Property of Square Soft Inc. Product Development

[NME]

I recently found and bought some SNES cartridges. On the back of each cartridge is a white printed label stating "Property of Square Soft Inc. Product Development" and a barcode with a number. For example, the copy of Final Fantasy Mystic Quest is number 294. In addition, another label is on the back (partially covering the Square Soft label) stating "Property of Crave Entertainment , Inc."

Anything significant with these cartridges? I was just wondering if anybody could explain the history of the labels? Were these cartridges sent to by Square Soft to Crave for some kind of test play? I was just curious

[Tupin]

Do the cartridges have normal labels? Try opening it up to see the board.

[Steve W]

There are a lot of experts on that kind of thing here, but pictures would help greatly to identify them. And if you don't want to open the cartridge cases, you can always weigh them to see if they're heavier than the regular releases of those games.

[badinsults]

If the game has a regular production label on the front, and has a normal PCB, I would assume that these were just sent out to publications or other developers for testing/reviewing. But yes, pictures would greatly help us determine this. Make sure to take a picture of the front of the cart as well!

[Kid Fenris]

It's strange that the games are marked as the property of Crave Entertainment. Crave apparently wasn't founded until 1997, well after all of Square's Super NES games were released.

However, a bunch of former Square employees, including Ted Woolsey, formed a studio called Big Rain and were bought by Crave in 1997 (and renamed Craveyard). Perhaps there's a connection.

[NME]

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Its hard to see the label underneath but I can confirm that it says "Property of Square Soft. Inc. Product Development" and has a barcode with the number 294. I would agree that they are probably nothing special but I figured I would ask.

[badinsults]

Yeah, I would have to agree with Kid Fenris here. Some of the Square USA employees founded Crave, so they probably had a few copies of this laying around for their own purposes.

[NME]

Whats really strange is the other 5 games I found also have the Squaresoft and Crave labels on them but they are not games made by Squaresoft. They are Ultima The Black Gate, Ultima Runes of Virtue 2, The 7th Saga, Dungeon Master, and ActRaisers. They all have a barcode/numbered Squaresoft label with a Crave label over them. Very Strange indeed.

[Gameguy]

Whats really strange is the other 5 games I found also have the Squaresoft and Crave labels on them but they are not games made by Squaresoft. They are Ultima The Black Gate, Ultima Runes of Virtue 2, The 7th Saga, Dungeon Master, and ActRaisers. They all have a barcode/numbered Squaresoft label with a Crave label over them. Very Strange indeed.
Maybe they were using the carts as examples to check out the competition?

[NayusDante]

Looks like the ex-SquareSoft employees took the review copies with them and added them to their reference library. It's common practice in a lot of studios to keep game libraries for employees to check out as development reference.

Here's the thing - SquareSoft was the American arm of Square. I think that reduces the likelihood of it being a prototype. It's likely a review copy or just a sample that they kept around. The story of that cart's ownership is probably much more significant than the cart itself.

Best case scenario - it could be an early translation.

[Tokimemofan]

I have a a few GBA wireless adapters with Disney inventory codes on them and there is no difference. The reference library theory seems more likely.