I've been on a Nintendo 64 spree recently, mostly because it's quite easy to get complete boxed copies for a reasonable price. Europe is a good place, since they're the same region as Australia, and the games are cheaper since more copies exist. However, in most cases I will ignore a European boxed copy. Why? They all seem to have a thick black border on the box, with the cover art squashed into the center. So I ask you: why? If this were a cheap "game of the year" edition, sure, I could understand that, since it's a budget copy. But original run games look like this too. The only exception seems to be the occasional game that has a single red or black border on the right side (which were coincidentally often the version we got in Australia for these titles, I guess they didn't want to bother printing up a new box ) and games that have a cover that's unique to Europe (i.e Perfect Dark). Here in Australia, our covers look basically the same as the US version, the cover art is full-sized and on the right side there's a red semi-transparent border with the rating logo. So why did European N64 boxes look like that? They look horrible, and there seemed to be no reason to redesign them when the US cover looks better and already exists.
True, but in this case, it was the regular box art most of the West got... Except with a big black border around it for some reason.
Except for some boxes with great original game art I find most game boxes from the 90s to be plain awful, specially when they replace great hand-drawn Japanese covers with shitty airbrushed WTFISTHIS Case in point: epic JPN cover for SonicCD, halfassed 90s cliche for the US version
In my eyes both look like shit though... Fireaza I'm supposing you mean this: http://gamasutra.com/db_area/images/blog/176550/goldeneye_007_n64_box_cover_art.jpg I don't know, it doesn't look half bad to be honest
That's the one. Same cover art in the middle that everyone else got, only with the thick black border that seems to serve no purpose. Again, if this were a budget re-release, I could understand...
It definitely is kinda weird, I know exactly what you mean. I collect Big Boxed PC games from the 90's and have a few rereleases like that (Tomb Raider 1 for example : http://i.neoseeker.com/boxshots/R2F...business_frontcover_large_zU9V8PNm5br2iC6.jpg ) . I don't really find it a reason not to get it though, it still looks nice.
i think it was to keep a kind of unification in branding, like not differing much from the standard snes style boxes which also had a black border. so people instantly recognise nintendo games on the shelf in the store, and have that affinity with the snes games or maybe black with a smaller colour image was cheaper to produce for the uk? maybe someone could e-mail nintendo and ask?
Yeah, I can't see someone here answering correctly but, the SNES thing makes sense. I really never tought about that before, because I've never payed attention to the European SNES stuff...
I think the real reason is because PAL SNES games also had an image in the center surrounded by a coloured boarder. Maybe they wanted to keep things uniformed. The black only boarder does look awful though.
Debatable. I've pissed lines in snow that were more coherent. Looks like somebody went apeshit with a bunch of graphics with transparent backgrounds.
Its because PAL Nintendo consoles from the 90's ran at 50hz and the boxes were there to show you the massive dissapointment you'd face with giant borders when you fired up the cart
Sonic CD is probably not the best example for why Japanese covers were usually always superior to the Western variant They just went with this cover design because that's what they decided Sonic covers should look like... Sonic 1, 2 and 3 all looked like this (white background and random yellow/blue/green/red shapes scattered around the graphics) It's not as if this came right out of the blue. But to be honest, I think Sonic CD's packaging looks quite cool with the spinecard attached.
I dont think there's any reason behind this except for region differencial. It's maybe a shame for that PAL games are with a black border because the red ones looks better ( i do think too xD ).
That kinda sucks, but it's not like the US boxart was all that attractive either. I've noticed that not only Japanese boxart, but also cartridge and disc art also tend to look a lot better. I'll show an example later.
