Why is the NES cartridge so big?

[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