Is there a shop out there that sells blank NES cartridge shells? (I.e. the gray plastic cases that contain the game board and that you put into the NES. I'm not talking about the black dust sleeves or some cases to store the cartridge in it. I mean the plastic of the cartridge itself.)
I need cartridge cases that are of high quality. Not just okay-ish or "This one has this and that issue, you'll have to see if you like them." I'm talking about cases that are equal in quality to the ones from Nintendo itself.
I know that the cases from RetroUSB have a very high quality. They are on par with the official ones. Unfortunately, they don't sell blank cases.
But I've also ordered a sample from another website once and that one had very thin, bendable plastic, the two pieces didn't match exactly and the rifled structure at the top of the side (this one: |||||||) looked like it was melted. So, this looked more like from a Hongkong bootleg game.
That's why I'm asking: Is there any shop where the cases are of really high quality? Anything that's comparable to RetroUSB in terms of quality?
(By the way, stuff like colors or other conscious design choices are secondary in the moment. This is just about the quality itself. But gray or transparent are preferred over arbitrary colors.)
Quote:
I know that the cases from RetroUSB have a very high quality.
They aren't. The case of my PowerPak broke, even though I was not handling it brutally.
Quote:
Unfortunately, they don't sell blank cases.
I'm pretty sure at some point they did. Maybe they don't do it anymore ?
Bregalad wrote:
Quote:
I know that the cases from RetroUSB have a very high quality.
They aren't. The case of my PowerPak broke, even though I was not handling it brutally.
Quote:
Unfortunately, they don't sell blank cases.
I'm pretty sure at some point they did. Maybe they don't do it anymore ?
So one of your cases broke and you immediately assume ALL the carts are like that? Out of all the issues I've heard about the powerpak...people's cases regularly breaking is not one of them. (Maybe you just got a bad one? It happens)
As for getting new cases, there's a couple of sellers on Aliexpress. Pretty cheap.
Jeroen wrote:
As for getting new cases, there's a couple of sellers on Aliexpress. Pretty cheap.
Yeah, the thing is: Finding some random seller on the internet is not a big deal.
But I need some concrete name or link of a seller (or maybe more than one) where people know
for a fact that he sells high quality shells.
The fact that I've seen shells that were cheaply made tells me that this isn't a situation where you can just take any seller and then you'll get carbon copies of the official shells. The quality varies.
That's why I'd like to know a confirmed seller who definitely sells shells that are on par with the official Nintendo products or the ones from RetroUSB.
O.k., they said that the shells are perfect. But unfortunately, they never said who's the seller. They mentioned AliBaba/AliExpress, but that site has tons of NES shells sales. How do I know which one is that seller?
Quote:
So one of your cases broke and you immediately assume ALL the carts are like that? [...] (Maybe you just got a bad one? It happens)
No, I never assumed ALL carts were like that. And yes, maybe I just got a bad one, I don't know. I'm no expert in plastic quality whatsoever.
I quite liked the quality of the RetroUSB shells. They had a good texture to them, nice heavy feel. The grey ones didn't really match the NES grey, but they were never offered for sale anyway. Of course, RetroUSB doesn't sell repro parts at all, anymore, so this is entirely moot.
I think grey for new carts is probably not the best idea; I don't think anyone will match the colour, and it's a bit of an uncanny valley situation where they look more "wrong" because they're close. Coloured carts look nice, though.
INL's shells aren't the best. The main problem is they only fit INL boards (Nintendo boards need to be modified slightly), but also the plastic is a little bit cloudy and not terribly smooth. I think they work perfectly fine, and the coloured ones look nice on my shelf, but yeah, RetroUSB's were better.
I've never had breakage with either RetroUSB or INL shells. I'm kind of surprised that happened to Bregalad, but I guess plastic breaks sometimes.
Plugging 8-bit evolution. I haven't had the other sellers' mentioned here to compare though.
rainwarrior wrote:
I quite liked the quality of the RetroUSB shells. They had a good texture to them, nice heavy feel. The grey ones didn't really match the NES grey, but they were never offered for sale anyway. Of course, RetroUSB doesn't sell repro parts at all, anymore, so this is entirely moot.
Which is a shame, I kinda wanted one just to screw around with. (And a CIC just to say I had one)
Where does Krikzz get eirs? They have a
ludicrous number of case options.
