NON-RETAIL CARTS -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
There are some NES game cartridges that exist that were never released for sale. They were designed for other purposes and therefore are very rare and highly prized by collectors. This category does not include prototype cartridges of retail games. Prototypes are an entire other universe of their own, and there are way more qualified people out there to identify and catalog them, which is why they aren't covered on this site.
NINTENDO WORLD CLASS SERVICE ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Apparently kids break things, and NES systems and games were no exception. To help support their 90-day warranty, and also offer paid repair options, Nintendo authorized several of its retail partners as well as some existing electronics repair stores to be NES World Class Service Retailers. These stores were equipped with the model number NTF2 NES
Test Station, which is a super-rare and very sought-after collectable itself. The Test Station would diagnose issues with the NES console, hardware, controllers, and accessories by use of specialized NES Test Carts. There are five different hardware Test Carts that could be ordered by the service centers from Nintendo as either complete Game Paks, or part-by-part as needed including individual PCB's, labels, and even the "anti-static yellow" cartridge shells. Since the service centers could make their own test carts, they are often found in the standard gray cart shells as well, and there are 5-Screw and 3-Screw variants of each. There are three known game Test Carts (Zelda, Duck Hunt, and Gyromite) that are identical to the regular games except for the yellow cartridge shell. Zelda was the recommended game for the final "burn-in" of repaired consoles, so the yellow Zelda Test Cart is the most common of the three. Only a few Duck Hunt and
Model NTF2 NES Test Station
Gyromite yellow carts are know to exist. The service centers had the ability to order PCB's and labels for any Nintendo-published game, so it is possible that other yellow cart versions of games do exist and are yet to be discovered.
Control Deck Test Cartridge
Port Test Cartridge
Joystick Test Cartridge
Power Pad Test Cartridge
NTF2 Test Cartridge
The Legend of Zelda
Test Cartridge
The Test Station has a hidden NTF2 Test Cart inside of it. It's a 60-pin Famicom cartridge that plugs into a port on the PCB behind the Game Pak port. This cart serves as an operating system disk when the selector knob is not on the Game Pak section.
NTF2 System Cartridge
NTF2 System Cartridge Installed
World Class Service announcement from Nintendo Power magazine Volume 12 featuring Test Station picture
NINTENDO FACTORY TEST CARTRIDGES --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Before they were built into yellow cartridges and sent out to the World Class Service Centers in the USA, the test carts existed at the factories in Japan. They were made using the standard NES gray carts, and had labels printed in Japanese. The unique PCB's for each one are the same as the service center carts. The game of choice for factory testing was Clu Clu Land. These were never meant to leave the factory, so not too many have survived to find their way into the hands of collectors. They are even more rare than the very-rare service center test carts.
Port Test
Nintendo Factory Test Cartridge
Clu Clu Land
Nintendo Factory Test Cartridge
NINTENDO WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
By 1990 Nintendo had pretty much conquered the world and decided to throw itself a year-long traveling party called PowerFest. PowerFest toured the country, setting up shop for a few days at a time in major cities, promoting all things Nintendo. The highlight of the event was the Nintendo World Championships. Kids got to participate in three different age groups (11 & Under, 12 - 17, and 18 & Over) for a chance to compete as one of 90 regional finalists (30 from each age group) at the finals at Universal Studios Los Angeles in December 1990. The competition consisted of a timed
blend of three popular NES games where the player's performance translated into points, with each game's points getting multiplied as the games progressed. In total, players were allotted 6 minutes 21 seconds to play all three games. The first game was Super Mario Bros. and the objective was to collect 50 coins as quickly as possible. The score from this game was not multiplied (x1). Once this was complete the second game was Rad Racer where the player had to complete the first race as quickly as possible. The score from this game was multiplied by ten (x10). The final game was Tetris where
the player could use whatever time they
NWC announcement from Nintendo Power magazine Volume 11
had left to score as many points as possible, unless they stacked up to the top in which case the game ended. The score from Tetris was multiplied by twenty-five (x25). The three multiplied scores were then added together for a final combined score for the competition. What made the 1990 NWC memorable for collectors was not results of the competition, or the event itself, it was the specially-made NWC game cartridge that Nintendo produced for the event. The games were individually numbered and featured exposed switches that would allow the time settings to be changed. They were used throughout the PowerFest tour for the actual competitions, and the 90 finalists were each given one as a prize. Based on the serial numbers that have been found over time it is estimated that between 350-400 were produced, but only the 90 copies given away were ever officially released into circulation. More may have survived, but the exact number is not known.
