Pac-Man oddity or not?

[CaliColts]

I was just noticing something abut the packaging on Pac-Man and I was

curious as to why it was done. On the Pac-Man cart and instructions the

Pac-Man is cartoony with hands and feet, while the PM on the box is very

similar to the arcade version. Both backgrounds are identical.

 

Was this a licensing thing or an attempt by Atari to make the public think

the 2600 version was close to the arcade version, I would guess the latter.

[Room 34]

Was this a licensing thing or an attempt by Atari to make the public think

the 2600 version was close to the arcade version, I would guess the latter.

Very interesting! I hadn't noticed before. (Mainly because I just got another copy of the box, but I have been seeing that picture on the cartridge for 20 years!)

 

I would guess it's the latter as well. It was probably the idea of some marketing genius who was trying to counter the bad press the game was getting by trying to make it look less sucky.

 

Either that or they test-marketed the packaging and people hated it, so they redid it... but only bothered to redo the boxes to save money. (After all, who cares what the consumer thinks of the product after they buy it... as long as they spend their money.)