I was also looking for more info on this. Sounds like a good idea for a blog post if anyone can shed light on how/why this works.

My best guess would be some kind of anti-piracy measure failing.

That one's included in the article, bottom of page 1 called "Flash forward"[0]

> someone figured out if you played the games in an odd, and very specific order, the flash memory would sort of work. So an extra leaflet was added to every box explaining how to use this "feature."

[0] http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/249475/More_dirty_coding_...