Factory Sealed Saturn GAME SHARK ENHANCER New RARE

[Iron Draggon]

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...e=STRK:MEWN:IT

I bought this one a couple of days ago, but the seller still has several of them up for sale and has had them available for the last couple of weeks now. So I was just wondering what everyone else thinks about this? I know that the Saturn Game Shark is supposed to be rare, and I believe they are extremely rare in this condition, but I'm very curious why suddenly one seller has so many of them when I haven't been able to find one in this condition for sale anywhere for several years now. Loose ones tend to be available on ebay all the time, but this seems to be one of those old warehouse stock miracles. I'm amazed at the low price on them too. They cost more than I'm paying including the shipping when you could still get them just about anywhere. So what is up with this? If this is legit, then all you other Saturn owners here who never got one back in the day either might wanna pick one up too.

[Azazel]

Since the 4 in 1 in can mostly do what a game shark can do there's not as much in interest in it.

[Iron Draggon]

Really? Not even as a collector's item? I'm surprised. But if I knew where to get one of those all-in-one "code breaker/RAM cart/import adapter" thingies I'd want one of those too. Currently I use a converter called the Satellite for playing imports, but it only works for games that don't require any extra RAM.

I've been wondering if the Game Shark works as an import adapter the same way that the Game Genie does too. I know that it won't let me play any of the extra RAM games either, but at least it will let me enter cheat codes. I can always put a 4-in-1 or a 5-in-1 on my list next, if you can still get those.

I don't have any games that need the extra RAM yet though, so unless I start saving up for something like the D&D Collection, I don't really need it. I have the backup cart for saving, so I can always clear out the system RAM if I need to. But it would be awful nice to have just one cart that does it all.

I still think it's worth it to have a Game Shark too though, in my case. The Satellite is probably one of the most rare converter carts here, because I've never heard of anyone else using it. Most people use the St. Key instead. So I'd like to have one of those too, just for the sake of the collectibility of it.

[Azazel]

From what I've seen not really. A lot of people don't really care for having every Saturn accesory there is. Just having an official Memory card and 4 in 1 is generally enough for most people. Getting a 4 in 1 is generally not that hard. It will run you somewhere between $10.00 to $25.00. There should be 1 or 2 on Ebay every month or so. Plus a few import stores might still carry them. Most people if they have a game shark or import converter only can just sell that and almost get enough money to get a 4 in 1.

Yes you can use the Game Shark to play import. Don't ask me how as I really can't help you with that. For the ram cart games unless you like, play, or collect Capcom or SNK fighters you really won't need the ram that is necessary for those games. There are a few games that make use of the ram but don't require it too. I think that Datel converter cart might be rarer buy I've never looked that closely at that kind of a thing.

[Iron Draggon]

Well I just got my package, and I'm glad that I finally have it now, after all the looking that I've done for one. But now I see that I am gonna need to get a 4 in 1 cart next, while I still can. I should've done some more research before I jumped on the Game Shark. It turns out there's a good reason why they're so rare. Check out what Working Designs had to say back in 1997:

!! Warning !!

March 1st, 1997

We are advising ALL SEGA Saturn owners AGAINST purchasing and/or using any of the unlicensed Interact memory cartridges (pictured below). They are sold as "Game Shark", "Memory Card", and "Memory Card Plus."


The problem with these devices is that they were created without technical help from SEGA, and since this requires reverse engineering, they CANNOT be guaranteed to be fully compatible. Also, there are about 10 or more revisions of the BIOS in these carts, and 5 or more revisions of the SEGA Saturn BIOS. Finding a fair match is nearly impossible, and even then, it only means less problems, not the elimination of Interact RAM problems.

Another problem is that even though these devices boast "8 megs" of storage, they actually only contain 4 megs of physical RAM, and they therefore compress data to achieve 8 megs of storage in only 4 megs of RAM. The problem with this is that on large save files (such as Dragon Force, amongst others) the compression time is longer than small save files, and this can upset the required timings on the SEGA Saturn, thereby corrupting or even DESTROYING data.

In fact, these carts can even corrupt the INTERNAL RAM on the Saturn, requiring that the SEGA RAM be cleared to fix the corruption before any games can be guaranteed to work correctly once again.

Most users decide on these cartridges for one of three reasons: Cheat codes made possible with the Game Shark, relatively cheap price of these carts ($39 or so) compared to the official SEGA RAM cart ($60 and up), or the difficulty finding the SEGA RAM cartridge in stores, since store buyers prefer to carry the Interact carts since they are less expensive and offer better price margins.

