As some of you might know, Sega Genesis and Blockbuster worked together in the mid-90s on flash carts, called New Leaf, where a customer could go into Blockbuster and request a game to rent, which would then be flashed on a cart that could be re-used. I think the best description of the history I've seen can be found at this link here:

http://segascream.com/new-leaf-en...

The product made it into a test run of 10 local stores in South Carolina, but never made it past that because major record labels did not want Indie labels on an even playing field (the idea was to do this for not just video games, but movies and music, as well). Until recently, only a handful or so of these New Leaf cartridges were known to exist. As is the case in our hobby, Enter a random Florida swapmeet.

I don't want to tell someone else's story for him, but suffice it to say some woman pulled out a bunch of funny looking Genesis carts and another person at the forum, himself an ardent retro collector, made a swap. I don't know the exact number, but all in all, he found maybe 6-8 New Leaf carts, with varying games on them, which had the titles of the games written on the top label. If you peruse Ebay for these kinds of items, you've undoubtedly seen five or so pop up the past couple weeks. But then he put up another group of items, which made me change my thinking that these items came from one of the ten stores.



Best I can tell, these appear to be prototypes of...the prototypes! Some of the boards are the same as the New Leaf or Game Center carts, but the Pebble Beach and Zombies Ate My Neighbor carts appear to be Frankensteined, possibly as the New Leaf developers figured out how to get the system working. All I can think is that the woman who had these found the in a storage locker from one of the developers.

Anyway, I'm sure it's nothing to a majority of gamers and collectors out there, but I thought this was really cool. It tells a bit of a story that is still a bit of a mystery in the Genesis  and I guess Blockbuster communities.

I knew none of this. Really interesting.

That's really cool. Thanks for sharing!

Cool info!

Being that I grew up in Columbia, SC and I remember seeing some of these New Leaf carts (the Genesis was the exclusive system my brother and I would rent about every other week), I really, REALLY want to get my hands on one or two of these. There's an actual chance I might have played some of these as a kid.

Whoa, did these all just turn up this summer? I see a couple on Ebay from a days back and now there's another one that's not that $3000 one. Did someone find the motherlode?

Neat!

Nice. Seen a few New leaf vids.

This guy, who I have been in a bit of communication with, found them all in one lot at the swap meet. This woman had no idea what she had. Like I said, at first I thought it came from one of the stores, but the lot posted above makes me think it came from a developer. She probably found them all in one storage locker. 

I went back and forth with the guy regarding one of the New Leaf carts, but things didn’t quite work out. When the above lot went up, I snatched it immediately. It changed the equation for me. These seven carts, imo, tell a story. I don’t think I could break them up.

Having, unfortunately, been backdoored before, I waited for the item to be in transit to post this lol.

 

Also, that guy with the 3k one probably regrets turning down some of the offers he got lol. The amount of known carts doubled overnight.

Curious, of those of you all that are aware of these carts and the ones that exist, has one with Sonic 2 ever surfaced? I know I've experienced handling these carts before as a kid and I'm 90% sure I've rented one. However, as a kid, my brother and I almost always rented Sonic 2 because we were also renting the system and as lame as it may seem, THAT was our jam.

Maybe rented other games from time to time, and they came on these carts, but nothing I've heard or seen preloaded on these carts seem familiar. Maybe we rented The Lion King once, because I enjoyed that one on that Game Gear, so maybe I wanted to try it out once on the Genesis but, again, these just feel to familiar to be a rent-once thing.

Anyway, if a Sonic 2 copy ever shows up, I'd be very interested and might over pay for it. I'm sure everyone would want something that's such a quintessential Genesis title but, man... it has sentimental value to me. I'm not sure to many people that pay attention have a personal connection to these carts.

FYI, I just found out the swap meet happened in Florida, 15-20 minutes from where NewLeaf was headquartered. My confidence level these were internal protos is now over 99%. Even the New Leaf ones with store numbers likely never made them out of HQ. Test carts for HQ.

I have never seen a Sonic on these. Most kids probably owned them separately. Ecco has come up the most. 

Neat!! I'm very happy for you! I know your passion for protos. These couldn't have found a better home! Oh and you are a Genesis person so I'm sure that makes you more excited!

This is a pretty huge find. Nice to see more of these pop up, especially in proto form. Thanks for sharing, congrats on the purchase.

The guy who got the lot does indeed have a Sonic new leaf cart. But he told me he intended on keeping it. I can pm you his eBay name is that's allowed

Great find, but a shame that they all have like the worst games possible loaded onto them.

ZAMN is great, at least, and it’s on one of the nerfed boards. Alex Kidd and Lion King are pretty good, too. 

But, to me, it’s more about the history of the carts. Maybe I can get my hands on one of their flashers and load them all with Shining Force lol. 

 

I picked up a game factory cart at the local pawn shop about a year and a half ago. Held it in my hand, and was intrigued by it. Was only marked at $4.. Looked very intriguing and was about to buy it but then thought to myself "I need to stop buying games unless I really want them."

So I put it back down. I think my basic instinct was trying to get me to buy it, but I really resisted. As a final sanity check I eBayed it just to see if it was worth anything, but alas there were no listings. So I just put it back on the shelf and walked away.

Months later I saw the gaming historians video on game factory during my lunch and I instantly rushed back to the pawn shop to go get it, but it was already gone..

Oh well. You win some, you lose some