I think a PowerPak cart shell is more likely to break only because the support column in the middle was manually cut off to fit the PCB, rather than having the big hole in the middle PCB. RetroUSB's cart shells are excellent, the PowerPak one just has less structural support though.
8-bit evolution's cart shells are great too, and actually they're 100% identical to the ones I supply. Same mold, same manufacturer, same production batch. I'm one of the co-owners of the mold.
So yeah I can supply cart shells too, I don't keep massive amounts on hand, but it's not like individual game releases have massive sales either. I have a decent amount of transparent ones I wouldn't mind selling off, a smaller amount of solid black, the other colors I have are reserved for different projects. Though I will be ordering more at some point. And FWIW, people who buy my Cheapocabra board can get my cart shells included at cost (and translucent grey is an option in that case).
Some pics in here (transparent not pictured though):
http://forums.nesdev.com/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=12716I didn't know there were so many color options on StoneAgeGamer. I would guess that most of the color options are painted. Especially with that stripe option.
edit: Forgot to add, for cart shells alone I can probably match or slightly beat the prices on AliExpress, at least while shipping within the US. Big boxes of cart shells are not so cheap to ship.
Memblers, your cases look quite nice from what I can see.
Let's say I ordered 50, how much would that cost? (The destination address would be inside the USA.)
Also, I'm interested either in clear transparent.
Or the authentic gray if yours looks like the color from the official games.
But not transparent gray.
Before I order the batch, I would need one single shell. This one would go to Germany. How much would that cost?
Memblers wrote:
I can supply cart shells too.
Ah! I suddenly realize I have one of these shells on
The Incident. I think this shell is at least as good as the RetroUSB ones.
I took a look through my collection of homebrew releases, and I can identify 4 different types of shells. I might as well rank them in order of perceived quality:
- 1. NES Shells. Hard to top this.
- 2. Memblers. Very good quality, nice texture, well defined and nicely rounded edges. Flat back with no space for a back label.
- 3. Retro USB. Very good, very similar to Memblers, with very slightly less definition on some edge details. No back label space.
no longer for sale. - 4. Piko Interactive. Generally very good, but a minor nitpick that the edges are a little sharper/harder than the other carts, and the finish is just slightly shinier. Two regions in the back for labels, similar to original NES shells. There's a strange tab cutout in the middle of the top of the label side. (Noticing this same shape on the Alixpress ones, they might be the same shells.)
- 5. Infinite NES Lives. They look fine from a distance, but up close the surface has a slightly "cloudy" look and lacks the pebbly feel of an NES cartridge (it's got a texture for grip, but it's finer). Internal tabs only support INL boards without modification. These also have two spaces in the back for labels, like NES carts.
I can't comment on whatever shells Krikzz might use for Everdrive N8 now; mine came in one that's a salvaged NES shell. Older InfiniteNESLives releases appear to have used grey RetroUSB shells, but I presume he stopped this when he got his own mould made.
I've never had shells from Aliexpress, but
these ones visually look like something I'd rank between Piko and INL, though they might actually be identical to Piko's. (Maybe Piko is just buying these in bulk and reselling.)
As for greys, as I said, nobody quite matches the NES grey, though that's pretty hard to do, since the original NES ones have a bit of variation too (I have many "two tone" cartridges). Piko's grey seems the closest (but slightly dark), the others seem slightly light; though I haven't seen Memblers' grey.
Memblers wrote:
I didn't know there were so many color options on StoneAgeGamer. I would guess that most of the color options are painted. Especially with that stripe option.
Ugh, painted shells are awful. I have Sweet Home translation repro that was painted red. It feels as terrible as you would expect, and also the cart and box it came in smell like spray-paint as a result. Big assault on the nose when opening it for the first time. (I own a couple of repros, but I quickly decided I didn't want any, for several reasons- this spray-painted cart was one of the reasons.)
rainwarrior wrote:
As for greys, as I said, nobody quite matches the NES grey, though that's pretty hard to do, since the original NES ones have a bit of variation too (I have many "two tone" cartridges). Piko's grey seems the closest (but slightly dark), the others seem slightly light; though I haven't seen Memblers' grey.
Don't forget that Acclaim, Virgin and Sunsoft (Return of the Joker) have licensed third party-produced shells. They have Acclaim/Virgin/Sunsoft molded on the back instead of Nintendo. Sunsoft's version has a softer texture and is more brittle.
