What's the deal with some famicom carts being numbered?

[ventrra]

Does anyone know why some companies put large numbers on their carts? (I don't mean the cart ID number.)
A lot of famicom cartridges from Taito, Namco, Irem, and possibly Seta and Nichibutsu have large numbers printed on them. For example, Namco's list seems to read like this:
01 Galaxian
02 Pac-man
03 Xevious
04 Mappy
05 Galaga
06 Dig Dug
07 Tower of Druaga
08 Warpman
etc. until 18 Sky Kid

Taitio's seem to be numbered at least to 40 and Irem's at least to 26.

[slapdash]

A lot of Japanese companies just like numbering. Sometimes it happens here too -- look at the Arcadia, for example.

[LocalH]

Or early 2600 releases.

[Immutable]

The numbers are probably used for keeping track of inventory for the in-shop workers.

[slapdash]

Or early 2600 releases.

I almost said that, but they were levelled by category, not numbered sequentially, so I didn't.


The numbers are probably used for keeping track of inventory for the in-shop workers.

Eh... Possibly, but they have other numbers to do that with probably.

I think it's more like numbering a series like you'd do with manga books... And encourage collectors, natch. Would you really want 1, 2, 3, 5, 6 on your shelf WITHOUT 4?

[ventrra]

It's pretty strangely done by many companies, though. NAmco only numbered 1-18 and then stopped. Taito apparently numbered to 41. Tecmo only put their numbers on the outside of the boxes instead of on the carts themselves. All of this is just numbers, rally baffeling is the changes in the carts themselves. Irem's first releases were white with an LED in the cart after a while they dropped the LED and changed to differently collored cases. (At least Famicom carts are more interesting then their NES counterparts.)

[Ed Oscuro]

Sunsoft did some numbering with their early Famicom games - Route-16 Turbo (such a horrible, horrible game) is Series 2, Ikki (awesome arcade port, though very short and easy) is Series 3, and so on. Konami had something like a part number on their games - I forget the actual numbers offhand but I know both the Getsu Fuu Ma Den and Contra boxes have numbers prefixed with RC-...

[ventrra]

Sunsoft did some numbering with their early Famicom games - Route-16 Turbo (such a horrible, horrible game) is Series 2, Ikki (awesome arcade port, though very short and easy) is Series 3, and so on. Konami had something like a part number on their games - I forget the actual numbers offhand but I know both the Getsu Fuu Ma Den and Contra boxes have numbers prefixed with RC-...
Thanks for pointing some of that stuff out. I went through some of the famicom game pics that I have and saw a few of those. (I suppose it helps when I know what I'm looking for.)