When Sony launched the PS1 30 years ago, it caused quite a stir by using black discs, which were harder for pirates to clone authentically. Because of this, you could always spot a fake PS1 game from the real thing, and that has remained largely the case for decades – until now, it would seem.
As spotted by modder @Voultar, we're now seeing a new wave of counterfeit PS1 games which come pressed on black discs – just like the real thing.
"This could be crippling," says Voultar. "There has been a surge of PS1 counterfeits on markets such as AlieXpress. These counterfeit PS1 titles are being pressed onto a dark substrate which makes these counterfeits visually indistinguishable from the real deal. These counterfeits are already in the stream and this has the potential of completely upsetting the secondary market. If you're buying PS1 titles, be cautious of anything that you see as it very well could be a 1:1 duplicate. These aren't Hong Kong Silvers!"
Some people have reacted negatively to the warning, pointing out that even with the black disc, it's relatively easy for people to spot the fakes if they know what you're looking for – and there's the fact that these discs won't run on unmodded PS1 hardware.
However, as Voultar points out, not everyone knows what to look for when it comes to fakes, and when you consider how much some of the rarer PS1 titles sell for on the secondary market, it's easy to see why some unscrupulous people might see this as an opportunity to make a tidy profit.
"Video game stores and people using e-commerce websites are duped and tricked all the time by duplicates that are getting close to being, if not perfectly identical," he argues.
As the price of some of the rarer retro games rises, it's inevitable that people seek to exploit this with cheap counterfeits. Some of these fakes are produced purely because the original is so unobtainable; as long as the person who is buying it is aware of this and doesn't pay over the odds, there's little reason to grumble – but once they're in the system and their origin is unknown, there's a real danger that some counterfeits could end up leaving people out of pocket – so be wary when laying down some cash on desirable titles.