@> Now, it seems, people are selling "new" Sapphires rather cheaply. I
@> cracked out of curiosity and purchased one, ripped it open, and played
@> it -- since I hadn't dared open my original shrinkwrapped copy.
@>
@> This dubious new copy is convincing but some of the documentation's ink
@> is discolored. So are these fakes, or what? Have they really brought
@> down the value of a genuine unopened Sapphire?
Yes, it is true -- sometime in 2001 or 2002, counterfeit copies of
Sapphire started showing up. What I am about to say is from second
hand reports -- I have not actually seen, handled one, so standard
disclaimers apply.
The copies are well done, in terms of presentation (spine card, warranty
card, etc). However, if you look very closely at the printing job on
the manual, you will see that it is at a much lower resolution than an official
game release. The colors are reportedly "off" a little bit too, and in some
parts of the manual, appear to be slightly out of focus (this is probaby due to
a lower scan rate than what should have been used).
Again, I have not seen these in real life, so I have no idea what the quality
of the CD is (pressed, or CD-R). I suspect that the CD could be used to
ultimately determine if the copy one has purchased is fake or not, as all
Hudson releases had similar CD HUB markings on the CD, and duplicating
those would be difficult (impossible for CD-Rs).
I suspect that most people who have purchased the fake copies are probably
not even aware that they have.
-bt