Why do modern third-party shells attempt to reproduce Nintendo's shell shape rather than make something distinctive the way pre-1997 unlicensed games did? I imagine that shells with a label area matching a common Avery template might make label reproduction cheaper.
tepples wrote:
Why do modern third-party shells attempt to reproduce Nintendo's shell shape rather than make something distinctive the way pre-1997 unlicensed games did?
This seems obvious to me...
Making a mould and selling cartridge shells is a commercial venture with a significant financial risk. Do you think
more or
less people would buy a shell that looks close to Nintendo ones versus a shape that works but is unique? How do you think the ~four people who have been willing to invest thousands of dollars into a project like this would answer that question?
That depends on whether a console maker is likely to try suing companies making replica shells and/or unlicensed game makers using said shells for trademark infringement even after design patent expiration. Has any console maker done so?
So your question is now: "Why aren't shell makers avoiding a non-existent lawsuit problem by creating a less appealing product?"
tepples wrote:
Why do modern third-party shells attempt to reproduce Nintendo's shell shape rather than make something distinctive the way pre-1997 unlicensed games did?
Because the official Nintendo shells are the ones that are recognized as NES games by the people while individually-looking shells are associated with crappy stuff.
tepples wrote:
That depends on whether a console maker is likely to try suing companies making replica shells and/or unlicensed game makers using said shells for trademark infringement even after design patent expiration.
That's a totally different issue from your first question. Your first question was basically: "Why do the publishers try to replicate something existing instead of coming up with something individual?" That question has been answered.
Your second question is: "Why do the publishers try to replicate something existing even if this might run into copyright problems?"
This can be answered quite easily as well: So far, Nintendo hasn't sued or threatened any publisher who uses those shells.
RetroUSB has been around for years and they still sell cartridges with this shape, so why should they or any other publisher change this?
Obviously, Nintendo doesn't give a shit about reproducing their shells, despite the fact that their lawyers are immediately at work if someone uses their actual creative work, like trying to sell a book with Nintendo artworks or using the likeness of "Super Mario" sprites in an Atari game.
This:
tepples wrote:
That depends on whether a console maker is likely to try suing companies making replica shells
has been tested in real life and it has been proven that being sued for shell reproduction is not likely.
DRW wrote:
This:
tepples wrote:
That depends on whether a console maker is likely to try suing companies making replica shells
has been tested in real life and it has been proven that being sued for shell reproduction is not likely.
Except every NES cartridge shell has "PAT.PENDING" (patent pending) on it. This even includes games re-released (ex. Metroid, Zelda, etc. -- I checked as recent as carts released in 1991). So the question then becomes: did Nintendo's patent get approved? If so, such lawsuits would be legitimate and difficult to defend against in court (ignoring the fact such a lawsuit would destroy financially whoever the defendant was regardless of outcome), given
patent infringement. If not, it'd be unlikely and the risks would only be those already mentioned by rainwarrior.
I get the impression the patent was not approved.
Edit: it looks like they may in fact have been approved. I can't exactly tell. I found the following patents which are definitely for NES cartridge cases, but I can't tell if they were approved or not -- Edit: the "D" stands for "Design", i.e. a design patent.
* D312,081 -- Cartridge for game machine -- April 17, 1987; "Notice: The portion of the term of this patent subsequent to February 2, 2002 has been disclaimed."
* D294,020 -- Cartridge for game machine -- October 7, 1985
* D292,399 -- Cartridge for game machine -- October 27, 1986
Off-topic find: patent 4,844,465 is quite interesting: it's a Famicom-cart-to-NES adapter.
koitsu wrote:
If so, such lawsuits would be legitimate and difficult to defend against in court
Sure they would. But as I said: There have been tons of commercial homebrew games. And despite Nintendo's policy of sending lawyers after anyone who tries to make money with any of Nintendo's copyrighted material, there has never been a case where Nintendo sued or even warned specifically because of the shape of a cartridge's shell. So, why should we design different shells based on the fear that they might start suing now?
The past existence of patents on NES cartridges are entirely irrelevant. They'd all have expired already. You can't sue someone for infringing an expired patent. The whole existence of the NES is owed to this fact (i.e. the expiry of the patent on the MOS 6502).
DRW wrote:
koitsu wrote:
If so, such lawsuits would be legitimate and difficult to defend against in court
Sure they would. But as I said: There have been tons of commercial homebrew games. And despite Nintendo's policy of sending lawyers after anyone who tries to make money with any of Nintendo's copyrighted material, there has never been a case where Nintendo sued or even warned specifically because of the shape of a cartridge's shell. So, why should we design different shells based on the fear that they might start suing now?
