However, the Game Genie takes a different approach. Whenever an NES game requests something from memory or the ROM inside a cartridge, it does so by putting the address of that memory on the address bus and telling the console, “Hey go get the value at that address of memory.” The Game Genie could try to overwrite values in said memory just because something is Read-Only Memory (ROM) that does not always mean you can never write to it. With regard to the Game Genie, I am simply setting the stage for some of the obstacles it faced. But before that you could disable it by physically cutting a specific pin within the system.

Eventually a group of people reverse engineered the 10NES. An effective and draconian system for stopping third-party developers seeking to release games without Nintendo’s approval. If you wanted this key for your own game then you had to get it from Nintendo. When you boot up a game the NES will make sure the key inside the game matches what the console expects. Hardware inside of the NES itself is the lock, and games are the key.

(As an aside, the Famicom only had sixty.) Some of these extra pins were used for 10NES, which is a type of ‘Checking Integrated Circuit’ or CIC. the end you plug into the console, you’ll see a series of pins. If you look at the bottom of an NES cartridge, i.e. It was a peripheral you attatched to the end of NES cartridges in order to enter cheat codes.Ī friend made a comment in passing wondering how the Game Genie actually worked. If you’ve been playing video games since the War of 1812 like I have then you probably remember the Game Genie. I was recently hanging out with a group of close friends, getting destroyed at a game of Monopoly by my friend John’s ruthless capitalism, when we briefly talked about the Game Genie for the NES.

Play nes games with game genie