Pokemon generations I to III US box print/variant guide, with contents and population survey

[0xDEAFC0DE | 1,277]

Well now you are motivating me to keep better track of inserts. If only I had the time to act on it.

7 hours ago, AdamW said:

I've mentioned this a few times, but the tool I wrote to help me track listings is at https://pagure.io/gvt . It's very much hacked up on the fly to suit my situation, it's a janky command-line tool wrapped around an sqlite database schema. I don't know exactly how you'd run it on Windows, though someone could probably help (it's just a Python app that uses a couple of common libraries), I run Linux. If you're interested in trying to use it I can try and help with its foibles It helps me to generate the population reports and check correlations between different boxes and contents.

Luckily, I'm a programmer myself so I could probably get it running on windows (if not I could pull out my dual booted laptop with Linux). I'll try to take a look at it when I get some time. 

[AdamW | 713]

Updated to add pictures of LeafGreen #4 and Ruby, update the player's guide serial number production estimates for LeafGreen as I have more data now, and update some manual date codes and stuff.

Interesting things: now I found player's guide serial number splits for each LeafGreen print, they seem to confirm something the population data indicated - production quantities for prints #3 and later differ between FireRed and LeafGreen. Basically, FireRed sold better, so they printed more copies of the later prints of it. LeafGreen #3 and #4 are less common (and hence harder to find) than FireRed #3 and #4 especially. It looks like there was a bit more than a half million difference in sales between the two by the end; FireRed sold a little north of 3.1m copies, LeafGreen a little north of 2.55m.

My LeafGreen #4, interestingly, has a -2 rev manual with a date code. That's the first time I've seen that; my FireRed #4 doesn't have one and nor do any of my Player's Choice manuals. I believe my LeafGreen #4 is earlier than my FireRed #4; the date code is 041102, which is actually much earlier than I was expecting any #4s to have been produced. I suspect TPC printed small runs of at least FireRed #4 several times in 2005, and at some point in there, stopped including date codes in the manuals. I also noticed that the copyright dates on the back of the box were updated for the Player's Choice prints, so we can date #5 to 2006 and #6 (the "PLAYS ON DS*" prints) to 2007.

Edited May 5, 2021 by AdamW

[AdamW | 713]

Just a small update today, nothing major, just this:

I am very excited right now.

[Gloves | 11,761]

6 minutes ago, AdamW said:

Just a small update today, nothing major, just this:

I am very excited right now.

Grats!

[AdamW | 713]

of course, just when I thought I was done, now I'm hot on the trail of a rumored second print of Sapphire...

[Gloves | 11,761]

3 minutes ago, AdamW said:

of course, just when I thought I was done, now I'm hot on the trail of a rumored second print of Sapphire...

Any hints as to what might differentiate it?

[AdamW | 713]

38 minutes ago, Gloves said:

Any hints as to what might differentiate it?

Nope, just someone I was chatting to about stamp codes said in passing they had two Sapphire boxes, like it was the most normal thing in the world...waiting for them to send me some pictures now. Could be a PAL box, of course.

I've always thought there could be later Sapphire/Ruby boxes, it's always seemed possible. They could have the newer seal (just "seal", not "seal of quality"), and/or they could be PLAYS ON DS*. But I've been looking for weeks and never seen one yet.

edit: turns out they have a PLAYS ON DS shrinkwrap sticker, so the box itself is the same. So still only one print of those games for now.

