Why are cartridges so varied in size?

[Limewater]

I don't know the exact reasoning behind the choices, but there are differences in the way the game data are packaged within the cartridge and a HuCard. I realize that last sentence seems odd. What I mean is that older cartridges like the NES tended to package the game ROM, etc. in though-hole DIP packages. These are the relatively large black plastic chips you see on the PCB. The actual silicon for the data is really isn't that large -- a lot of the space ends up being used to attach the silicon to the external pins.

For HuCards and those cards Sega used, they generally used glop-tops, which is where the bare silicon is directly soldered to the PCB and then the whole thing is covered in some kind of resin. This allows for both a smaller board footprint and a lower profile off the PCB, allowing for those small cards.

The SNES and N64 also generally stuck to through-hole packages for their cartridges. There were exceptions, like Super FX carts. I am assuming this decision was made for durability or cost concerns, but they do add bulk and weight to a game cart that could have been avoided.

The Neo Geo carts are huge because they contain what was at the time a huge amount of ROM. They accomplished this by just having a ton of separate ROM chips in the cart.

[Ziggy]

Stuff about NES carts

I remember reading about how Nintendo specifically designed the Nintendo to look and work (front loading) more like a VCR so that Americans would view it more as electronics than a toy (after the video game crash). But yeah, most NES PCBs only take up a quarter of the inside. However, a lot of them can take up at least half. Some Famicom carts are actually a little taller because they needed to fit more on the PCB, like these two:

http://bootgod.dyndns.org:7777/profile.php?id=1784
http://bootgod.dyndns.org:7777/profile.php?id=4034

But yeah, the NES carts look the way they do because they're suppose to look more like a VHS/VCR than a video game.

Mr Popo hit the nail on the head with the NeoGeo carts. A NES, Genesis, SNES, N64 or whatever will have 1 or 2 ROM chips (with some exceptions) while a NeoGeo cart has MANY.

Maybe it's something as simple as EA wanting to have their carts stand out.

I heard that from an interview with SOMEONE who used to work at EA (DSH, was it the Racketcast???? Maybe it was a Retronauts episode...). Apparently the EA carts had nothing different in them, but the yellow tab made them really unique looking and they wanted that.

I've opened one or two up before. If I remember correctly, the PCB looked identical to a regular cased Genesis PCB.

[CRTGAMER]

Probably lucky Nintendo made the NES cart "VHS Tape Similar Look" sized. Room for the Import Adaptor on the first rushed carts to the U.S. market.

[Ziggy]

Probably lucky Nintendo made the NES cart "VHS Tape Similar Look" sized. Room for the Import Adaptor on the first rushed carts to the U.S. market.

As well as giving devs and moders more space to work with...

[DinnerX]

For handhelds cartridge size had sort of a battery barrier for years. You could only make a cart so thin and still fit a battery in it for saving and time keeping. After eeprom got cheap they didn't need batteries for saving anymore, but still needed them for time. Wasn't really until the DS came out with an internal clock that nintendo could make the cartridges little wafers.

[Hobie-wan]

*EA carts*
I've opened one or two up before. If I remember correctly, the PCB looked identical to a regular cased Genesis PCB.

They do. It's just annoying to pop off the yellow tab without breaking it and EA used at least 3 different types of screws. One kind was 3 points around the outside of the screw head.

[emwearz]

I thought the NES carts were made to look less like a video game cart and more like some form of video tape (much like the console was designed to look like a VCR) due to Nintendo not wanting to advertise the NES as video game console (due to the crash), reason for ROB and all that.

[Mod_Man_Extreme]

For handhelds cartridge size had sort of a battery barrier for years. You could only make a cart so thin and still fit a battery in it for saving and time keeping. After eeprom got cheap they didn't need batteries for saving anymore, but still needed them for time. Wasn't really until the DS came out with an internal clock that nintendo could make the cartridges little wafers.

Actually the majority of mid-late GBA and all DS games use flash ROM for storing your progress inside of a game while the game program itself is stored on a traditional Mask ROM.

The GameBor color even had some late-era games that used flash ROM to save progress, Kirby Tilt and Tumble is one of the more notable releases which did so.

[Bradtemple87]

Massive carts helped NeoGeo games justify the high price point

[DinnerX]

Actually the majority of mid-late GBA and all DS games use flash ROM for storing your progress inside of a game while the game program itself is stored on a traditional Mask ROM.

The GameBor color even had some late-era games that used flash ROM to save progress, Kirby Tilt and Tumble is one of the more notable releases which did so.

I believe flash memory is a kind of eeprom. Maybe most people don't refer to it as eeprom. Though it is still technically Electronically Erasable Programable Read Only Memory.

I thought most GBA games used it. Didn't know any GBC games used it. That's pretty cool. Well, by my standard of cool.