A brief history of colored game cartridges
One of these things is not like the other
Standard color: As with Atari, most of the Genesisā carts were black. Notice though the shift from black label/old logo to red label/new logo, displayed here with Sonic 2 (black) ašnd then Sonic 3 (red). In some circles (i.e. mine), the red label is associated with the beginning of Segaās perpetual mishandling of its hardware, ultimately leading to theļ·ŗ company exiting the hardware race altogether in 2002.
Special color: I searched far and wide for deviant Genesis carts and all I could find was thisš red cart for , a Spider-Man beat āem up based on the gratuitous comic book miniseries.
Funny how few colored carts there were when EA was allowed to publish its games in these strange cases with giant yellow plugsš ° in the side. Why weš“re they huge and unshapely? Because Sega never gave EA a proper development kit, forcing the formerly underdog EA to .
Standard color:šØ That same NES grey we lusted over in the &lāsquo;80s.
Special colors: Obviously ź¦we all know Pokemon shipped on game-specific carts (Red, Blue, Gold, Silver and so on) but donāt forget 1994ās Donkey Kong Land. Oh, you did forget it? Thatās OK.
The launch of the Game Boy Color in 1998 required two new types of Game Boy carts ā solid black for games tšhašt play in both Game Boy and Game Boy Color, and clear for Color-exclusive games. Man, youāre learning so much today.
Standard color: Again, grey is Nintendoās color of choice.
Sign up to the GamesRadar+ Newsletter
Weekly digests, tales from š¶the communities you love, and more
Special colors: Red and black. Botź§h Doom and the aforementioned Maximum Carnage were the former, while arcade darling Killer Instinct arrived draped in black. Even with all the SNES games released, only these three were deemed special enough for a colored cartridge. Restraint made them matter. The next console took the opposite approach, nearly sapping the importance right out.
Next page: Nintendo 64, Game Boy Advance and moꦔdern-day equš ivalents!
A fomer Executive Editor at GamesRadar, Brett also contꦯributed content to many other Future gaming pubšlications including Nintendo Power, PC Gamer and Official Xbox Magazine. Brett has worked at Capcom in several senior roles, is an experienced podcaster, and now works as a Senior Manager of Content Communications at PlayStation SIE.