The history of the emergence and origin of Flash cartridges for Game Boy Advance.
Part 2. The war between Ez-Flash and XG-Flash.

EZ-Flash 1

In February 2002, a guy with the nickname (or maybe it was his name) Borden developed the Ez-Flash Flash cartridge.

And here's what's interesting: I don't know how much he borrowed ideas from Flash Advance, but if he did, which is quite likely, then the entire history of the emergence and origin of Flash cartridges becomes a single, interconnected story.

So, Borden starts publishing the development process of the Flash cartridge on his website.

Initially, versions 64M, 128M, and 256M were supposed to be released. But Borden had some issues with obtaining parts, and only the 256M version hit the market. (Although later on the official website, I came across mentions of a 128M cartridge).

The obvious advantage of this device over Visoly's products was the Ez-Writer, which connected to the computer via a USB port instead of LPT.

And this was the first cartridge to use USB instead of LPT. In 2002, this wasn't entirely obvious, but now it's definitely a big plus because LPT is dead.

Borden did create this cartridge and started selling it in China. As of June 2, 2002, the entire batch was sold out, and Borden began looking for ways to enter international markets. By the way, the starting price was 1180 yuan for the cartridge and writing device or 980 yuan for just the cartridge.

The final product looked like this:

Here we could have ended the history of the first generation of Ez-Flash, if not for another company, which made things very interesting.

XG-Flash 1

When I started looking into cartridges and their release chronology, I came across an interesting note on the XG-Flash website where the manufacturer of XG-Flash writes that they have been producing the XG-Flash cartridge for a year (since February 2002).

I started to figure out what these cartridges were, and what do I see? Many sources say that XG-Flash is a pirated (and cheaper) clone of EZ-Flash. So much so that they could use each other's cartridge writing devices.

And here I have a question: if XG-Flash is a clone, how could it appear in February 2002, considering that EZ-Flash was still in development?

And... Well, you can't fool us. On June 12, 2002, an article about a new product appeared on the website of the xinga.com store (xinga was the distributor of these cartridges, and according to unverified information, the owner of XG-Flash):

GBA-256M USB Magic Card - SUPER MINI version GBA 256M Magic Card special for the notebook computer! It's very easy to download the GBA/GBC/NES Games or the E-BOOK for learning, and uses flash memory technology, can be reprogrammed over 100,000 times, supports all GBA games!! (ATTENTION: This device allows you to use it as a testing device for your GBA small program at home only, you CAN'T use it for business purposes!)

Interestingly, this is not yet XG-Flash (probably it is already XG-Flash, but without a redesign). It's not entirely clear why they later redesigned the device, maybe to make its resemblance to EZ-Flash even more obvious?

It's not entirely clear when, but between October 18, 2002, and December 25, 2002, XG-Flash underwent a rebranding and became the XG-Flash we know.

On December 25, 2002, the company producing XG-Flash started manufacturing these cartridges in 7 colors:

Update: You can't fool us. On the website of one of the stores selling XG-Flash, I found information that the release date was December 1, 2002.

We could have ended 2002 here, if not for one more event:

Somewhere in 2002, Borden couldn't withstand the competition with XG-Flash - XG had much stronger marketing, and their cartridges started selling worldwide (plus they were cheaper). Borden got a job at XG Flash and helped them develop their products.

EZF Advance

2003 begins. Somewhere between February and May, this cartridge is released:

I started looking for who the manufacturer was, which company produced it, and found some interesting information.

It turns out that, for unclear reasons, Borden left XG-Flash and again created his own cartridge!

However, there is one strange thing about this cartridge: the official website states that production began in May, but in May, a different version of this cartridge was released. You could say it's a mistake, but on April 12, 2003, the manufacturer of XG cartridges received this cartridge and made a comparison between their cartridges and this one. And it turned out (what a coincidence!) that their future cartridge, which had not yet been released, was better than EZF Advance.

So, on May 14, 2003, the EZF Advance 256M cartridge by Borden hit the market.

This cartridge is interesting primarily because it introduced the Real Time Clock function. Of course, this wasn't for checking the time, but for games that required this feature, such as various Pokémon games.

This cartridge also had a function to exit the game to the menu. This was probably the first time such a function appeared on Flash cartridges, at least I haven't seen other cartridges with this feature.

Here we need to make a small digression. If XG-Flash killed EZ-Flash, and Borden started producing EZF-Advance, why does a company actively developing and releasing EZ-Flash cartridges exist today in 2020?

This is interesting. Remember I wrote that in 2002 Borden moved to work at XG-Flash? Well, he did move, but he sold the rights to the EZ-Flash cartridge to other people (later they called themselves EZ-Team). And on June 12, 2003, EZ-Team woke up and released EZ-Flash 2 to the market.

This device didn't have any outstanding features, but it combined all the previous interesting features, such as: hardware save, real time clock, soft reset, and the ability to use cheats.

Epilogue

It was at the moment of the release of these three cartridges (EZF Advance, EZ-Flash 2, and XG Flash) that the fates of these people and companies diverged, and they all went their separate ways.

Borden later released EZF Advance 2 and apparently sold the rights to another company again, because EZF Advance 3 was no longer his creation.

XG Flash survived until 2005 and then pivoted.

And EZ-Flash is still alive today. Today is 2020, a pandemic, and EZ-Flash is still alive.

Such a strange intertwining of cartridges. This is where we'll stop. Why here, you ask? It's simple: there will be no more drama, no more twists, just the usual and standard development of cartridges, with the only new feature being memory card support. And that's not a revolution.

In December 2003, EFA cartridges will appear, in 2004 G6 and SuperCard will appear, cartridges will grow like mushrooms, stealing technologies from each other, and become so commonplace that even Nintendo will stop fighting them.

But it was Flash Advance, Flash2Advance, EZ-Flash, XG-Flash, and EZF Advance that were the first and appeared at the dawn of the Game Boy Advance console.

I would like to note one thing separately: there will actually be one change that will make using cartridges even easier. But this event will happen about 12 years after the aforementioned events. EZ-Team will teach their EZ-Flash 4 cartridge to patch games on the fly (without writing through a computer program), meaning you just load the game onto the cartridge and play, especially on the EZ-Flash Omega cartridge, where any game without a patch will load in 1-2 seconds.