They probably wouldn't (re: "might start suing now"), as there'd be no real reason to (especially since even their latest "NES" *cough* doesn't use cartridges). Speaking purely historically: if you examine all the cartridge shells made by third-parties, you'll see they're all physically different than the official Nintendo ones (identical X/Y/Z dimensions, but definitively "tweaked" designs). This absolutely was done to avoid potential lawsuits -- the mentality is "it's better to be safe than sorry" (and this is logic that really can't be denied or rejected).
The same tactic is still used today, re: third-party products having slightly different dimensions or tweaks compared to what the original patent designed depicts. Even cheap Asian clone products (ex. joypads) do this for the exact same reason.
rainwarrior wrote:
The past existence of patents on NES cartridges are entirely irrelevant. They'd all have expired already. You can't sue someone for infringing an expired patent. The whole existence of the NES is owed to this fact (i.e. the expiry of the patent on the MOS 6502).
I was under the impression that US patents lasted 30 years. I was wrong. Turns out it's:
* Utility patents: 20 years for anything past mid-1995; 17 or 20 years of pre-mid-1995 (conditionally; but the longer term is what's chosen)
* Design patents: 15 years for anything past mid-2015; 14 years for anything pre-mid-2015.
Possibly what I was thinking of was copyright duration, which can be substantially longer (all depending on circumstances).
So yes, you're correct, it's irrelevant.
koitsu wrote:
Speaking purely historically: if you examine all the cartridge shells made by third-parties, you'll see they're all physically different than the official Nintendo ones (identical X/Y/Z dimensions, but definitively "tweaked" designs). This absolutely was done to avoid potential lawsuits -- the mentality is "it's better to be safe than sorry" (and this is logic that really can't be denied or rejected).
But that was back when the NES was still in production and when actual licensed companies created games for it.
A homebrew, as commercial as it might be, is not the same situation. Cash-In Culture releasing "Haunted Halloween" is not the same situation as Camerica releasing "Ultimate Stuntman" at a time when Capcom, Konami and Nintendo itself released NES games.
So, no matter what the actual legal stance on that patent might be: You cannot compare the current NES homebrew situation with the situation of unlicensed companies from the 80s and 90s. That's the reason why today's publishers dare to use officially-looking shells and get away with it.
Copyright
might actually be relevant, it's merely patents that aren't. The patents would have been relevant during the commercial era.
Some things, like clothes, aren't traditionally subject to copyright. I don't know where cartridge shells fall on this spectrum. Maybe it falls under
trade dress?
I'm also not quite certain about the legal distinction between an "exact" copy of something and an inexact copy, but it's quite true that imitation stuff tends to change at least some minor detail. An identical copy might even be considered counterfeit/forgery and be subject to different laws? I don't know. Copying the "Nintendo" logo would be a violation of
trademark, certainly.
All of the currently produced shells I'm aware of have some cosmetic differences with the original Nintendo design (e.g. a flat back, or the little notch on the aliexpress/piko ones).
At any rate, it's not like there's anything secret going on here. Everybody making cartridge shells seems to be doing so openly with no expectation of legal repercussions.
Trade dress is what I was thinking. (I meant "trademark" in a broad sense, including nontraditional marks and trade dress.) But on second thought, after several years of Battle Kid, any trade dress claims should be estopped by laches, making it almost certainly a non-issue.
koitsu wrote:
Even cheap Asian clone products (ex. joypads) do this for the exact same reason.
After seeing many cheap Playstation-shaped PC controllers that only change the brand and use numbers instead of symbols (but practically identical-looking otherwise), I can safely tell you this is not true.
Sik wrote:
koitsu wrote:
Even cheap Asian clone products (ex. joypads) do this for the exact same reason.
After seeing many cheap Playstation-shaped PC controllers that only change the brand and use numbers instead of symbols (but practically identical-looking otherwise), I can safely tell you this is not true.
