Master System games with missing cart connection contacts?

[The Adventurer]

I just bought a bunch of Master System games in anticipation of my new Powerbase Mini arriving. But while handling my new copy of Shinobi I was surprised to see up inside the connector part of the cart that numerous copper connection plates (I don't know their real name) appear to be missing. My copies of Space Harrier, Alex Kidd in Miracle World, and Wonder Boy III have all the connector plates in place. But I also have a copy of Rastan that is also missing several plates.

Is this normal? Or are my games damaged? Its quite concerning. I won't be able to test any of them till the end of the week.

[Urzu402]

If it helps, my copy of Alien Syndrome is missing a few pins on the left side, and it works fine in my Master System. I am also curious to the answer of this question too.

[Ze_ro]

There are a lot of signals and connections on the cartridge port that aren't necessary for most cartridges. Instead they hook to other functions in the machine, ie for expansion possibilities. If you look at this cartridge PCB, it DOES have all the pins present, but note that the first 9 pins don't actually connect to anything.

This is pretty common with lots of systems.

--Zero

[Scissors]

I just checked my copy of Shinobi and it's missing quite a few too. My Rastan has them all though.

[-^Cro§Bow^-]

It isn't just the SMS games. I've lost count of how many Genesis games I've got that only have a few pins on one side and full set of pins on the other. As was stated already, not all the games require all the connections. I suspect it has more to do with the amount of ram the game takes along with the other resources it needs on the rest of the system main board.

[The Adventurer]

Oh okay. I hadn't noticed it on my Genesis carts. Good to know its normal.

[ProjectCamaro]

Oh okay. I hadn't noticed it on my Genesis carts. Good to know its normal.

I freaked out too when I first bought my Genesis and a bunch of games and noticed all the pins missing.

[Tanooki]

When I had my SMS a year back I remember a good few of them didn't have all the pins, but this isn't weird as it's pretty standard even over in Nintendo land, like to check some NES carts and see what's missing usually in the middle. Sometimes to cut costs if the pins were space wasters, not even a ground for whatever reason, they wouldn't waste the metals on it.