nesdev.org

Is there a shop out there that sells blank NES cartridge shells? (I.e. the gray plastic cases that contain the game board and that you put into the NES. I'm not talking about the black dust sleeves or some cases to store the cartridge in it. I mean the plastic of the cartridge itself.)

I need cartridge cases that are of high quality. Not just okay-ish or "This one has this and that issue, you'll have to see if you like them." I'm talking about cases that are equal in quality to the ones from Nintendo itself.

I know that the cases from RetroUSB have a very high quality. They are on par with the official ones. Unfortunately, they don't sell blank cases.

But I've also ordered a sample from another website once and that one had very thin, bendable plastic, the two pieces didn't match exactly and the rifled structure at the top of the side (this one: |||||||) looked like it was melted. So, this looked more like from a Hongkong bootleg game.

That's why I'm asking: Is there any shop where the cases are of really high quality? Anything that's comparable to RetroUSB in terms of quality?

(By the way, stuff like colors or other conscious design choices are secondary in the moment. This is just about the quality itself. But gray or transparent are preferred over arbitrary colors.)

I know that the cases from RetroUSB have a very high quality.

They aren't. The case of my PowerPak broke, even though I was not handling it brutally.

Unfortunately, they don't sell blank cases.

I'm pretty sure at some point they did. Maybe they don't do it anymore ?

Bregalad wrote:

I know that the cases from RetroUSB have a very high quality.

They aren't. The case of my PowerPak broke, even though I was not handling it brutally.

Unfortunately, they don't sell blank cases.

I'm pretty sure at some point they did. Maybe they don't do it anymore ?

So one of your cases broke and you immediately assume ALL the carts are like that? Out of all the issues I've heard about the powerpak...people's cases regularly breaking is not one of them. (Maybe you just got a bad one? It happens)

As for getting new cases, there's a couple of sellers on Aliexpress. Pretty cheap.

Jeroen wrote:As for getting new cases, there's a couple of sellers on Aliexpress. Pretty cheap.

Yeah, the thing is: Finding some random seller on the internet is not a big deal.

But I need some concrete name or link of a seller (or maybe more than one) where people know for a fact that he sells high quality shells.

The fact that I've seen shells that were cheaply made tells me that this isn't a situation where you can just take any seller and then you'll get carbon copies of the official shells. The quality varies.

That's why I'd like to know a confirmed seller who definitely sells shells that are on par with the official Nintendo products or the ones from RetroUSB.

FWIW; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=11cmEZvZlbo

O.k., they said that the shells are perfect. But unfortunately, they never said who's the seller. They mentioned AliBaba/AliExpress, but that site has tons of NES shells sales. How do I know which one is that seller?

So one of your cases broke and you immediately assume ALL the carts are like that? [...] (Maybe you just got a bad one? It happens)

No, I never assumed ALL carts were like that. And yes, maybe I just got a bad one, I don't know. I'm no expert in plastic quality whatsoever.

I quite liked the quality of the RetroUSB shells. They had a good texture to them, nice heavy feel. The grey ones didn't really match the NES grey, but they were never offered for sale anyway. Of course, RetroUSB doesn't sell repro parts at all, anymore, so this is entirely moot.

I think grey for new carts is probably not the best idea; I don't think anyone will match the colour, and it's a bit of an uncanny valley situation where they look more "wrong" because they're close. Coloured carts look nice, though.

INL's shells aren't the best. The main problem is they only fit INL boards (Nintendo boards need to be modified slightly), but also the plastic is a little bit cloudy and not terribly smooth. I think they work perfectly fine, and the coloured ones look nice on my shelf, but yeah, RetroUSB's were better.

I've never had breakage with either RetroUSB or INL shells. I'm kind of surprised that happened to Bregalad, but I guess plastic breaks sometimes.

Plugging 8-bit evolution. I haven't had the other sellers' mentioned here to compare though.

rainwarrior wrote:I quite liked the quality of the RetroUSB shells. They had a good texture to them, nice heavy feel. The grey ones didn't really match the NES grey, but they were never offered for sale anyway. Of course, RetroUSB doesn't sell repro parts at all, anymore, so this is entirely moot.

Which is a shame, I kinda wanted one just to screw around with. (And a CIC just to say I had one)

Where does Krikzz get eirs? They have a ludicrous number of case options.

I think a PowerPak cart shell is more likely to break only because the support column in the middle was manually cut off to fit the PCB, rather than having the big hole in the middle PCB. RetroUSB's cart shells are excellent, the PowerPak one just has less structural support though.