Edited May 12, 2021 by AdamW

[AdamW | 713]

OK, so I spent three spellbinding hours going over every Sandshrew Red/Blue listing that's still visible and cataloging the cart pocket style where it was shown. Here are the correlations I found! Manuals first:

Red Sandshrew with tab-close pocket

1. 22/25 - U/DMG-APAE-USA
2. 1/25 - U/DMG-APSE-USA-1 (from Yellow)
3=. 1/25 - DMG-APSE-USA (from Yellow)
3=. 1/25 - U/DMG-APEE-USA (from Blue)

Red Sandshrew with flat, open pocket

1. 5/9 - U/DMG-APAE-USA-1
2. 3/9 - U/DMG-APAE-USA
3. 1/9 - U/DMG-APEE-USA-1 (from Blue)

Blue Sandshrew with tab-close pocket

1. 17/19 - U/DMG-APEE-USA
2=. 1/19 - U/DMG-APEE-USA-1
2=. 1/19 - U/DMG-APAE-USA (from Red)

Blue Sandshrew with flat, open pocket

1. 8/12 (4/6 CC) - U/DMG-APEE-USA-1
2. 3/12 (2/6 CC) - U/DMG-APEE-USA
3. 1/12 (0/6 CC) - U/DMG-APAE-USA-1 (from Red)

So to summarize: tab pocket boxes almost always have the U/ non-rev manual. Most cases where it doesn't are obvious frankensteins as the manual is from another game entirely (it's not uncommon for people with more than one game to get the manuals mixed up, since they look so similar). There is one single listing where we have U/DMG-APEE-USA-1 in a tab-close Blue box, this one: https://www.ebay.com/itm/402783161975 - note that it's sold AS-IS and is missing all packins. It's actually a "Red text" box, so it's almost inconceivable that is the original manual. So I'm happy to call that one a Frankenstein.

The flat pocket style boxes most often show up with the U/-1 rev manuals, but they do also sometimes appear with a non-rev manual. I suspect these are not Frankensteins but some kind of middle print run.

Now, the consumer safety booklets, because those are interesting too. Note the total counts here are the number of listings of the box that had any packin at all, and I've filtered out non-consumer-safety packins, so if you add up all the left sides they don't sum to the right side. Also, "DMG-USA-?" is a code I use when I can see that there is a consumer safety booklet of some kind, but the code is not visible; so it just means "unknown print".

Red Sandshrew with tab-close pocket

1. 17/41 - U/DMG-USA-6
2. 3/41 - U/DMG-USA-7
3. 2/41 - DMG-USA-?
4=. 1/41 - DMG-USA-7
4=. 1/41 - CGB-USA-1
4=. 1/41 - DMG-USA-6

Red Sandshrew with flat, open pocket

1. 8/14 - U/DMG-USA-7
2. 2/14 - DMG-USA-?

Blue Sandshrew with tab-close pocket

1. 13/35 - U/DMG-USA-6
2. 2/35 - DMG-USA-7
3=. 1/35 - H/CGB-USA-1
3=. 1/35 - H/DMG-USA-6
3=. 1/35 - U/DMG-USA-7

Blue Sandshrew with flat, open pocket

1. 8/16 - U/DMG-USA-7
2. 1/16 - DMG-USA-6

Again, the correlations are very strong. Tab pocket boxes almost always show up with U/DMG-USA-6; there's just four cases of one showing up with U/DMG-USA-7, but as we can see from all the very implausible other entries in the lists, people do Frankenstein consumer safety leaflets quite often (I think some professional sellers, if they see a game without one, just grab one from a stack and throw it in without caring whether it's at all correct). Flat pocket boxes basically always show up with U/DMG-USA-7.

The cartridge correlations look much like the manual correlations, only with a bit more fuzz. Generally, tab boxes show up with white-ESRB carts; flat boxes show up with both, but more often black-ESRB carts. There's a bit more fuzz, though, I suspect because carts are the most commonly Frankensteined component.

So these numbers really support the overall theory weeabruh and I came up with: there were multiple print runs of the Sandshrew boxes, and some were printed in late 1999. I believe the tab-pocket boxes are earlier, and they were all most likely printed close together, before release. They came with white-ESRB carts and manuals, and U/DMG-USA-6 consumer safety sheets. Then there were one or more 'middle' prints, likely in early 1999?, which were flat-pocket boxes with white-ESRB carts and manuals, but consumer safety U/DMG-USA-7. Then one or more 'late' prints, which must have happened in the second half of 1999, with black-ESRB carts and manuals, and U/DMG-USA-7 consumer safety.

edit: looks like bonus note wasn't entirely correct, I found that one of my "Red text" Blues was printed the right way up! Sure seems like a lot of them were printed upside down, though.