You know what really chaps my ass around here? When people fire off little one-liners like this without really thinking about the bigger picture. It's also convenient that you chose to remove the preceding sentence from the quote. So, here's your long-winded "are you fucking serious?" response:
You're welcome to read US patents 5551693, 5716274, and 5853326 for specifics, including the depicting figures/images. (Note the years of the patents, and re: my above convo with rainwarrior). Then ask yourself "I wonder why they changed the buttons to have numbers?" The same goes for relocation of some of the support/intermediary buttons. Go look at the
Logitech F310; is it the same? (Answer: no; there are several design aspects changed for that exact reason. Is it inspired by the PS controller? Absolutely. Worthy of lawsuit? I imagine Sony would say "Eh, not worth the effort, it's different enough")
While thinking about all that, think about the fact that there are companies in Asia (doesn't matter which country, but Hong Kong, China, Taiwan, and Singapore have prolific problems) who simply don't give a shit if they literally clone something and sell it. These grey market companies operate essentially "in the red" (i.e. high risk) all the time, with the hopes that they can make enough profit before they're discovered + potentially sued (they disappear when even slight hints of this happens). Some others continue to exist but cease manufacturing/sales of products. Others might pay certain people off (varies). And there is no denying any of this either -- the entire 90s console era is rife with this! Accessories, console copiers, whatever.
Then there's the possibility that some just do it because there isn't a history of the larger behemoth companies doing anything about clone products, i.e. "I'll take the risk because history has shown they don't care". But anyone working on the legal side would tell them to, bare minimum, make some kind of minor alteration to the design (even if just cosmetic) to try and minimise any chance of legal repercussion. I can talk about companies getting busted for this type of thing repeatedly (commonly for console copiers in the 90s) -- they come back on the market under a different name (run often by the same people) within a year, sometimes less.
I know that at least in Japan the behemoths tend to be more aggressive about ensuring their products don't get cloned (esp. things that are hot on the market at the time); many of these have presence in some of the other Asian countries I mentioned but it's more precarious (and time consuming) to try and track down companies making clone products. You ever been to Shenzhen? The electronic markets there (not even discussing street market stuff -- BTW those are also prevalent in South Korea) sell literally *whatever*. I can't imagine Sony in China sitting around a boardroom going "Hey. HEY. This is serious business. There's someone selling cloned Playstation controllers at SEGP. Get the cops ASAP." Can you? If the same company making those clones started showing up in other countries native (incl. the US), suddenly that might become a real conversation.
koitsu wrote:
DRW wrote:
This:
tepples wrote:
That depends on whether a console maker is likely to try suing companies making replica shells
has been tested in real life and it has been proven that being sued for shell reproduction is not likely.
Except every NES cartridge shell has "PAT.PENDING" (patent pending) on it. This even includes games re-released (ex. Metroid, Zelda, etc. -- I checked as recent as carts released in 1991). So the question then becomes: did Nintendo's patent get approved? If so, such lawsuits would be legitimate and difficult to defend against in court (ignoring the fact such a lawsuit would destroy financially whoever the defendant was regardless of outcome), given
patent infringement. If not, it'd be unlikely and the risks would only be those already mentioned by rainwarrior.
I get the impression the patent was not approved.
Edit: it looks like they may in fact have been approved. I can't exactly tell. I found the following patents which are definitely for NES cartridge cases, but I can't tell if they were approved or not -- Edit: the "D" stands for "Design", i.e. a design patent.
* D312,081 -- Cartridge for game machine -- April 17, 1987; "Notice: The portion of the term of this patent subsequent to February 2, 2002 has been disclaimed."
* D294,020 -- Cartridge for game machine -- October 7, 1985
* D292,399 -- Cartridge for game machine -- October 27, 1986
Off-topic find: patent 4,844,465 is quite interesting: it's a Famicom-cart-to-NES adapter.
http://wiki.nesdev.com/w/index.php/Patents (we have a page for this! I didn't know that!)
Back on the original topic (separated to make split easy)
Memblers wrote:
I didn't know there were so many color options on StoneAgeGamer. I would guess that most of the color options are painted. Especially with that stripe option.
The description of the gold option
s makes me think it's not just paint.
Am slightly disappointed that the actual
"order just a shell" item hasn't got as many options (nor does it have the split-halves option).
Myask wrote:
Am slightly disappointed that the actual
"order just a shell" item hasn't got as many options (nor does it have the split-halves option).
Curious that the cart in the picture there seems to have a "Nintendo" logo embedded in it, along with "Patent pending, made in Japan"? Wondering if that's the actual product, or did they take a picture of a real NES shell as an example? And if not, did they somehow get hold of an original Nintendo mould?
