Talk about lucky: DS carts survive the rinse cycle
by David Hinkle 
{ Jan 15th 2008 at 12:45PM }
Or, at least the washing machine. Such is the case of Scott's son, who forgot about a copy of Pokemon and Sonic Rush in his jeans. The jeans went through the entire wash cycle and, upon completion, had the carts removed from the confines of the pocket and they were found to be bone dry. In fact, they booted up just fine.
We're not about to go and try it on our own with our carts, but we guess this is one process of demise we don't really have to concern ourselves with anymore when it comes to game carts.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
ghettoflower @ Feb 1st 2008 1:51AM
i let a friend borrow dawn of sorrow once, and he had the nerve to start a new game using my completed save, and i even had the chaos ring i think... he couldn't complete it, even though i had the chaos ring... after a month he disappointingly said he put it in the wash. i asked him if he tried it and he was like "d00d it was in the wash" so i asked for it back someday anyway, not caring much because well, soma's great and all, even a little cooler the second time, but he's no juste or maxim. after a couple months he returned it saying it worked and he never bothered to complete the game, which is fine. Soma's cool and all, but he's no Juste
David D. @ Jan 15th 2008 1:59PM
It's not that surprising. There was no current going through the gamepak, because there wasn't a back-up battery, and it wasn't in a DS that was turned on. Electronics are rather durable in liquids if they aren't powered on, but depending on the liquid they may corrode.
I once jumped in my pool with F-Zero Maximum Velocity, Sonic Advance, and MarioKart: Super Circuit, and the only bad thing that happened was that the back-up battery in the F-Zero game became rather unreliable, so I replaced it. The other games used Flash or EPROM chips to save my data, and the mask ROMs were obviously unaffected.
By the way, all DS games use Flash or EPROMs for save memory, so they're all good.
Nigeria @ Jan 15th 2008 2:03PM
How can you forget Sonic Rush?
This guy clearly doesn't deserve nice things.
pas @ Jan 15th 2008 2:05PM
o rly ?
Safiel @ Jan 15th 2008 2:06PM
Back in college I took a course on embedded computer systems. We spent the first few lab days of the course soldering together the little computers we'd be using for the rest of the course. After we were done, all the boards went into a dishwasher to get all the excess rosin off of them. The key is to make sure everything is really, really dry before turning anything back on and you're good... though i wouldn't be surprised if the stickers on the cartridges had a little ware.
Jacob @ Jan 15th 2008 2:23PM
This actually happened to me. I had my copy of Animal Crossing in pocket, and forgot about it. I was terribly worried when it fell out of the pocket of jeans when I pulled the clothes out of the drier. The game turned out fine though. Of course the little sticker is in bad shape, but the game works just as well now as it did when I first bought it. Its holding up fine too, as it was washed roughly eight months ago (I think) and still boots up just fine.
Nushio (NDF - Blue) @ Jan 15th 2008 2:50PM
The only thing that can happen to the carts is getting the sticker peeled off as proven by my cousin and his games :P
Alien @ Jan 15th 2008 2:51PM
Well I wonder what will happen over time ...
Brittany @ Jan 15th 2008 3:08PM
How could you forget about Animal Crossing :( that should always be in your DS (cause you know, your second DS is for playing all your other games)
Linka @ Jan 15th 2008 4:53PM
...Scarily enough, I did basically the exact same thing. (Only Sonic Rush was Sonic Rush Adventure, not the original) Amazingly, both worked perfectly fine.
Which was good for the Diamond game. I would have been mad if that was erased.
Kereth @ Jan 15th 2008 8:41PM
my copy of Animal Crossing has gone through the washer and dryer three times and only the most recent time did it show any ware when the plastic on the label bubbled a little.
iofthestorm @ Jan 15th 2008 9:21PM
Haha, I did that with Mario Kart and Advance Wars, but nothing happened luckily. Yeah, basically as others have said electronics are fine getting wet as long as you completely dry them before putting current through them.
Marzz @ Jan 15th 2008 11:59PM
I washed two games as well, Metroid Prime Hunters and Pokemon Pearl. And, my copy of FF3 got run over by a car, and has gravel holes in the case.
All three work just fine though. I was really surprised, myself. Those damn things are just indestructible.
Matdredalia @ Jan 16th 2008 5:49AM
My husband did just that with his copy of Pokemon Diamond. When he told me, I burst into tears because I'd thought he'd lost my little brother's Shiny Growlithe that he'd borrowed.
He just laughed at me and said "Babe, it still works."
Once again proving DS = awesome.
The games are immortal!