DKC Atlas Forum

Previous I found out Nintendo's worst secret. I dug out my GBC and played Pokemon Silver for the first time in years.
When I turned it on I discovered my file was deleted (goodbye 251 Pokemon), so I reluctantly started a new game. After about an hour I saved, quit and went to play a halo.
About a week later when I was equally bored, I dug out silver again. I turned it on to find my game was cleared again! Dun, dun, dun... After many attempts, the cartridge would not keep a saved game.

I searched on the net only to find out that these cartridges have a battery in them that runs out after a certain amount of years. Therefore, leaving the cartridge useless as it cannot save a game. Apparently because of the in-game clock in silver, it drains the battery even faster (noticed as my pokemon blue still has my saved game from many, many years ago).
Nintendo has no lost all respect in my eyes. They didn't even put a note in the games booklet to say that this may happen.

On another note, gaming companies complain about the use of illegal roms downloaded from the net. Atleast the rom will last and I won't lose my game data within 3 years!


There's my two cents.


Does anyone know if any other platform's cartridges have similar batteries that will eventually run out?

As far as I know, all game cartridges have an in-cartridge battery that would ran out eventually, some in about 10 years, some in 5, some in even 30. SNES, NES, GB, GBC, GBA, N64, all these will stop working saving the game. They would still be playable though.

I'm not sure if NDS are cartridges or other kind like eeproms or something like that. Somebody that has a NDS can clear this doubt?

Same problem here, my Pokémon Gold also lost its memory.
It its the only game from my entire cartridge collection that lost memory.

Maybe the real time clock feature eats up the battery that quick, because my old Red and Yellow games still have all my Pokémon

Yeah, the only reason Gold, Silver and Crystal die more easily is because of the in-game clocks and the batteries for them. Serebii.net had a few ways to fix it up, namely sending it to nintendo or opening it all up to solder a new battery in yourself.

I think it's safer transfering your Pokémon to those Pokémon Stadiums.

I've got a strange problem with my Yoshi's Island cartridge. But I'm not quite sure its a battery problem, so I'll open another thread.

I have the same darn thing with this Kirby game for the Game Boy Advance.
No matter HOW many times I save, my stupid savegames always manage to magically disappear after shutting the game down.

Wow, I've never heard of this before! I have two copies of gold, two copies of silver, and two copies of crystal, and not one of them has ever had this problem. None of my cartridges have. But now that I know about this I'm worried that my DKC, DKC2, and DKC3 carts (which I have two of each) are all going to lose my save files!

This happens with all cartridges that have battery-saves, hence the name.

My Gold and my Crystal games still work fine, strangely. Maybe it's because I haven't played them much in the past few years... do you think that has something to do with it?

Also, there was one time where I got a NEW Super Mario Land 2, and the battery was already shot when I played it. That pissed me off.

Batteries are one of the reasons why I use ROMs a lot now. Hard drives don't run on batteries, so I don't risk losing any data!

Also, I'm curious: Do other games with clocks in them have short battery lives as well? (Not that there are that many... but I know for a fact that Pokémon isn't the only game with a clock.)

I honestly have no clue why certain ones would last longer, but maybe the temperature/conditions they were kept in? Maybe just how often you load/save?

Hard-Drives don't run on batteries, but the average cartridge battery lasts at least longer than the average HDD
Of course, with roms you have the possibility to copy save files on USB-Stick, etc.

I've known about this ever since I heard of the technology be referred to as 'battery backup'. If Nintendo were a little smarter and more thoughtful to fans, they might have designed these tiny batteries to gradually recharge during gameplay... of course, then Game Boy users would complain that their games were stealing the system's battery life.



This wouldn't help much in a case of having not used the game in years (I guess a better solution would be the non-volatile storage system Kiddy mentioned), but perhaps by then it's time to experience the game all over again.