Game Cartridges facts

While investigating facts about Game Cartridges For Nintendo Switch and Game Cartridges For Leappad Ultimate, I found out little known, but curios details like:

The original Super Mario Bros game had 256 "Hidden" levels that were only accessible by swapping the game cartridge with a copy of "Tennis" while the game was running.

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Nintendo coats their new Switch game cartridges with denatonium benzoate (a non-toxic agent) to cause a bitter taste as a deterrent for children putting the games in their mouth

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In my opinion, it is useful to put together a list of the most interesting details from trusted sources that I've come across answering what is the difference between clay and game cartridges. Here are 50 of the best facts about Game Cartridges For Nintendo Switch Lite and Game Cartridges Vs Discs I managed to collect.

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Atari programmers met with Atari CEO Ray Kassar in May 1979 to demand that the company treat developers as record labels treated musicians, with royalties and their names on game boxes. Kaplan said no and that "anyone can do a cartridge." So the programmers left Atari and founded Activision
Every single copy of GoldenEye 007 for the N64 shipped with a fully functioning ZX Spectrum emulator, along with ten games, hidden on the cartridge. This function can be reenabled using an emulator, letting users play the classic games.
When developing N64s Goldeneye, Rare developers used a modified Sega Saturn controller for early playtesting & originally intended for weapon-reloading to be by unplugging/reinserting the N64 controller rumble pack. Each cartridge also contains a ZX Spectrum Emulator with 10 Rare-developed games
Final Fantasy VII was originally planned for the Nintendo 64, but its cartridge-based system couldn't handle what they wanted the game to do and Nintendo refused to listen to Square Enix' advice of using CD-ROMs, so they jumped ship to the then in development Sony Playstation
Every GoldenEye 007 N64 cartridge contains a fully functional ZX Spectrum emulator with ten Rare developed games
The Age of Empires game for the Nintendo DS could be bricked/destroyed completely if the name of the save file was less than 4 characters long. The developers later had to print a slip into future cartridges warning players since the glitch could not be repaired, only worked around.
Nintendo Switch game cartridges are coated with a chemical to make them taste bad to children.
Nintendo 64 software rarely took advantage of 64-bit data precision operations. N64 game-titles generally used faster (and more compact) 32-bit data-operations. 32-bit code executed faster and required less storage space (which was at a premium on the N64's cartridges).
There was an cartridge released in 1994 that could let you play existing games for the SNES and Genesis online for 20$ and 5$ subscription fee. It was essentially a modem on a cartage that you plugged your games on top. It also had email build in.
Final Fantasy VII was originally intended as a 2D SNES game. Development was interrupted from 1994-1995 & after its 3D tech demo, was planned for N64. But with its needed memory storage quantity & N64’s limited cartridge space, this led to a dispute that ended Square’s relationship with Nintendo

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Bubble Bobble Revolution was released for Nintendo DS in 2005. It contained 100 levels, but due to a major game breaking glitch levels 31-100 were inaccessible. The company promised replacement cartridges to be issued within 8-10 weeks. As of 2015 no replacements have been issued.

Thousands of unsold Atari cartridges, including the infamous E.T. video game, were buried in a New Mexico landfill. This was believed to be an urban legend until they were dug up in 2014. - source

Star Fox included a custom graphics chip in the game's cartridge. That chip's architecture is still used today, shipping more than 1.5 billion units annually. - source

TV shows and full length movies were stored and sold on Game Boy Advanced cartridges. One cartridge was even a double feature: Shrek and Shark Tale, which ran at 168x112 to fit the small store space. The largest video cart was just 64mb.

Space Invaders was the first cartridge video game to be sold that sold more than one million copies.

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Nintendo Game Boy was not the first hand held gaming device that utilized cartridges for changing games. Microvision released a version in 1979 that played a clone of Atari's Breakout.

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Nintendo has intentionally made the switch game cartridges taste disgusting to stop children (and presumably, pets) from accidentally swallowing them.