I don't think it was mentioned, but Retroscribe also sells empty NES cartridges...some interesting color choices.
http://www.retroscribe.comI have not used them, personally, so I don't know any details of quality or usability.
dougeff wrote:
I don't think it was mentioned, but Retroscribe also sells empty NES cartridges...some interesting color choices.
I found a video review of them
here. I'm wondering if they're the same as the ones Memblers makes? All of the details I can see look identical to those (i.e. flat back and placement of injection point, two notches on the top which none of the other 3 types I've seen have).
rainwarrior wrote:
Curious that the cart in the picture there seems to have a "Nintendo" logo embedded in it, along with "Patent pending, made in Japan"? Wondering if that's the actual product, or did they take a picture of a real NES shell as an example? And if not, did they somehow get hold of an original Nintendo mould?
It's pretty easy to use a lost master casting method if you don't care about fine detail, as you can see in
this picture.
the pirated SNES has softer edges, probably since the pirates made their mold from a real SNES. It's like photocopying, the fake is never as clear as the original. There are no shadows because there are no sharp corners, just rounded ones.
These molds scale fine to mass production. They'll just be ever-so-slightly off.
lidnariq wrote:
rainwarrior wrote:
Curious that the cart in the picture there seems to have a "Nintendo" logo embedded in it, along with "Patent pending, made in Japan"? Wondering if that's the actual product, or did they take a picture of a real NES shell as an example? And if not, did they somehow get hold of an original Nintendo mould?
It's pretty easy to use a lost master casting method if you don't care about fine detail
Yeah, but unless you're deliberately trying to counterfeit or violate trademark, it seems like it would be prudent (and easy) to file/sand off the Nintendo trademark while you're making the cast? I think it's strange that they left it on (unless it's a second hand original).
If I was able to "go it alone" I would have done a unique shell design, but that was always out of reach for me because of the cost of the mold, plus I have zero experience with 3D modeling and mechanical design. But even if the cost wasn't an issue (keep in mind too you have to order A LOT of them at once to get a decent price, and if you go too long without re-ordering, they would rather scrap your mold instead of storing it for years/indefinitely), I imagine the interest in it would be near-zero because it wouldn't look like an NES cart. You could probably even show it at a classic gaming convention and people still couldn't guess what it is.
But yeah with these current carts being made, it was only possible because we got several people together to buy and co-own the mold, and I'm extremely grateful to those guys, especially Retroscribe who has organized everything and dealt with the manufacturer (which is more of a pain that you would think, even with all of us combined we're a small customer). Making cart shells for me is kind of a loss-leader type of deal, I probably wouldn't have made my own boards (at least not in the quantity I did) without being able to buy my own cart shells independently. Though I did have a very fair offer from RetroUSB years ago, I was never able to take advantage of it due my to my (non-existent) income at the time. Quantity solves everything, unless you're broke to begin with, haha.
So yeah, Retroscribe should be considered among the list of cart shell suppliers too, especially if you want more color options. Those too are the same as my cart shells.
DRW, I can get a sample to you, I'll send a PM.
I know destroying games is frowned upon but you can't get any closer to original than... original. Fact is you can get so many nes games for $5 and under and with a hair dryer spend 30 seconds removing the label and another 30 seconds cleaning the adhesive off with goo gone and then clean with a sponge.
I would love to buy newer shells especially for snes but when prices are so much higher to buy just a shell, from a business or monetary standpoint, it is cheaper to just use old games.
Especially if you can use the boards as well. It cost way to much to use new parts unless you make everything yourself and massive bulk order. Shells, boards, all the components such as cic, resistors, caps, and so on. I clicked that one link "SAG" which had a nes shell for $10.99. Maybe you guys think that's ok but not happening for me. Sorry Ice Hockey, but you are losing your shell.
That's the high outlier, though; most are ~$5. INL's are $5@1 down to $4.375 @48, Piko's $6 @1 down to $1.85 (@10,000) and Retroscribe is $5 @1 down to 4.25 (@42).
And my local retrogame store has common NES titles at $10 a pop, so…
Myask wrote:
And my local retrogame store has common NES titles at $10 a pop, so…
That's insane you must live in CA or something. In NY every game store near me has bulk bins for $5. Most of the time I sell lots on ebay they get purchased by CA. Even on ebay and sites like JJgames and such they have tons of titles for $5.
I like the retroscribe shells. I posted some
comparison photos when they were getting started. I bought a bunch and am happy with them.