Why is the NES cartridge so big?

[jajaja]

Why is the NES cartridge so big compared to the circuit board? Did they make it big for future upgrade? I have a demo cartridge and the circuitboard is as big as the cartridge itself.

[bazariah]

i think the whole idea was for any upgrades they may have made to later releases, in japan they had all kinds of funny shaped famicom carts, maybe the nes carts were made that way incase any special graphics/sound/custom chipsets had to be aded

either way nes carts look so damn cool :D

[studvicious]

I think mainly they needed that extra room so it would work with the toaster design. But who knows, I could be wrong.

[Dangerboy]

I recall asking a Nintendo person once, and they said it was more for heat dispersment. No ventilation in cart inside big metal box that heats up wouldn't be good for the game.

If you've ever played a SNES for more than 2 hours, you'll know what they mean.

Plus, if it were any smaller, you wouldn't be able to pull it out of the NES deck ^^

Jason

[jajaja]

Ye.. maybe they made it so it would fit the design, but on the other hand they could have made the connector closer to the opening, maybe?
The heat issue also makes sense. Altho the NES cpu isnt even 2mhz it still produce some heat.

As mentioned above, the carts looks damn cool :)

[chrisbid]

i thought it was more of looks. they wanted the NES to not look like video games of the past, and the carts, along with the method to insert the games, kindof resemble a VHS tape, and have the same height and length of a CD Jewel Case. NES carts are probably my favorite media.

[roushimsx]

I'm going to go with the ol' idea that "it looks like you're getting more for your money".

[Jumpman Jr.]

A few reasons I think
1) They wanted to differentiate themselves from all the other consoles at the time. They did this by making it so you would have to stick the game literally 'into' the console. And another by making their games so big
2) In making it so the NES games would go into the console, they needed to make something big so it would fit.

[shapeshifter421]

It's all about those hot and sexy labels, you can't tell me you haven't looked at a Princess Tomato cart and not had your pants tighten up, hot!!!! @_@

[tholly]

It's all about those hot and sexy labels, you can't tell me you haven't looked at a Princess Tomato cart and not had your pants tighten up, hot!!!! @_@


i know EXACTLY what your talking about.....ahahhah

[Apossum]

They shaped them that way to make them extra hard to pull out after you've eaten fried chicken.

[Chronodriftersx]

Why is the NES cartridge so big compared to the circuit board? Did they make it big for future upgrade? I have a demo cartridge and the circuitboard is as big as the cartridge itself.

Um the answer was in the question isn't it? The cart is so big to fit the demo circuit boards. ;)

[Necron99]

I had read somewhere that the NES carts were that big because at the time, Video "cartridges" weren't selling well, thus the NES in a way tricked the market into being confident again. look on any(not sure if all) NES boxes and carts and they are all described as "game packs"

[Mianrtcv]

The size of the NES cartridge makes it possible to make a simple "one foot at a time" ladder simply by wedging the cart between a suitable brace. Behold....

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Yes, daylight savings time messes up my thought processes.

[jajaja]

Why is the NES cartridge so big compared to the circuit board? Did they make it big for future upgrade? I have a demo cartridge and the circuitboard is as big as the cartridge itself.

Um the answer was in the question isn't it? The cart is so big to fit the demo circuit boards. ;)

What u mean? I have a demo NES game and if you open it the circuit board covers the whole inside, not just 1/3 like the normal NES games. The circuit board isnt too big or small to fit, it fits perfectly, but it fills out all the space in the cartridge.

[njiska]

Why is the NES cartridge so big compared to the circuit board? Did they make it big for future upgrade? I have a demo cartridge and the circuitboard is as big as the cartridge itself.

Um the answer was in the question isn't it? The cart is so big to fit the demo circuit boards. ;)

What u mean? I have a demo NES game and if you open it the circuit board covers the whole inside, not just 1/3 like the normal NES games. The circuit board isnt too big or small to fit, it fits perfectly, but it fills out all the space in the cartridge.

That's what he said. The cart was big beause of the demo boards. It also allowed for expandability just like the SNES cart did. If you look at a battery backed game you'll find it's board is bigger then a normal one too.

[Arkaign]

Yeah, I've never talked to any NES engineers, but it makes perfect sense that they left extra space for the variety of reasons listed :

(1)- To allow large demo boards to fit

(2)- To allow for extra space for larger final games to be possible (extra roms, battery, etc)

I think NEC might have partially regretted the HuCard format, because you couldn't really have a battery in the card, the game saves were all passwords that you had to carefully write down. That was annoying!

