Topic: Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story not working on my 3DS

Hai. I got a 3DS a week or two after launch, and it's awesome. Alot of my games work, except for my favourite: Mario & Luigi Bowser's Inside Story. I bought it of eBay from New South Wales (I'm in Victoria). I've changed the region settings, but no avail. It comes up with a message saying something like this: 'An error has occurred. Please power off your system and try again. If the problem persists, please go to your local support store.' And, today is Sunday and the nearest local store is Box Hill. Which is quite inconvenient. So, is there any advice while waiting until a good time to go to the store?
Your Truly
Squeezie

PS: I really want this working, I haven't got any 3D games yet. I am looking forward to Super Mario 3D Land though, and I want to preorder.

I just tried my copy and it works fine. I'd suggest calling Nintendo.

Mine works just fine. Try blowing on the cartridge.

I'll go to the Support Store sometime this week then.

I'll try that too then.

Did you use to have a Nintendo DS lite? It could be that the game that you have is a pirated copy.

Funny. When I got Professor Layton 1 my DSi screwed up and gives an error message for everything. I am selling it on craigslist soon so I don't kill my month-old 3DS.

I did use to have a DS Lite, but how could it be pirated? It came in the right box with the receipt attatched.

Nintendo DS lite's can play pirated games, but Nintendo DSi, XL and 3DS can't. I once got a pirated game on ebay and I got the same message. Was the seller that you bought it from from China or any Asian country?

I've gotten 3 pirated games from Hong Kong as well as a NYGA Gamecube controller.

No, the seller was stationed in New South Wales and we contacted them, and they had good grammar. (no offense to other asian people)

What's the code on the cart. numbers-numbers-AUS

I got my fake copy of Tetris DS from an American seller.

If it worked on the old, and not on the newer while looking quite legit you have a later model(newer) made pirate. From first glance a lot of them without hard inspection look very legit as they've got it down to where the ink, sticker, art on the stick look right and probably really are. It's the smaller details such as the printed number on the back, or the color of the circuit board (also the exposed white ink) not being the right colors (or missing on the ink) that are good give aways. Despite how good the games can fairly pass for real, they still make obviously bad box art and far worse manuals with engrish and all. The best test though is the failing on stuff after the DSi, as no matter how good they look, they appear(none) to have any idea what the secret boot strap code is so it tanks.

A good check I've found is to look at mobygames.com - there, people upload scans of the front and back of the case as well as the cartridge, so you can see what a legit one SHOULD look like (assuming they have scans for the region you have a copy of).

Keep in mind that you still need to be wary when buying games online. I've bought a copy of M&L:BIS from a reputable online store before and received a dodgy copy. I got a refund, but only after I complained - they certainly weren't forthcoming about it.

Also, I'm in Australia and I've seen Australian sellers listing obviously pirated games - selling them as brand new (sealed, even), but the case is a clear, fat PAL-style case while the paper inlay is the North American cover. So we do have people selling dodgy copies here!

From what you say Squeezie007 it looks like a bootleg copy of the game. Those come with boxes, receipts, manuals and even look as closely to original as can get. But inside the cartridge they are a mess of poor quality parts and boot up using a hack instead of normal process. They are clones of original cartridges and they are far more common than you could think - in my area (Eastern Europe) it's a rampant plague and I often have to search for a game for days to find a legitimate copy (that's true especially for GameBoy Advance games which I am collecting). DS Lite is too simple in terms of firmware to detect if a cartridge is a fake, but DSi and 3DS won't allow you to use such games - they'll give the error message you described.

The only thing you can do is try to get the money back from the seller. In my country selling pirated games is a crime and I can't imagine it being different in Australia. Maybe you can get some help from the authorities? I know that sounds a bit extreme and I apologize in advance - it comes with having a law degree.

Additionally - as far as I am concerned 3DS logs the use of such things and sends them over to Nintendo (at least there were such claims from them on the occasion of the last system update), and they threatened to ban users, although I am sure that they will do that only to those using flashcarts. Bottom line - don't be persistent in your attempts to boot the game, it can't do you no good.

grr i'm going to hunt ya'll down
Nah, just kidding. I'm Asian, but I have very small knowledge about Asia.
Do most games sell pirated stuff?