NA » Well what do you know! Cartridges really are "cassettes"?!

Well what do you know! Cartridges really are "cassettes"?! Well, at least according to Nintendo

Sep 20 at 3:48:53 PM

rlh (67)

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I've always chuckled when I've heard someone refer to a Nintendo/cartridge game as a "cassette". I've seen this on eBay on rare ocassion and I recalls a kid that often older generations would call these games cassettes.

Well, I was watching a YouTube video earlier today and I took this screenshot because, at least in Japan, these games were called cassettes. Blew my mind and props to Pawpaw... he was partially right all along!

EDIT

Poll added cause why not.

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Edited: 09/20/2019 at 04:40 PM by rlh

Sep 20 at 3:55:55 PM

BouncekDeLemos (81)

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I knew this, but for some reason, didn't really put too much thought into it till you brought it up. lol

IMO, a "cassette" is something you put into a console or device that shuts behind a door where you don't see it, while cartridges insert into a console and are somewhat exposed. However, there's a hole in that logic since... well... wouldn't regular NES carts be cassettes?

Cue huge argument. hahaha

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Originally posted by: dra600n

I feel bad, but, that's magic.

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Edited: 09/20/2019 at 03:56 PM by BouncekDeLemos

Sep 20 at 3:58:13 PM

bootload (8)

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A cassette is analogue tape storage, a cartridge is digital solid state memory.

Sep 20 at 3:59:50 PM

rlh (67)

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Originally posted by: BouncekDeLemos

I knew this, but for some reason, didn't really put too much thought into it till you brought it up. lol

IMO, a "cassette" is something you put into a console or device that shuts behind a door where you don't see it, while cartridges insert into a console and are somewhat exposed. However, there's a hole in that logic since... well... wouldn't regular NES carts be cassettes?

Cue huge argument. hahaha

Interesting point and, in fact, I think that's why I thought it was funny the first time I heard this decades ago. It does insert like a cassette, and some computer devices did use cassettes to store data, so it's not entirely an illogical mental leap to consider these "cassettes". Still, I thought this was user error (and might have been) but now I see that in some official capacity, Nintendo calls these things cassettes. I wonder why they called them Game Paks in the US, as opposed to cartridges or cassettes. My whole foundation is crumbling.

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Sep 20 at 4:00:31 PM

punch-out!!84 (26)

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Technically they are cassettes. However, they are not tapes.

Sep 20 at 4:01:07 PM

Lincoln (138)

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Famicom carts are the same size as cassette tape clamshells. Like so much so it has to be intentional.

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Sep 20 at 4:33:29 PM

Richardhead (13)

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Can you please add Tapes to the poll?
Nintender tapes for life!

Edited: 09/20/2019 at 04:34 PM by Richardhead

Sep 20 at 4:36:47 PM

punch-out!!84 (26)

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lol, where is the tape in the carts?

Sep 20 at 4:41:06 PM

rlh (67)

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Originally posted by: Richardhead

Can you please add Tapes to the poll?
Nintender tapes for life!

Tapes added, plus one more for flavor.

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Sep 20 at 5:07:42 PM

BouncekDeLemos (81)

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Originally posted by: rlh

Who knows really. If I were to guess, it's probably coined 'Game Pak' to differentiate and make it stand out more than just calling it a "cartridge" or "cassette"(?) I make this assumption based on Nintendo's western hardware always having to be different from both it's origin and other competition's design and brading. (Cuz that was the 'cool' thing to do. )

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Originally posted by: dra600n

I feel bad, but, that's magic.

Sell/Trade: NA - http://goo.gl/Bi25pL... SA - http://goo.gl/qmKao... PSC - http://goo.gl/VYlKhP...

http://goo.gl/xmzKR...

Sep 20 at 5:14:20 PM

LutherDestroysTheGond (85)

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Nantondo tapes!

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Sep 20 at 5:34:08 PM

JamesRobot (22)

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It was always just Nintendo games. Probably didn't start calling them carts until discs came around.

