Best looking cartridge?

Gameboy carts for life!!! Love those little guys!

I also really like N64 carts except for the fact that there's no label on the top...

 

GameGear carts

 

I've always said that Super Famicom carts look like something from the future - with the shape and the Japanese art, and all. I really like the look of those. HuCards are a close second, for the size alone.

I sometimes wish there were still cart based consoles.

 

Virtual Boy! Ha, just fooling. But seriously, my favorite carts are the NES and Game Boy variety. Well, excluding the Tengen NES carts, those things are hard to get out of the system sometimes.

 

Would it be possible to make a cart based console these days? I mean the size and price of flash media isn't too bad right?

 

There are cart based consoles called Nintendo DS, Nintendo 3DS, and PS Vita. They use what resembles flash memory cards. They probably resemble N64 carts in operation more so than any classic cart console because they are not memory mapped directly in to the cpu to execute from. Instead they really are more of just a storage medium, like a CD, that has data loaded into memory as needed but not directly used off the media.

The problem is optical media is far cheaper per byte than Flash memory still i'm sure.

 

Flash memory will never be cheaper than optical media. It probably costs like a penny to make a DVD or Blu-Ray.

 

What about the DS? the Vita? Basically flash (cartridge) based game systems...

 

Basically every single cart looks like shit on every platform, but the Nintendo 64 did it best IMO

 

Famicom Carts - Simple, yet brilliant design.
PC Engine Hu-Cards - So cool
Master Sytem Carts - For nostalgic reasons
Atari 2600 - Same as above.

 

It costs more than a penny to make them. But it would seem like that compared to the cost of flash, particularly on a byte for byte basis. Someone around here might have some numbers on it. But when you mass produce optical discs, the cost for each individual disk becomes pretty small. MaskROMs have a similar cost break compared to programmable ROMs but it still costs more to make a MaskROM than optical disk particularly talking byte for byte of memory.

 

Famicom carts for sure

 

One of my alltime favourites is the Salamander cartridge. It was the only cartridge that I took out of the box just to display it on my shelf:



IMO one of the top 3 best-looking Famicom cartridges! (counting all gold/silver carts as the same rank)

 

Sexy cart, I just love official transparent carts, and the salamander artwork is just too awesome... it is almost videogame porn lol

 

Neo geo pocket carts are pretty awesome looking too. IMO

 

Wow, that is one sexy cart. Reminds me of the 1chip MSX system.

 

Damn, that's smooth! Gotta get one myself... I love the shape of Famicom and Super Famicom carts. NES carts have also a big place in my heart, mostly because of nostalgic reasons though, haha!

 

The art on that Famicom cart is so nice!

 

I do agree. That is one of the coolest licensed game cartridges. It seems like it has held up well too. I'd seen them many times before and it is always striking.

 

I would vote for the PAL SNES/SuperFami cartridges, although you're right: the stackability and end-labels are important issues.

One that often doesn't get a look in is the Atari VCS-era Parker Brothers' cartridges:


Finally, a 'cute' factor for the Game Boy Advance cartridge: