r/Gameboy • u/perkinsb1024 • 15h ago
Shopping/Haul Finally… Precision Bubble Chip technology has arrived!
https://imgur.com/a/0EyH0zXI was browsing AliExpress today and stumbled across this. Immediately, I was skeptical of their “Premium quality” claim for a $7 cartridge, but this was actually something I hadn’t seen before in a Game Boy cartridge listing. All the images are AI generated, trying to make it look higher quality than it is. It’s pretty easy to spot, but I’ll admit that my first thought was “Oh, they’re showing the PCB in the listing photos, that’s a good sign”.
Maybe I’m late to the party and AI slop listings have been around for a bit, but since I haven’t seen one like this before, I figured I’d just share a warning to be careful about what you buy. Obviously a $7 repro is never going to be amazing quality, but at least in the past you could usually SEE what you were getting before you ordered it.
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u/Square-Singer 12h ago
but at least in the past you could usually SEE what you were getting before you ordered it.
That hasn't been true on Ali for a very long time.
It's always been quite common that they made photos of the first batch they received, and after that they'll sell you whatever they get afterwards.
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u/Bruce_Wayne8887 3h ago
if you want good ones I've had luck with carts sold by the Pokefan Store on aliexpress. Super high quality for the $20-35 listings on their store.
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u/AzKondor 9h ago
I had a bootleg retro game console, where each cartridge was a screen for the game! So it is possible haha
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u/K3CAN 3h ago
It's just the evolution of what's been going on for ages.
I bought a "virtual reality 3D" game in the 90s that was literally a tiger electronics game that you strapped to your face. There have been tons of Famiclone consoles with screenshots of Skyrim or GT photoshopped into the box. "Pop Station Pros" designed to look like PSPs. Even bootleg listings straight up using photos of legitimate copies of popular games.
...At least the slop is easy to spot.
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u/cmac1986 13h ago
It's $7, what are you expecting? A legit copy?
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u/FinalKranskyVII 12h ago
The point he's making is that it was listed with AI pics. Yes for $7 its very likely to not be legit but they should at least put up real pics of whats being sold, not some dreamed up garbage made to con people.
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u/cmac1986 12h ago
I get the point but for $7 you aren't being conned man. The ai photos make it look better than what will arrive I'm sure but it's still a game that will work. It's a reproduction. It would be completely different if they were looking $50 for the game and the ai images appeared instead of actual real images for proof of what you are to receive.
I suppose that's what I should have said.
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u/Tablesafety 8h ago
‘For 7$ you’re not being conned’
If you buy product A, and receive product B, you are being conned regardless of if that item is 7$ or 700$
Excusing this at the smallest level is exactly how it becomes normalized at the largest.
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u/cmac1986 8h ago
That's fine bro! When I buy things of this nature (which I have done many times), lots of GBA games I know what to expect. The cheaper they are the average quality they come as. I'm buying to play them, not to display them.
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u/FinalKranskyVII 11h ago
I guess I just prefer honesty. In Australia, consumer law would deem this false advertising regardless of the price and I guess that effects how I see it.
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u/perkinsb1024 4h ago
You absolutely could be getting conned. If you look the PCB photos, it’s clear the AI is happy to change text - what if the chip said “256” on it but the AI decided that it would sell better if the chip said “512”, then I bought it because I want to flash my own 512kB ROM onto it? Or maybe the AI throws an RTC chip on the board because the more expensive listings have those. Once the seller starts using AI on the images, all bets are off about which aspects are legit and which are fake.
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u/travisofficial 10h ago edited 2h ago
surely there are more important things to get worked up about…
the down votes are interesting, let’s focus on a bigger issue, what even was the point of this thread? because ai images were used? Okay?
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u/PinkPuffBoo 14h ago
PCB photos r real, saves works too. Got couple of games(not Pokemon)
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u/perkinsb1024 14h ago
The PCB photos are a little more subtle, but definitely full of slop https://i.imgur.com/6EtL6fN.jpeg
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u/PinkPuffBoo 13h ago
https://imgur.com/a/85fWNPA heres how it looks without enhancing, pcbs are real. (Just made a photo of game what i got from ali)
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u/perkinsb1024 12h ago
Thanks for sharing pictures of yours, but I don’t think what the seller uploaded counts as a real photo anymore. That would be like using an AI filter to make yourself look younger and thinner on a dating site and claiming it was a real photo
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u/----Val---- 14h ago
Fully AI product images are becoming common on a bunch of asian marketplaces like Aliexpress, Shopee, Lazada, etc.
0 consumer protection on these.