I didn't check whether any Reds were printed upside down. I wish had thought to. But I'm not spending another three hours to go over them all again

Edited May 18, 2021 by AdamW
mark wrong-game manuals for clarity

[Hammerfestus | 3,824]

Wow.  Nice.  Very OCD.  You’re going to be very popular around here

[AdamW | 713]

So here is a really interesting thought. Not mine, but again from weeabruh over at efour. And that thought is...weight!

My "flat pocket" Blue box actually showed up right after I posted the above. So I sat there and stared at it next to my "tab pocket" Blue text box for like ten minutes (this is my life now) and they really do seem to be externally identical. You just cannot tell the difference by looking at the outside.

BUT. Here is a fun thing about the two pocket styles that I didn't actually mention. The "tab" style pocket itself is wider than the "flat" style pocket. The "tab" style pocket fits a cartridge in a cartridge protector case. The "flat" style pocket only fits a loose cartridge, or a cartridge in a thin plastic bag. You cannot get a cartridge in a protector case into the "flat" style pocket.

I weighed the two boxes themselves, completely empty, and the tab pocket one is heavier...but only by one single solitary gram. That's probably not enough of a difference to reliably identify which box type a sealed copy is, given all the other things that are in one and their possible weight variances.

But. If the tab-pocket copies actually included a cartridge protector case - not just were sized for it, but they actually came with one - that changes the game. Because those cartridge protector cases weigh 15g on their own. If tab-pocket copies have the cart, manual, couple of fliers and a protector case, but flat-pocket copies just have cart, manual, couple of fliers and a plastic bag...then tab-pocket copies should weigh distinctly more than flat-pocket copies. Like, enough to be reliably distinguished.

So. Uh. Two questions:

1. Does anyone know for sure whether tab-pocket Red and Blue came with carts in protector cases?
2. Does anyone know someone who has like ten sealed copies of Sandshrew Red and Blue and a kitchen scale?

edit: I weighed my tab-pocket Blue box with all believed original contents (cart DMG-APEE-USA in protector case, manual U/DMG-APEE-USA, packin U/DMG-APAE-USA, consumer safety U/DMG-USA-6) minus the shrinkwrap and the plastic bag the paperwork came in originally. It weighs 116g. I weighed my flat-pocket Blue with all believed original contents (cart DMG-APEE-USA-1 in plastic bag, manual U/DMG-APEE-USA-1, packin U/DMG-APAE-USA, consumer safety U/DMG-USA-7), again minus shrinkwrap and paperwork bag. It weighs 100g.

edit2: my "Red text" Blue, which still has the original shrinkwrap (opened) and the plastic bag for the paperwork, and the cart in a protector case, weighs 125g. That's probably the correct weight for a sealed "tab pocket" box with all contents.

Edited May 18, 2021 by AdamW
add weights

[AdamW | 713]

So if anyone's got $150,000 OBO rattling around and doesn't know what to do with it, a sealed "Red text" Blue went up for sale:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/174787183945

sadly if it sells (unless someone actually forks out $150k, which I doubt) I won't know how much for because eBay fixed the loophole I was using to find eBay best offer sale prices...

Haven't posted much lately just because I actually think this is more or less 'done'. I haven't found any major new info or new prints or anything lately. I'm still surveying listings but it isn't moving the numbers much (I'm updating them periodically here). I may quit soon because it eats a lot of time. I'll probably add the contents for Gold/Silver and Ruby/Sapphire soon then call it done, or else I'll get into spinoffs or other regions...