[Jagasian]

The NES cart shell is so large because they wanted to have the same cart size no matter what game you played. For simple games, the circuit board inside the cart is very small, but for games like Zelda, it takes up almost half of the cart shell. There are a few games, which use the MMC5 mapper, which is a sophisticated IC, and these games also have additional RAM chips on board, sound chips, battery backed SRAM, etc... anyway, these games actually use every bit of space available inside the NES cart shell.

To compare this to modern gaming, imagine if PS2 games that didn't use all of the space on the DVD were released on smaller DVDs with smaller DVD cases? There would be several different sized cases and DVDs. It would be a pain to keep things organized, as things wouldn't stack up nicely on your shelf.

[jajaja]

Why is the NES cartridge so big compared to the circuit board? Did they make it big for future upgrade? I have a demo cartridge and the circuitboard is as big as the cartridge itself.

Um the answer was in the question isn't it? The cart is so big to fit the demo circuit boards. ;)

What u mean? I have a demo NES game and if you open it the circuit board covers the whole inside, not just 1/3 like the normal NES games. The circuit board isnt too big or small to fit, it fits perfectly, but it fills out all the space in the cartridge.

That's what he said. The cart was big beause of the demo boards. It also allowed for expandability just like the SNES cart did. If you look at a battery backed game you'll find it's board is bigger then a normal one too.

Ye true, thats what I said. I see what he ment now, but that was just my thought that they made it big for future expansion. But I didnt say it was the correct answer. I wanted to hear what the other thought :)

[Ed Oscuro]

The cart was big beause of the demo boards. It also allowed for expandability just like the SNES cart did. If you look at a battery backed game you'll find it's board is bigger then a normal one too.
Demo boards aren't a reason to have a larger cart. Production games with bigger boards, though, are a good reason :)

[shapeshifter421]

If anyone has a copy of Bandit Kings of Ancient China, open it up and take a look, the circuit board is huge and it weighs a lot, looks like it barely fits in there

[Mr.Faxanadu]

I'm going to go with the ol' idea that "it looks like you're getting more for your money".

Ya... this is what I'm thinking.... I remember buying TG-16 games and gettting those small Hu Cards. When I first saw one I was shocked how small they were. Those things were SOOOO easy to loose and the amount of game play that could be programmed into them seemed to be less then NES games. Although this could be because the TG-16 was 16 bit and the NES was 8.

[*TRICKSTAR*]

Why is the NES cartridge so big compared to the circuit board? Did they make it big for future upgrade? I have a demo cartridge and the circuitboard is as big as the cartridge itself.

So you can pack a lunch if you have to.

[rbudrick]

i thought it was more of looks. they wanted the NES to not look like video games of the past, and the carts, along with the method to insert the games, kindof resemble a VHS tape, and have the same height and length of a CD Jewel Case. NES carts are probably my favorite media.

Basically, yep. Nintendo knew no one was buying videogames after the crash. This is why they called it the Nintendo ENTERTAINMENT System. It was for entertainment, and people would associate the insertion of the game "tapes" with other appliances like the VCR (Nintendo puposely called the game "paks" instead of cartridges for this reason). Plus, the frontloader design was considered something stylish looking (not a toy like the Famicom) that would look good in your entertainment center. Of course, ideas of style have changed since the mid eighties (see cell phones and PSPs and many items by Apple for what people consider cool in electronics now).

Obviously, this strategy worked.

-Rob

[jhd7]

FWIW - early games like Super Mario / Duck Hunt had very small circuit boards. Later ones, such as Romance of the Three Kingdoms II, had circuit boards that filled the entire case.

jeff d

[MattyXB]

I never seen a NES Game, Demo or Prototype, which not fit in these big cases. So its great that they are so big and can hold every game and prototype inside. Only when the EPROMs are sometimes to big, then they must broken the front a bit to fits them inside.

At the other side, I have seen much N64, SNES, Mega Drive (Genesis), GameBoy Games and/or Prototypes, which not fit in the regular cases. So they must broken the cases, or make special new cases for the bigger boards.

[Tron 2.0]

NES carts>waste of space

Famicom carts>saves space and looks cooler 8-)