Many years ago, some wise penny-pincher at Nintendo decided that shipping games in flimsy cardboard boxes was a sound business decision, and as a result, NES, Game Boy, SNES and even N64 owners had to endure packaging that was annoyingly delicate when compared to that seen on rival systems, like the Sega Mega Drive and NEC PC Engine.
The end result is that the secondary market is flooded with loose Nintendo carts, thanks to the fact that, over the decades, countless boxes have been relegated to the rubbish bin. At Nintendo Life Towers, we understand this sorry situation; while we have a selection of boxed SNES titles, we also possess a shoebox (usually kept well out of view) crammed with loose carts. Before you angrily brandish your pitchfork, we must add that the games were purchased second-hand in 'loose' condition; we were not responsible for the destruction of any of the boxes or instructions ourselves. We're not animals.
This sorry situation clearly impacts a lot of people, because Book4Games has been established to deal with the issue. It is producing a series of "precision game storage" options that allow you to keep your carts neat and tidy on the shelf, even if you don't own the original packaging.
We were sent samples of the SNES version, which holds four carts and comes in two flavours: North American SNES and European SNES / Japanese Super Famicom. Each also comes with a sheet of stickers so you can categorise the 'book' – for example, there's the letter 'C' taken from Capcom's logo, so you could potentially use one solely for Capcom's games. This is pretty vital as, once the 'book' is closed, there's no way of knowing what carts are contained within.
With the solid cardboard construction and sturdy foam padding inside, Book4Games' "Precision Game Storage" certainly feels like a premium product – and so it should, it starts from $24, which is a lot of cash to pay for something which only holds four cartridges. If you've got a sizeable collection, like us, then you're doing to need to part with a lot of moolah to get it all tidied up and organised.
Given the size of each "Precision Game Storage" book, it's a shame that space for six carts wasn't included, because it could have been done (although the foam inside would have arguably have been less robust). Oh, and while it's possible to use the North American version to store European or Japanese carts, it doesn't work both ways – because North American games are wider in size, you can't fit two of them in the European/Japanese version of the book. Curses.
As much as we like this unique take on loose cart storage, we do wonder exactly who is going to buy these. Anyone who considers themselves to be something of a connoisseur when it comes to retro gaming will surely stick to buying fully-boxed titles, while those who prefer to take the 'loose' cart route are more likely to be watching the pennies, and will see nothing untoward about simply shoving their games in a cardboard box when they're done playing.
Still, it's nice to have options – and we have to admit that these look a lot nicer sitting on a shelf than a battered Nike shoebox. Each to their own, we suppose.
Thanks to Play-Asia for sending the samples used in this feature.
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Comments 20
I am happy with them in my Red and grey plastic tool box! I have about 20 in that and then a load more in a draw (about 30) with the remaining ones in a plastic bag!! They are all still working after 25 years so perfectly happy.
One day if I have enough space for fancy display cabinets this could be nice.
I keep all my SNES games loose. The official boxes are too delicate and expensive for me to bother with. I wouldn't worry about it at all, but unless you're looking at the front label you can't tell which games are on the shelf. Maybe a cheap option would be nice, but $24 for every 4 games is far too much for me.
Yeah i'll stay old skool too, my game cartridges are happy in my wardrobe drawer. These new precision game storage prices are quite expensive considering they only hold 4 games. It's a no for me.
I feel like there's a galaxy-sized middle ground between "old Nike shoebox" and a $25 book that holds four games in foam padding as if they were delicate medical instruments.
For instance, any craft store or stationary shop carries a wide range of display-worthy cardboard boxes meant to hold postcards, photos and the like. They cost a few shekels apiece and come in all different sizes and styles.
I have spent a lot of time creating custom covers for my loose carts and housing them in sturdy universal game cases. They look so much nicer on my shelf, and it's a fun little project.
what yasmines sais.. at 10- they would be an instant buy..
and maybe a version with gba, ds and 3ds carts..
My project at the moment is printing the covers of a particular website. And buying the white plastic universal cases from aliexpress. Very similar to megadrive but slightly bigger. They look great with the cover in, on my shelf. Cheaper alternative.
I keep my loose games in those plastic audio cassette-style cases they sold in Japan back in the day. Most of my games are boxed, it’s just things like my overclocked Starfox, NFS and proto carts that need them.
Those things looks too lame, boring, and are easily as worst as Nintendo's own cardboard covers. I figure in a year or two those cardboard covers will be torn or become stale. I'll just stick with the custom plastic ones from GameCaseKing.com instead.
I would recommend the official Super Famicom storage cases for loose SFC carts over these. They're pricey on ebay, but I think it's worth it.
They really should have allowed 6 cartridges to fit inside each of these! That amount of foam for something that is likely to lay untouched for months on end (if not years..!) is just plain silly.
Otherwise though, the design is nice. Oh apart from their ugly logo taking up most of the spine... and the stickers could have been better quality surely?! The minor details let this down in my opinion.
Not to mention all those stickers for one box containing 4 games is just highlighting what a silly approach this is to storage...!
I take it back. The design is not nice at all...!
Eh. Barely looks like a book.
It really is worth investing in the actual cardboard boxes over something like this, be it original or a very good reproduction.
Bleh...these look bland and are way too pricey.
The Bit-Boxes from Stone Age Gamer are my go-to for this.
I got those original plastic cartridge protectors for the SNES that just go over the bottom of the carts for most of my collection, have all the games just sitting in a drawer right now.
These would be nice if I was going to keep everything on a shelf, but I tend to keep them in cabinets and drawers. That and these are way too pricey, especially the way they are telling them for $25+ a pop. If they sold them in packs of 4 for $50 I would be far more willing to consider it.
Nice idea and presentation. Thankfully, however, I only have two loose carts among all the others in hard cases.
These do look smart, but they're too pricey for me. My solution for all my loose carts was to buy a load of 8-disc DVD cases. Once you take the inner disc trays out, the outer case is just wide enough to accommodate a SNES or N64 cart. I then printed out my own covers. I'm v. happy with that. If anyone is interested in seeing pics of them do please let me know.
Now, this is a bit excessive... but hey, you can waste your money how you want.
For me even collect old snes cartdriges is a waste of money.
@Patendo ive kept my loose SNES games in toolboxes since the 90s! lol i'm not alone!!
Those Game4Books look nice but WHO THE PIXEL is buying loose cartridges?
For me, it's CIB or #NoMoney4U
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