The Show’s Spirit With Affectionate 8-Bit HomageOfficial Site:nintendo.comWhere to buy:Buy on Amazon
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