Most published codes give the player some form of invulnerability, infinite ammunition, level skipping, or other modifications that allow the player to be more powerful than intended by the developers. These codes can have a variety of effects. Each code contains an integer value that is read by the system in place of the data actually present on the cartridge.īecause the Game Genie patches the program code of a game, the codes are sometimes referred to as patch codes. Upon starting the console, the player is presented with a menu to enter a series of characters, referred to as a ' code', that reference addresses in the ROM of the cartridge. The original Game Genie systems were pass-through devices that attached between a cartridge and the console. The Game Genie brand was later revived by the company Hyperkin, who released cheat systems for newer consoles. Other companies have produced similar hacking devices such as the Code Breaker, Action Replay, and Game Shark.

In 1993, Codemasters began development on a 'Game Genie 2', with Galoob to market and distribute the device in North America, but no Game Genie devices were released for the fifth generation of consoles.

Emulators that have Game Genie support also allow a near-unlimited number of codes to be entered whereas the actual products have an upper and lower limit, between three and six codes. Five million units of the original Game Genie products were sold worldwide, and most video game console emulators feature Game Genie code support. All Game Genie devices temporarily modify game data, allowing the player to do things unintended by developers such as, depending on the game, cheating, manipulating various aspects of games, and accessing unused assets and functions. The first device in the series was released in 1990 for the Nintendo Entertainment System, with subsequent devices released for the Super NES, Game Boy, Genesis, and Game Gear. Game Genie is a line of video game cheat cartridges originally designed by Codemasters, sold by Camerica and Galoob.

Free game genie ps3