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The ultimate Holy Grail of all video game collecting is the NWC gold cartridge. Every issue of Nintendo Power magazine featured a Player's Poll contest where the reader could detach a postcard from the magazine, answer some questions, and mail it in for a chance at prizes. The July/August 1990 issue offered an official NWC game cartridge as second prize. The actual game did not have the solid red label as advertised in the contest, but it was a gold cartridge that featured a cut-out NWC logo glued on the front. There were a total of 26 of these games produced and awarded, of which about half have been verified to still exist.
NWC Gray Cart
NWC Gold Cart
Player's Poll Contest from Nintendo Power magazine Volume 14 featuring Gold NWC Cart prize
NINTENDO CAMPUS CHALLENGE ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Nintendo Campus Challenge 1991
In 1991 Nintendo followed up the NWC with the Nintendo Campus Challenge. The competition tour stopped at 58 college campuses and spring break events throughout the United States and Canada, culminating in a championship event at Walt Disney World Orlando, FL on New Year's Eve weekend 1992. Just like the NWC, the Campus Challenge was a blend of three NES games: Super Mario Bros. 3, Pin-Bot, and Dr. Mario. Players had a total of 6 minutes 21 seconds to collect 25 coins in SMB3, score 100,000 points in Pin-Bot, and use their remaining time to get the highest possible score in Dr. Mario. The player's total score was calculated by multiplying the SMB3 score by 10, then adding it to the Pin-Bit score, and then multiplying the Dr. Mario score by 100 and adding it to the previous total.
Also like the NWC, Nintendo made a special game cartridge for the Campus Challenge. It features a really large PCB that sticks out of the top of a standard gray NES cart. The cart also has a large window cut out of the front to accommodate some big IC chips. It is believed that a lot fewer of these carts were produced than the NWC carts, and there is only one copy confirmed to exist today. That copy was last know to change hands between two private collectors via an eBay sale in 2009.
FACTORY REFURBISHED CARTRIDGES -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Every company that published games for the NES offered a manufacturer's warranty. Only two companies however, Nintendo and Konami/Ultra, were actually repairing broken games. Every other 3rd party publisher would just send out a replacement copy of the game, or a voucher, to honor a warranty claim.
These refurbished games differ in some ways from the store-bought retail copies, and have become their own subset of NES variants among collectors. Since they were handmade one at a time, in no particular order or quantity, they are quite rare and there will never be a definitive list of which games exist as a refurb and which ones don't - except that they can only be either Nintendo or Konami/Ultra titles.
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As part of their World Class Service program, Nintendo service centers actually had the option to order every piece of every Nintendo-published game and make any type of repair they deemed necessary. This included not only cartridges and front & back labels, but also individual IC chips and empty PCB's. Repaired PCB's often have the PROM and CROM chips hand-labeled with small white stickers, but the best way to identify a Nintendo-published refurb cart is the back labels. Unlike front labels which were produced in rolls, back labels were printed in sheets which is how they would arrive as inventory for the service centers. Labels taken from these sheets do not have a factory stamp since they never went down the production line in a Nintendo factory. So if you have a game with no factory stamp on the back label, odds are it's a refurb cart.
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Konami/Ultra was not doing any repair work to the PCB's, but they did provide new cartridges and front labels. A Konami/Ultra refurb cart will never have a back label. They must have thought it was an unnecessary expense.
Refurb carts that are missing a back label, or just a back label stamp, but are otherwise identical to the original store-bought games are kind of boring, and very few collectors look for them. However, there are a few dozen games that were only produced in 3-Screw cartridges that got a 5-Screw cartridge as a replacement during the refurb process and these unofficial/official "5-Screw variants" are highly sought after. It is generally assumed that the repair centers were sent the leftover stock of empty 5-Screw cartridges, because why else would these exist? Aside from the obvious wrong cartridge, and missing back labels on the Konami/Ultra titles, these 5-Screw copies will also have GameBit screws which otherwise would not be found in a 5-Screw cartridge.