Edited May 31, 2021 by AdamW
fix link for reals jeez

[tidaldreams | 654]

3 hours ago, AdamW said:

So if anyone's got $150,000 OBO rattling around and doesn't know what to do with it, a sealed "Red text" Blue went up for sale:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/324652444839

sadly if it sells (unless someone actually forks out $150k, which I doubt) I won't know how much for because eBay fixed the loophole I was using to find eBay best offer sale prices...

Haven't posted much lately just because I actually think this is more or less 'done'. I haven't found any major new info or new prints or anything lately. I'm still surveying listings but it isn't moving the numbers much (I'm updating them periodically here). I may quit soon because it eats a lot of time. I'll probably add the contents for Gold/Silver and Ruby/Sapphire soon then call it done, or else I'll get into spinoffs or other regions...

Your link goes to an opened one for $1000.

[AdamW | 713]

7 minutes ago, tidaldreams said:

Your link goes to an opened one for $1000.

d'oh, tab fail. Thanks. Corrected.

[AdamW | 713]

So here's a fun game for y'all. The ad for the Pikachu N64 and some spinoff games that came in Gold / Silver boxes actually has two versions, the original and a revised version. For the longest time I could not see the difference between them. Today I finally figured it out. But I'm not gonna tell you, that'd be too easy. Let's see if anyone can spot the difference Here are both sides of both revisions of the ad:

The print code at the bottom right of the "Pikachu Nintendo 64" side is T-DMG-AAUE/AAXE-USA for the one on the left, T-DMG-AAUE/AAXE-USA-1 for the one on the right (which the revised version). That tells you that something else changed between the two. But what was it? Took me a while to see it, heh.

[tidaldreams | 654]

1 hour ago, AdamW said:

So here's a fun game for y'all. The ad for the Pikachu N64 and some spinoff games that came in Gold / Silver boxes actually has two versions, the original and a revised version. For the longest time I could not see the difference between them. Today I finally figured it out. But I'm not gonna tell you, that'd be too easy. Let's see if anyone can spot the difference Here are both sides of both revisions of the ad:

The print code at the bottom right of the "Pikachu Nintendo 64" side is T-DMG-AAUE/AAXE-USA for the one on the left, T-DMG-AAUE/AAXE-USA-1 for the one on the right (which the revised version). That tells you that something else changed between the two. But what was it? Took me a while to see it, heh.

I was always terrible at Where's Waldo.

[0xDEAFC0DE | 1,277]

1 hour ago, AdamW said:

So here's a fun game for y'all. The ad for the Pikachu N64 and some spinoff games that came in Gold / Silver boxes actually has two versions, the original and a revised version. For the longest time I could not see the difference between them. Today I finally figured it out. But I'm not gonna tell you, that'd be too easy. Let's see if anyone can spot the difference Here are both sides of both revisions of the ad:

The print code at the bottom right of the "Pikachu Nintendo 64" side is T-DMG-AAUE/AAXE-USA for the one on the left, T-DMG-AAUE/AAXE-USA-1 for the one on the right (which the revised version). That tells you that something else changed between the two. But what was it? Took me a while to see it, heh.

Wow, that's amazing. Here's the answer circled in red:

Spoiler

The cord has moved

FYI, what I usually do to figure out the difference is line both of the images up on different layers (usually using a semi-transparent top layer), and then switch between the two layers.

[AdamW | 713]

Ten points to @0xDEAFC0DE! And that is a very smart way to do it. Dumb ol' me just stares at things till my eyes bleed.
 

Spoiler

 

The cord didn't exactly move so much as the setup on the left makes no sense, if you look at it carefully. The setup on the right - the revised version - is how, I guess, this actually worked: the controller is shown as being connected directly to the left port on the N64, and the microphone is connected to the little grey box, which is plugged into the right controller port. (it's slightly hard to see at the forum resolution, but this version shows the controller's cord wrapped tightly under the controller, implying it connects to that left controller port).

