Your newest gamate finds

[Mr. Postman]

Howdy friends, this is a thread to post about all of your newest Gamate purchases.

[Mr. Postman]

I just got a fun little package in the mail today.
It included a boxed original X D-pad style console (ironically is also labeled as model g-1002), and 10 games. 3 of the games had the cool original X D-pad console pictured on the reverse side of the card, and 4 of the other games REALLY caught my eye. The cards are a very very light grey color, have no warning at all on the back, have no indentation for the sticker label, and have a larger area for the actual PCB. Looking at the reverse side in the light, you can clearly see that the marks in the mold reveal that the 2 chips are significantly larger than normal. The stickers appear to be printed on the same stock used for other cards, however the top side of the stickers look to have been hand trimmed to fit on the card (and they still seem to be a little bit too tall). As another cool surprise, the edge seem on the little clear sleeve has a ribbed style that I have never seen on any of my other cards. Enough of my yapping, lets take a look at these beauties!







The pictures are a little dark, but you get the general idea.
I do not believe these are pirate cards because of the sticker stock. Maybe pre-production testing samples? A cool thing I spotted is that the stickers on all the cards have sharper fine details than the normal cards. We're talking stuff you'd only notice with a magnifying glass or a high-dpi scan, and these same details appear either blurry or just plain missing on the regular card. This can mean one of two things, either these cards came first or bit corp just got better printers later on (not helpful insight, I know).

Could Bit have already relinquished their card mold to UMC after selling their pre-existing stock of games to Italy, and needed to quickly manufacture some new cards to sell alongside the "Vanilla" console? Your guess is as good as mine, but I'd love to hear your input and thoughts!


UPDATE: I have tested Monster Pitfall side-by-side with a regular Monster Pitfall card and the demo video sequences end at very different times and the music has a slightly different bass tune! This means that the coding is not the same and these are probably pre-release betas or prototypes! I can't come to a logical conclusion why bit would reprogram these games for minor differences so late in the game.

Double update: I believe Monster Pitfall's full stereo tune can be heard through the console's mono speaker without the need of headphones on this light grey card, that's probably the difference I heard that stood out! I have tested on many different consoles and these results stand firm.
Why didn't bit do this for every retail release? I have much more testing to do on these it seems.