The 1991 SNES game "The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past" used 8 Mbit (1 MB) cartridges. At the time, most SNES game cartridges had 4 Mbit (512 KB) of storage space. The larger cartridges allowed the Nintendo development team to create a remarkably expansive world for Link to inhabit.

Video game cartridges may also carry hardware components that increase or extend the console's functionality, such as extra RAM, co-processors, gyroscopes, light sensors, etc.

At one point the original release of The Legend of Zelda was to be done on floppy disks but the cartridge was used instead when Nintendo opted for the cartridge for its systems.

During it's prime, Atari created their "competitor" Kee Games to help distribute more game cartridges

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One of the rarest NES games are the gold cartridges used at the 1990 Nintendo world championships. There are only 26 known to of been made, and one sold at auction for $100,000.

Nintendo Switch game cartridges are manufactured with a denatonium benozate coating; a “bittering agent” that gives the cartridges a REALLY terrible taste to avoid accidental ingestion.

The Game Genie cheat cartridge allowed players of the Game Boy to have infinite lives.

The exceptionally rare Sega Genesis game called "The Blockbuster World Championship II". Cartridges were used for an in-store competition in 1995, each store champion progressing to the final in San Francisco. The game featured watered-down versions of NBA Jam TE and Judge Dredd.

Commodore built a games console based on the C64, was called C64GS ( Games System). Released in 1990, it used games cartridges and was to compete with Sega and Nintendo. It was old tech based on 1982 C64 and never a success.

How do game cartridges work?

Tetris was released on the Sega Genesis. Due to legal complications, only around 10 cartridges exist. The game has been sold for upwards of $1 million.

The Game Boy Advance had video cartridges that allowed it to play TV shows and Movies!

The origia Sega master system (1986) had a built in game called snail maze which was never released on cartridge. Instead the way to access to the game was by turning on the system with no cartridge inserted and hold up and buttons 1 & 2 at the same time

The 'Nintendo' logo on the Game Boy's startup screen is actually a form of copy protection. The cartridge must contain a copy of the logo, otherwise it won't boot. An unauthorized recreation of the logo is both a copyright and a trademark violation.

The N64 game Banjo-Kazooie was designed with a hidden feature where you could unlock special transformations in its sequel, Banjo-Tooie, by physically swapping out the cartridge. The feature was never fully implemented due to hardware constraints.

Nintendo's smash hit, Super Mario Bros was supposed to be a final farewell to their original cartridge system as they introduce their Famicom Disc System. However, it's 40+ million copies sold places it as one of the greatest AND best selling games of all time, spawning many future Mario titles!

In 1985, the BBC released the BBC Bridge Companion, a video game console dedicated to the card game Bridge. Nine different cartridges were available for it.

The christian video game company Wisdom Tree made cartridges that sent voltage spikes to the NES authentication chip in order to bypass it, or they would require officially licensed games to be plugged into the top of their SNES cartridges in order to bypass validation of their unlicensed games.

The first cartridge-based gaming console, the Fairchild Channel F, was designed by Jerry Lawson, an African American engineer, in the early 70's. He was also one of the two only black members of the Homebrew Computer Club, whose members included figures such as Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak.

Nintendo coats their Switch game cartridges with Denatonium Benzoate to prevent young players from ingesting them.

Nintendo purposely made game cartridges for the Switch taste awful by applying a nontoxic bittering agent on them. This was done to prevent small children from accidentally swallowing the tiny cartridges.

The SD card size game cartridge for the Nintendo Switch is coated with a foul tasting plastic to prevent kids from putting it in their mouth

This is our collection of basic interesting facts about Game Cartridges. The fact lists are intended for research in school, for college students or just to feed your brain with new realities. Possible use cases are in quizzes, differences, riddles, homework facts legend, cover facts, and many more. Whatever your case, learn the truth of the matter why is Game Cartridges so important!