Super Game Cartridge

[Mendon]

While looking over my 7800 collection, I noticed that several of the game boxes listed the game as a "Super Game Cartridge". Some of these games are Ballblazer, Desert Falcon, and Winter & Summer games.

 

I got to wondering: are these really enhanced SUPER cart's or was this a advertising ploy by Atari?

 

Thanks in advance for any info!

 

Mendon

[DanBoris]

Atari seems to have applied the "Super Game Cartridge" designation very inconsistently. Ballblazer for example could qualify since it has a Pokey sound chip in it. Winter/Summer games have extra RAM and ROM in the cartridge. Desert Falcon on the other hand is just a plain 48K cartridge. There are also cartridges with the extra features that don't carry the "Super Game" designation on the label.

 

Dan

[Shawn]

Advertising ploy for sure, Just like the Sega Master Systems "Mega Cartrages", I ask whats so Mega about the battery they put in to save games on?? Cause thats all it was was a battery save and they called'em Mega Carts

[SteveW]

Or Mattel's "Supergraphics" designation, that they put on games purely as a marketing ploy. The programmers bypassed the EXEC chip to do some little graphic details on He-Man and the Masters of the Universe game, and Mattel's marketing guys came up with the idea to put the label "Supergraphics" on it. If Mattel had stayed in the game longer, there would have been a whole bunch of games with that label stuck on them.

[Classic Pac]

I still recall Atari even advertizing these so call Super Cart games at 1 meg

[DracIsBack]

It's pure marketing hooey, though in the 1987 timeframe, it seemed to be reserved for ports from computers.

 

But as others have noted, it's inconsistently applied in terms of the cartridge. Atari suggested that the SUPER CARTS added additional memory, but very few Supercarts were anything more than a non-bankswitched 32K or 48K cart. In fact, the largest 7800 titles (ALIEN BRIGADE and CROSSBOW) are bigger than any SuperCart but are not called such.

 

Some SuperCarts have extra hardware such as POKEY SOUND (ie. Ballblazer) and extra RAM (ex. Winter Games and Summer Games) but non-designated Super Carts have these as well (ex. COMMANDO has a POKEY, TOWER TOPPLER and JINKS have extra RAM).

[Mendon]

Thanks to all for your responses; much appreciated! And very interesting reading!

 

Mendon

[SS]

Wasn't the "Super Game Cartridge" moniker used to signify the games that had previously only been available for home computer systems? At least that's how I remember it.