Technically NWC was never meant to go into the hands of anyone but the junk machine. Only after people pushed the issue were they given out. Stadium Events, Flintstones, and Cheetahmen were made to be sold (regardless if it was only to rental stores or never actually got sold on the market til someone found them all).

Well pirate games were created illegally and certainly aren't licensed or approved to be made by Nintendo.

Of course it is not part of a licensed set... What, are we going to open up licensed sets to include unreleased proto carts as well?!?! Most protos are official from credited companies, and I guarantee they were registered with nintendo for licensing before the software engineers even went to work.. My opinion is that If it could be purchased at retail or rental it is part of the set. (and this rental only crap has got to stop, what proof ANYWHERE is there that flinstones 2 and hagane were rental only, I know it has been discussed many times but it is turning into gospel, hell it has even made it onto wikipedia..)

Except that's not what actually happened.  They didn't destroy them, they gave them away.  Why should their original intent matter (if that is in fact true)?  Shouldn't it matter what they actually ended up doing?

Yea, to me, if it wasn't readily available somewhere for purchase, then it's more of a special or novelty item that's part of a complete 100% set, but not a complete licensed set. It would be like saying that every prototype is also part of a licensed set, they were official releases, but not to the public buyers.

That only applies to the gray carts.  Gold carts were always planned to be given away to the general public.  Still not sold but they were meant to be in hands.

Already answered that, prototypes were never given out to the general public and are (mostly) unfinished products or one of a kind samples.

I don't beleive Hagane was ever rental only BTW, no one has any evidence of that except what wikipedia says.

Exactly,I agree with everything you said.

I feel for it to count it should have been commercially released to the general public to purchase. I mean everyone has their own standard of what a complete NES set is, but I don't think it should count

Oh who the hell believes anything wikipedia says now a days.

to me games that where not sold to the general public are not part of a complete set

to me campus challenge and nwc are collectibles not part of the complete set for NES Carts set , but thats just my opinion.

my nwc and campus challenge repros are part of my set as addons just to sweeten my collection