The original version on the left seems to show the controller connected to the adapter box which is connected to the controller port on the right. There's a cable coming out of the controller port on the left which doesn't go anywhere in particular, and the microphone isn't connected to anything, it's just sort of sitting there on the controller. This nonsensical setup is what they fixed

 

 

Edited June 4, 2021 by AdamW

[AdamW | 713]

Hey folks - anyone out there an expert on "board stuff"? I dug out the appropriate driver today and took board pics of most of my carts, but it'd be useful to know what to look for. There's obviously a YY-MM date on the battery which is useful, but the two main chips - which often seem to be from different companies, with no clear pattern - have lots of text on them too, including often digits that look like they're probably a date code, but aren't in YY-MM format. I'm guessing these are week numbers? Here's an example:

that's a white-ESRB Yellow cart from a no-ESRB box. I see date code 99-08 (August 1999) on the battery, '9934' on the actual game chip and '9930' on the bottom-right chip. So are those 'week 34' and 'week 30'? Anything else interesting to look out for? Thanks!

Bonus pic: here's the board of a cart I'm very sure was in a "Red text" Blue box, so one of the earliest Blues made. The battery date is 98-05, game chip is 9836, bottom right chip is 9811.

 

Edited June 7, 2021 by AdamW
improved blue pic

[AdamW | 713]

oh, yeah, this one's a frustrating case - this is the cart from my Red Sandshrew 'flap' box, but nothing on the chips looks like a date code; anyone know how to read these?

[RegularGuyGamer | 2,011]

Maybe @SNESNESCUBE64@Nes Freak? Those are the modder / fixer guys that come to mind first. 

[SNESNESCUBE64 | 532]

2 hours ago, AdamW said:

Hey folks - anyone out there an expert on "board stuff"? I dug out the appropriate driver today and took board pics of most of my carts, but it'd be useful to know what to look for. There's obviously a YY-MM date on the battery which is useful, but the two main chips - which often seem to be from different companies, with no clear pattern - have lots of text on them too, including often digits that look like they're probably a date code, but aren't in YY-MM format. I'm guessing these are week numbers? Here's an example:

that's a white-ESRB Yellow cart from a no-ESRB box. I see date code 99-08 (August 1999) on the battery, '9934' on the actual game chip and '9930' on the bottom-right chip. So are those 'week 34' and 'week 30'? Anything else interesting to look out for? Thanks!

Bonus pic: here's the board of a cart I'm very sure was in a "Red text" Blue box, so one of the earliest Blues made. The battery date is 98-05, game chip is 9836, bottom right chip is 9811.

 

 

So here's the thing about manufacturing, Nintendo used whatever they had available/whatever was cheaper. So the thing about the different numbers, is that they are typically part/lot identifiers. For example, on the mask roms they will have the game code (DMG-xxxx-REV#) and what is probably the factory identification code. On those pokemon games, there are four chips: The mask rom which has your game code, the SRAM which stores your save game and is used as a scratchpad (in this case, it is a 32k x 8 SRAM and is backed by the battery), the mapper chip which helps expand how much memory/program rom can be addressed by the gameboy, and a battery management chip.  The way the chips were labeled vary slightly from manufacturer to manufacturer. Ultimately, Nintendo does not have their own chip fab, they contract the production out to other companies such as sharp and ricoh for example for their customs back in the day. The SRAM and battery management chip were off-the-shelf parts.

For the SRAM, they seem to be 62256 SRAMs, which are 256kbit (32k x 8). Sharp uses a slightly different part number code LH52256, identical in function to a 62256 and could be interchanged. The -10FF indicates two things on the sharp RAM, how fast it can be written to (I think 100ns in this case) and the package (formfactor) the RAM is in (a SOP package). This information can be derived from the datasheet of the chip and believe it or not is still made brand new today (just not by sharp).

In terms of date codes, many companies followed the format YYWW, for example the number 9930 would mean the 30th week of 1999. However, some companies (Hitachi comes to mind) did not necessarily follow that convention and did something different (I don't know what they did). 