We used to make the Official Saturn RAM cartridge available for $49.95, delivered to your door, including Federal Express 2 day shipping, as well as a custom Dragon Force Backup RAM Sticker. However, SEGA, in their infinite wisdom, deemed that we were only authorized to publish software and not authorized to sell hardware (as the RAM cart is considered), and threatened legal action. Since then, they have given us the stall for the last 5 months and counting with regard to our request to receive authorization to continue making these scarce RAM carts available to consumers. As has been the case under SEGA's new and "improved" management, you, the consumer lose.

However, if you have a Saturn, we personally don't care WHERE you buy the Official SEGA Backup RAM cart. Just buy IT, and not these shoddy Interact products. These carts are our #1 support problem on our game help lines. Users have experienced frequent lockups, corrupt backup RAM data, destroyed backup RAM data, problems with the Saturn recognizing the carts, Corrupt internal Saturn RAM when an Interact card was used once or more, Saturns that load and perform erratically with the carts installed, etc, etc, etc...the list goes on and on. Would you risk 50, 60, even 100 hours worth of game saves simply to save $20-30? It's just not worth it. Just say no.


Now if I had read all that before I so gleefully opened the box to try it out, I would've emailed the seller and asked if I could send it back for a refund. But now I'm stuck with it, so I guess I learned a valuable lesson. I do hope that these things are rare enough that my purchase will at least be justified from a cart collector's perspective, because now I know that the 4 in 1 is better.

The Game Shark can be used as an import converter, but you have to hold down the X, Y, Z buttons when you press start to launch the game with or without codes. With all the other converters, you just start the game, as far as I know. So that's another strike against it. Then it won't work with any of the 1MB or the 4MB RAM cart games, even though it does have 4MB of RAM built in, so that's the final strike against it. The Game Shark just struck out!

So I definitely gotta get one of those 4 in 1 carts now. Luckily they do seem to still be readily available for a reasonable price in alot of places, but the big letdown for me is that I could've gotten one for what the Game Shark cost me. I also learned that the US version of Marvel Super Heroes will work with any of the 4MB RAM carts, and I have that game, so I already have a good reason to get one. Plus there's still that highly sought after D&D Collection with my name on it out there somewhere, just waiting for me to come up with the triple digit dollars required to purchase it. I wish I had imported it back in the days when you could still get it for double digits, but everyone was always sold out of it back then, so I always got something else instead!

But I'm still unsure if the Game Shark codes and the Action Replay codes are interchangable with each other though. I always thought that you could use only the codes that were made for each device with that device. You can't use codes for one device with another device, can you? If you can't, then I'm still glad that I got the Game Shark. But if you can, I just bought myself a $30 dust collector. Either way, I still wanna get a 4 in 1 Action Replay next.

Now as for the rarity of this sort of thing, it appears that the 4 in 1 and the St. Key are the most common converters. But there are several variations of each though, and some variations seem to be alot less common than others. There's an enhanced version of the St. Key that includes compatibility with 1MB & 4MB RAM games, but it's still a converter only, it's not a cheat device. However it seems to be pretty uncommon compared to the original St. Key. Then there's about 4 different variations of the Action Replay, but of course everybody wants the Action Replay Plus, also known as the 4 in 1 cart. The earlier versions of it would just be a waste of money, collectible or not, IMO. It seems that I'm right about the Satellite though. Apparently it's one of the rarest converters there is. Nobody seems to still have any available anymore. So I think I'll keep mine even though I don't really need it anymore. Ditto for the Game Shark, I think I'll keep it even after I get a 4 in 1 Action Replay. I might even get a St. Key just for the heck of it. They're only $10 at NCSX.

So if you're a Saturn collector and you're looking for something else to add to your collection, because you already have everything else there is, then you might try to get all the different RAM carts you can find. There's tons of different variations, including specially labeled carts that came with limited edition games which required the additional memory. I think I even still have the special RAM cart label that came with Dragon Force lying around here somewhere myself, although I'm not sure where it is if I do still have it now. So collecting RAM carts could be a fun challenge for all you hardcore Saturn collectors out there. I'm sure that most people would never take the time to attempt such an effort, so if you had a complete RAM cart collection you would have something very unique to make your collection more valuable.

Personally I'm not very big on collecting peripherals, but I know that some people are, so I'm wondering if there's anyone here who already has a RAM cart collection going now. There's dozens of variations of them from Japan, so I bet there's somebody here who's serious enough to have a bunch of them just for the heck of it. Maybe there's a RAM cart expert around who could tell us more about them as a collectible? I'm getting kinda curious now!