SMB / DH / WCTM
(released Sept. 1988)
5-Screw Refurb Cart
SMB / DH / WCTM back plate
5-Screw Refurb Cart
REV-A 2 Label (circa 1989-92)
No Stamp, GameBit Screws
TMNT
(released June 1989)
5-Screw Refurb Cart
TMNT back plate
5-Screw Refurb Cart
No Label
GameBit Screws
Konami warranty statement from game owner's manual
Other than the 5-Screw cartridge replacements, the only known variant found exclusively on a refurb cart is Q*Bert with the Oval R SOQ (5-Screw & 3-Screw carts exist). The Konami/Ultra service center must have gotten an updated roll of Q*Bert labels that was manufactured after the game's final production run, which featured the Oval TM SOQ.
Q*Bert with Oval R SOQ
Konami/Ultra Refurb Cart
STORE DISPLAY CARTRIDGES ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Nintendo produced a couple different demo display units that were placed in stores and featured multiple different games that people could try out. The model M8 had 15 black box games that were all built into the unit via an enormous PCB that contained all the IC chips for all the games. The model M82 only held 12 games, but took regular NES game carts and could be loaded up with whatever games you wanted. Unlike a regular NES, both units could work with two standard controllers and a Zapper gun simultaneously via additional controller inputs to work a controller or the Zapper gun, depending on which game you were playing. Both of these models are very rare and highly sought-after, not to mention extremely cool. Neither unit however resulted in the production of any unique game cartridges.
Travel around the world to Japan where the Famicom, the NES's predecessor, was Nintendo's home video game console. A similar demo display unit existed for the Famicom system called FamicomBox. This unit was similar in design to the M82 in that it took 15 different game cartridges that could be changed out. It also had the option to be outfitted with a coin-op box that made it more like an arcade game, and took a 100¥ coin.
M82 Demo Display Unit
These were often placed in hotel rooms in Japan. Where the FamicomBox differs from its USA counterparts is that it has a few design elements that make it a little confusing, possibly done to make it more familiar to hotel guests from Europe and North America. For starters it has the Nintendo Entertainment System logo on it. Secondly, it uses NES controllers, not Famicom controllers, which work the same way but look very different. Most notable however is that it uses proprietary NES-style game cartridges. The cartridges are all made out of black plastic and each feature the same black and gold label with a picture of Mario. Only the name of the game above Mario and on the top spine, and sometimes a publisher credit, differ from game-to-game. The FamicomBox system and games are both locked so that the FamicomBox will only play FamicomBox cartridges, and the cartridges will not work on anything other than the FamicomBox (or an NES-101 top-loader console which has no lockout chip). So why include these on this site if they're Famicom games? Because they are official licensed game carts manufactured by Nintendo that look like NES games, and it's very confusing for a collector that's never seen them before. At least that's what happened to me.
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There is a second, virtually identical, demo display unit from Japan made by Sharp, the same company that made the impossible-to-find Game Television (TV with the NES built in), and the Twin Famicom console that played both Famicom cartridges and disks in one unit. Sharp's version is called the FamicomStation, and it uses the same proprietary game carts, just in the standard gray NES shell. I'm yet to find a definitive list of how many of these games exist, although it seems like there are somewhere around 40 FamicomBox games, and 25 FamicomStation games.
FamicomBox Cartridge
Commando​
FamicomStation Cartridge
Baseball
FamicomBox with Coin-Op
Minnesota State Lottery Cart -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A perfect example of why a site like this is useful and relevant 40 years after the NES was first launched is the Minnesota State Lottery Cart. Thanks mainly to an article published in the New York Times on September 27, 1991 the existence of this cartridge was speculated about for years. According to the article, lottery sales were in decline and state officials approached Nintendo about a system where the NES would connect to a modem and make use of a special game
cartridge that would allow people to buy lottery tickets and play lottery games right from their living rooms. Why use the NES for this? Because a majority of homes already had one, and it was a powerful enough
computer to handle the task. The idea interested Nintendo enough to
give it a try since the Super Nintendo had just been released and the
life-cycle of the NES would eventually be coming to an end. According
to the article the plan was to test the system in 10,000 homes, so it
seemed likely that at least some of the lottery carts would have been made by Nintendo, even if they were only prototypes or production samples. Surprisingly though, even when numerous prototypes of other released and unreleased games had found their way into the hands of collectors, none were ever located. That is until 2023 when a private collector found one and shared it with the world. The software was able to be copied, and therefore preserved. This also allowed parts of the code to be unlocked which were password-protected on the cartridge and therefore would have otherwise been inaccessible. Not only does the discovery of this cartridge all these years later make for an amazing story, but it gives collectors a chance to answer a very exciting question: Are there any more of these out there?
The New York Times
Friday September 27, 1991
Minnesota State Lottery Cartridge