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Sep 20 at 6:48:20 PM

MuNKeY (151)

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SEGA

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Sep 20 at 6:54:29 PM

HammerDaddy (8)

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Nintender!

Sep 20 at 7:38:50 PM

fcgamer (101)

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No idea about in Japanese, though Japanese does borrow a lot of kanji from Chinese.

In Chinese, Nintendo games of this sort are called 卡帶 (kǎdài), which means "cassette".

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Sep 20 at 8:09:30 PM

Tulpa (2)

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Cassette basically means "little case" in French, and it seems as an apt description of a game cartridge as anything else.

Originally posted by: rlh
I wonder why they called them Game Paks in the US, as opposed to cartridges or cassettes. My whole foundation is crumbling.

That's part of the Trojan Horse approach to getting the NES in stores. "Our Entertainment System uses Game Paks, not cartridges like those musty Atari consoles you can't move to save your life."

Sep 20 at 9:15:50 PM

themisfit138 (12)

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In the TMNT II manual it list the game as a cassette. Other manuals listed them as a cartridge.

Sep 20 at 10:13:47 PM

AirVillain (15)

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What the fuck is a "pak"? They straight up just made that word up. Take the "c" out to be futuristic? So yeah, kinda what Bounce said. They wanted to sound cool.

I'm pretty sure we just called them "games"... Didn't refer to the actual cartridge as anything other than "game".

But... it's not like anyone said "Go grab the Mega Man 2 game"

We would have just referred to the games as individual items and just said "Go get Mega Man 2".

And if referrring to all of them at once...? I can't recall if we ever did. But we would have just said "our games". Or for example... me to my brother: "Ice Hockey is MY game!"

Fuck if we would have said "Ice hockey is my game pak!"

Can we add "game" to the poll?

Originally posted by: themisfit138

In the TMNT II manual it list the game as a cassette. Other manuals listed them as a cartridge.

And plenty of games have "Game Pak" right on the front of the manual. They are all over the place on the NES. Though I haven't looked through enough to see if any refers to them as a "cassette".

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Edited: 09/20/2019 at 10:28 PM by AirVillain

Sep 21 at 3:31:08 AM

Vectrex28 (130)

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They're tapes

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Sep 21 at 4:17:51 AM

grynold (0)

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In Sweden both cassette tapes and game cartridge would be called kassett. Cassette tapes = "Kassettband" and can also be called just "band" but for game cartridges there's no other word than kassett. A printer cartridge would be called "patron" and thats also what you load your shotgun with =P

Sep 21 at 4:55:44 AM

guillavoie (125)

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Actually here in Quebec we used to call them cassettes and still do nowadays because the other proper french term is "cartouche" which sounds totally gay.

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Edited: 09/21/2019 at 05:08 AM by guillavoie

Sep 21 at 5:04:37 AM

guillavoie (125)

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Originally posted by: grynold

A printer cartridge would be called "patron" and thats also what you load your shotgun with =P

Patron literally translates to cartouche in french, and it's also what you load your shotgun with over here. Good to know we're not alone.

EDIT : Well, that was kind of a dumb comment since cartridge also translates to cartouche in french. In the end we're all in the same club. No more drunk posting for me.

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Edited: 09/22/2019 at 08:34 PM by guillavoie

Sep 21 at 7:24:41 AM

rlh (67)

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Wow guys. In this regard, French sounds like a real hot mess.

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Sep 21 at 12:12:31 PM

GPX (1)

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Cassette is what you use to play on the Commodore 64 using a datasette. A cartridge is a solid shell housing data that you insert directly into the computer/console to play.

There has to be different names because the Commodore 64 has both a cassette and cartridge form to play with.

Sep 21 at 12:14:46 PM

ALTQQ (79)

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They're all tapes.

nes TAPES
super TAPES
TAPETENDO64
TAPECUBE
tapeboy colour , tape boy tapeboy ADVANCE
switch tapes
tapestation tapebox,

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