Edited June 8, 2021 by SNESNESCUBE64
added extra blurb about chip fabs

[0xDEAFC0DE | 1,277]

So, the most common IC date format is YYWW (where WW is the week number of the year), but you also get stuff like YWW, YMW (which uses letters for the months), and many more. I'm decently experienced with identifying at least NES date codes, so if you have one you can't figure out, just ping me. I'll walk through the ones you posted as examples.

Spoiler

Battery: 99-08 = August 1999 (YY-MM)
Top right chip: 9934 = 34th week (8-15-8/21) 1999 (YYWW)
Bottom left chip: 9833 = 33rd week 1998 (YYWW)
Bottom middle chip: 929 = 29th week 1999 (YWW)
Bottom right chip: 9930 = 30th week 1999 (YYWW)

Spoiler

Battery: 98-05 = May 1998 (YY-MM)
Top right chip: 9836 = 36th week 1998 (YYWW)
Bottom left chip: 807 = 7th week 1998 (YWW)
Bottom middle chip: 9821 = 21st week 1998 (YYWW)
Bottom right chip: 9811 = 11th week 1998 (YYWW)

Spoiler

Battery: 98-10 = October 1998 (YY-MM)
Top right chip: Too hard to read. Can you copy the text, or take a clearer picture?
Bottom left chip: 844 = 44th week 1998 (YWW)
Bottom middle chip: 9820 = 20th week 1998 (YYWW)
Bottom right chip: 840 = 40th week 1998 (YWW)

Also, I should say that usually I date cartridges by the latest date codes on all the chips. It's not foolproof, but it'll get you close enough.

[AdamW | 713]

Thanks so much! Yeah, the text on that Red chip is really hard to make come up clear in a photo In the full res version I can't read the whole thing quite, but I can see most of it:

SEC KM23C0000DE? (this is the bit I can't read)
DMG-APAE-0 F1
KFX304U

there's nothing in it that looks remotely like 98 or 99, anyway. I can open it up again tomorrow and take a look.

For bonus fun, from one of the earliest US Pokemon Game Boy carts produced to one of the last US Pokemon GBA carts produced, the cart from my LeafGreen #6 box (from 2007):

So I guess that's 0729 (29th week 2007)? The numbers on the back are '07 then 1, 7, 12, 6 (clockwise from top left), not sure if they indicate anything.

[0xDEAFC0DE | 1,277]

So, JVOSS just posted what the numbers on the back mean (TL;DR dots covered are the month). He is the one I had learned it from as well. But the one you have there is Aug. 2007 which is a bit later than 0729. The ROM chip is a bit harder to nail down. The date code is definitely encoded in "0698", but I'm not sure what format. My best guess would be YYM? which would place it at least 2006 which is earlier than the rest. I did find one other picture with the same ROM chip on no-intro. It has the code 0617 which doesn't help a whole lot.

For the Red chip, I'm pretty sure it doesn't have a standard date code. I looked on two GB PCB DBs and neither gave date codes for boards with that chip number (KM23C8000DG). I looked to see if I could find any patterns in the KFX304U bit, but no dice. It does look like there is a sequential order, but I couldn't figure out a conversion. Below is the four other KF codes along side the month and year of the PCB.

KFX3ALY 8/1998
KFX311U 11/1998
KFX312U 11/1998
KFX331U 10/1999

[AdamW | 713]

Thanks! Hmm, let's take a look at the equivalent FireRed and Emerald carts (also from "PLAYS ON DS*", i.e. 2007, boxes). Here's FireRed, the numbers on this all look kinda 07-y:

But the Emerald in my "PLAYS ON DS*" box looks like it was probably swapped at some point, looks like one chip from late 2004, other chip obscured by battery, battery from March 2005 and board from Feb 2005, right? So probably a very early cart (game came out in May 2005):

edit: update - the guy who sold me the "PLAYS ON DS*" Emerald also has a "ONLY FOR" copy, and it looks like he swapped the carts at some point. We're gonna try and swap them back.

Edited June 8, 2021 by AdamW