diff --git a/pico/cart.c b/pico/cart.c
index 339b9fe7..13218031 100644
--- a/pico/cart.c
+++ b/pico/cart.c
@@ -1341,10 +1341,6 @@ static void PicoCartDetect(const char *carthw_cfg)
     memset(Pico.sv.data, 0xff, Pico.sv.size);
   }
 
-  // Unusual region 'code'
-  if (rom_strcmp(0x1f0, "EUROPE") == 0 || rom_strcmp(0x1f0, "Europe") == 0)
-    *(u32 *) (Pico.rom + 0x1f0) = CPU_LE4(0x20204520);
-
   // tweak for Blackthorne: master SH2 overwrites stack of slave SH2 being in PWM
   // interrupt. On real hardware, nothing happens since slave fetches the values
   // it has written from its cache, but picodrive doesn't emulate caching.
diff --git a/pico/pico.c b/pico/pico.c
index 0e7e1d8f..b84fda6e 100644
--- a/pico/pico.c
+++ b/pico/pico.c
@@ -97,15 +97,21 @@ PICO_INTERNAL void PicoDetectRegion(void)
 {
   int support=0, hw=0, i;
   unsigned char pal=0;
+  char *pr = (char *)(Pico.rom + 0x1f0);
 
   if (PicoIn.regionOverride)
   {
     support = PicoIn.regionOverride;
   }
+  else if (strcmp(pr, "EUROPE") == 0 || strcmp(pr, "Europe") == 0)
+  {
+    // Unusual cartridge region 'code'
+    support|=8;
+  }
   else
   {
     // Read cartridge region data:
-    unsigned short *rd = (unsigned short *)(Pico.rom + 0x1f0);
+    unsigned short *rd = (unsigned short *)pr;
     int region = (rd[0] << 16) | rd[1];
 
     for (i = 0; i < 4; i++)