SUPER GAME CARTRIDGE!

[liquid_sky]

Ive been wondering this ever since when I first got a 7800 way back when... Did SUPER GAME CARTRIDGE mean that the game either had RAM enhancements or a POKEY chip, or was it just a marketing thing to try to sell the games?

[+Mitch]

Pure marketing.

 

Mitch

http://atari7800.atari.org

[DracIsBack]

It seemed like a marketing effort to show that a console could play computer titles ... notice that all the "Super Game" brand cartridges seemed to be ports of computer titles.

 

Only three of the "super games" were 128K titles and only one contained a POKEY cart, so the "enhancement" issue didn't really apply.

[SS]

It seemed like a marketing effort to show that a console could play computer titles ... notice that all the "Super Game" brand cartridges seemed to be ports of computer titles.

 

That’s exactly what Super Game Cartridge was supposed to mean. From a 1987 Atari catalogue : “The hottest titles in computer games, available for the first time on a video game system! Thanks to the 7800 Super Cartridge and it’s phenomenal memory storage, you can enjoy even more complex game play and more excitement.”

[Agent X]

I remember that, too. But, there were a few "Super Game Cartridges" that weren't computer ports such as Desert Falcon and Hat Trick. (Hat Trick was released on some computers such as the Commodore 64, but it was originally an arcade game.)

 

After late 1988, the "Super Game Cartridge" designation wasn't used. Later computer game conversions like Ace of Aces, Fight Night, Super Huey, etc., didn't have it. Neither did the earlier Choplifter!, for that matter.

[Room 34]

I always assumed there was SOMETHING real to the "Super Game Cartridge" tag on the games, because the ones I have are a lot more complex games than the ones that don't have that designation -- like the early '80s arcade titles.

 

Here's my guess on the situation: Obviously a lot of the earliest games for the 7800 were developed ca. 1984, before the crash and the unit getting shelved. Those don't have the "Super Game Cartridge" designation. Then when they finally did release the system, and in '87 and '88, when they started putting out newly-developed games that really took advantage of the capabilities of the system more than titles like Ms. Pac-Man, marketing came in and said, "Hey, we have to have some way to convey that these are complex titles that can compete with the NES." Hence the marketing portion of the "Super Game Cartridge" concept. The fact is, these games ARE more complex than earlier games for the system, but maybe the hardware inside the cartridges didn't actually need to be modified for this to be possible.

 

Again, just a guess. If anyone has more facts on this than I do, please feel free to cut me down to size!

[DanBoris]

There was a thread on this a while back:

 

http://www.atariage.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=17879

 

As far as I have been able to tell, carts labeled as Super Game Cartridge, had something more then just a 32K ROM in them. It might be RAM, a POKEY chip, or expanded ROM. I have seen cartridges without the super Game label that had these features, but I have never seen a plain 32K cart with the Super Game label.

 

Dan

[Curt Vendel]

Some of them have some extra Sram on them too...

 

 

 

Curt