N64 game board differences are they fake or just made differently?

[Upstairscoma | 1]

I have 2 copies of smash bros 64 and 2 copies of goldeneye 007. Both have the gold nintendo logo/trademark on the board but look different from one another. I was wondering if someone could explain why?

Edited January 8, 2020 by Upstairscoma
Adding pictures

[DoctorEncore | 3,690]

I don't know anything about N64 PCBs, so I can't help you. But you will be much more likely to get a response if you include pictures. Good luck.

[Upstairscoma | 1]

12 minutes ago, DoctorEncore said:

I don't know anything about N64 PCBs, so I can't help you. But you will be much more likely to get a response if you include pictures. Good luck.

Thanks. New here and added some pics.

[austin532 | 467]

Those look real to me. They used more then one manufacture to make the games and those games had multiple prints so that explains why some boards/chips look different.

[Upstairscoma | 1]

1 hour ago, austin532 said:

Those look real to me. They used more then one manufacture to make the games and those games had multiple prints so that explains why some boards/chips look different.

Thanks for that! I think they are real too just strange how there are different chips on them and also one has blue dots and one has green dots. Also the letters are different, one has L and the other has CM. Maybe it's just where they were manufactured or something. Thanks! Also this is my first post here, or anywhere for that matter. So, I hope I'm replying in the right section. I just click on quote when I reply I guess.

[Sumez | 2,930]

They look the same to me.

Minor unimportant details being slightly different like that are expected with any game that were produced over as long a period from different sources as those two games.

Edited January 8, 2020 by Sumez

[Upstairscoma | 1]

2 hours ago, Sumez said:

They look the same to me.

Minor unimportant details being slightly different like that are expected with any game that were produced over as long a period from different sources as those two games.

Wonder which one to keep? Lol. Or if the value differs because of this? Thanks

[RH | 4,895]

As someone who worked for a time as an embedded systems engineer, writing software for small computer controllers, I worked a lot with the guys that were designing the boards and sourcing components.  When it comes to ICs, memory chips or other rather standard parts, it's not uncommon to have 2-3 sources for components.  This is so that if you have demand for a product and one of your sources currently has a 2-3 month lead time, you can quickly switch to another supplier without issues.

We were manufacturing tens of thousands of controller boards, where Nintendo was manufacturing tens of millions.  There's no doubt that they kept their finger on the pulse of their source pipeline, probably rotated between two common sources and probably monitored another 2-3 sources just to be sure they could get the components they used, as they were needed. 

[Tyree_Cooper | 741]

Here's my REV-0 and REV-1 Wave Race 64. REV-0 is pale green with unbranded ROM, while REV-1 is dark green with MX ROM. I think they sort of used whatever was available at a certain time in a certain factory. So you may have different ROM brands in different colour boards.

 

Edited February 29, 2020 by Tyree_Cooper