8-bit evolution's cart shells are great too, and actually they're 100% identical to the ones I supply. Same mold, same manufacturer, same production batch. I'm one of the co-owners of the mold.

So yeah I can supply cart shells too, I don't keep massive amounts on hand, but it's not like individual game releases have massive sales either. I have a decent amount of transparent ones I wouldn't mind selling off, a smaller amount of solid black, the other colors I have are reserved for different projects. Though I will be ordering more at some point. And FWIW, people who buy my Cheapocabra board can get my cart shells included at cost (and translucent grey is an option in that case).
Some pics in here (transparent not pictured though):
viewtopic.php?f=4&t=12716

I didn't know there were so many color options on StoneAgeGamer. I would guess that most of the color options are painted. Especially with that stripe option.

edit: Forgot to add, for cart shells alone I can probably match or slightly beat the prices on AliExpress, at least while shipping within the US. Big boxes of cart shells are not so cheap to ship.

Memblers, your cases look quite nice from what I can see.

Let's say I ordered 50, how much would that cost? (The destination address would be inside the USA.)

Also, I'm interested either in clear transparent.
Or the authentic gray if yours looks like the color from the official games.
But not transparent gray.

Before I order the batch, I would need one single shell. This one would go to Germany. How much would that cost?

Memblers wrote:I can supply cart shells too.

Ah! I suddenly realize I have one of these shells on The Incident. I think this shell is at least as good as the RetroUSB ones.

I took a look through my collection of homebrew releases, and I can identify 4 different types of shells. I might as well rank them in order of perceived quality:

• 1. NES Shells. Hard to top this.
• 2. Memblers. Very good quality, nice texture, well defined and nicely rounded edges. Flat back with no space for a back label.
• 3. Retro USB. Very good, very similar to Memblers, with very slightly less definition on some edge details. No back label space.
  no longer for sale.
• 4. Piko Interactive. Generally very good, but a minor nitpick that the edges are a little sharper/harder than the other carts, and the finish is just slightly shinier. Two regions in the back for labels, similar to original NES shells. There's a strange tab cutout in the middle of the top of the label side. (Noticing this same shape on the Alixpress ones, they might be the same shells.)
• 5. Infinite NES Lives. They look fine from a distance, but up close the surface has a slightly "cloudy" look and lacks the pebbly feel of an NES cartridge (it's got a texture for grip, but it's finer). Internal tabs only support INL boards without modification. These also have two spaces in the back for labels, like NES carts.

I can't comment on whatever shells Krikzz might use for Everdrive N8 now; mine came in one that's a salvaged NES shell. Older InfiniteNESLives releases appear to have used grey RetroUSB shells, but I presume he stopped this when he got his own mould made.

I've never had shells from Aliexpress, but these ones visually look like something I'd rank between Piko and INL, though they might actually be identical to Piko's. (Maybe Piko is just buying these in bulk and reselling.)

As for greys, as I said, nobody quite matches the NES grey, though that's pretty hard to do, since the original NES ones have a bit of variation too (I have many "two tone" cartridges). Piko's grey seems the closest (but slightly dark), the others seem slightly light; though I haven't seen Memblers' grey.

Memblers wrote:I didn't know there were so many color options on StoneAgeGamer. I would guess that most of the color options are painted. Especially with that stripe option.

Ugh, painted shells are awful. I have Sweet Home translation repro that was painted red. It feels as terrible as you would expect, and also the cart and box it came in smell like spray-paint as a result. Big assault on the nose when opening it for the first time. (I own a couple of repros, but I quickly decided I didn't want any, for several reasons- this spray-painted cart was one of the reasons.)

rainwarrior wrote:As for greys, as I said, nobody quite matches the NES grey, though that's pretty hard to do, since the original NES ones have a bit of variation too (I have many "two tone" cartridges). Piko's grey seems the closest (but slightly dark), the others seem slightly light; though I haven't seen Memblers' grey.

Don't forget that Acclaim, Virgin and Sunsoft (Return of the Joker) have licensed third party-produced shells. They have Acclaim/Virgin/Sunsoft molded on the back instead of Nintendo. Sunsoft's version has a softer texture and is more brittle.

Why do modern third-party shells attempt to reproduce Nintendo's shell shape rather than make something distinctive the way pre-1997 unlicensed games did? I imagine that shells with a label area matching a common Avery template might make label reproduction cheaper.