While most companies manufactured their cartridges through Nintendo, some larger publishers manufactured their own. These variations gave their games a personality and brand unique to the publisher. Manufacturing away from Nintendo also gave these companies greater freedom in the content they could include on packaging, while smaller companies had to follow Nintendo's stricter content guidelines. Later in the Famicom's life, taller cartridges were introduced to fit more powerful co-processors and larger ROMs. Nintendo also pushed for a switch over to OEM manufacturing for more control over content being released, and contracts were changed to reflect this. Once the Super Famicom arrived, all cartridges were manufactured by Nintendo and standardized[1], with some having a port at the top for Satellaview functionality.
The below list is incomplete, you can help by expanding it.
Nintendo
Namco
Later Namco releases and re-releases were in plastic clamshell cases as opposed to the cardboard boxes of earlier releases.
Bandai
Taito
Cartridge Name |
Description |
Image
|
Standard |
Standard height with ridges at the top. Features the old logo stamped into the top right. Used until 1988. |
|
New |
Used the new logo introduced in 1988. The bottom right of the label is taken out to place a stamped logo into the cartridge. |
|
Arched |
Taller variation with an arched top. Only used in 2 very late releases in 1993. |
|
Sunsoft
Konami
Cartridge Name |
Description |
Image
|
Standard |
Regular height with a large end label. Ridges towards the top of the cartridge. Features a small hole on the left side with an unknown purpose. |
|
Regular |
Many Konami games use the standard Nintendo cartridge design. |
|
Tall |
Tall cartridges used for later releases. Features a frame around the box art with an imprinted Konami logo |
File:Lagrange Point FC Cartridge.jpg
|
Q-Ta |
Smaller cartridges for Konami's Q-Ta adapter. These are primarily edutainment games not targeted for a general market. The adapter provides common hardware for kanji support and a VRC5 mapper chip, a mapper unique to the Q-Ta adapter. [2] |
File:Konami Q-Ta Adapter FC Cartridge.jpg
|
Irem
Cartridge Name |
Description |
Image
|
Standard |
Regular dimensions, small Irem logo stamped into the top. |
|
LED |
Earlier Irem cartridges include a power led at the top of the cartridge, below an Irem logo stamp. These carts also have a square hole on the left and are the same cream color as the original Famicom console. |
|
References