New Leaf/Game Factory Cartridge Database for you to enjoy! (Please post your carts if you have any.)

[RH | 4,894]

If you happen to own any Game Factory/New Leaf Genesis cartridges, I'd appreciate it if you'd share some information with me.  Specifically, I'm trying to catalog as many carts as I can.  I have a spreadsheet, and I'm building a gallery of individual cartridges. 

You can view it here, complete with a gallery link for each cartridge

Feel free to PM me these details or share them below.  Specifically, if you can provide images, highest quality possible would be appreciated and post them somewhere like Imgur so they aren't reduced in size by VGSs BBS system.  Here is the data I'm trying to collect.  Please provide as much, or as little as you're willing to provide.

• Images, front, back, top and the pins of the the cartridge
• Board Images, front and back.
• Does it have a game ROM loaded?  Yes, no, or untested
• If no images are provided...
  • What is the type of cartridge (New Leaf, Game Factory - Green, Game Factory - Blue, other?!)
  • If it has a serial label, what is the serial number. (Should be four digits, likely starting with 5xxx for green carts, and around 5xxx or 6xxx for blue carts.)
  • If it is stickerless, what are some distinguishing features.  Most of these carts I've found so far have something unique about them.
• When did you buy your copy.
• If you're willing to share, how much did you purchase it for, or, if you sold it and can provide this information, how much did you sell it for?

Thanks guys.  I started this process back in 2020.  I took a long break for no good reason, but I decided to collect up the info from images I've saved and what I could find on eBay today.  Below are a few sample photos.  These are my carts.  Interesting point, my blue cart is the only one I've found with a serial sticker on it.  That and the green cart were also both used in the Gaming Historian video on YouTube.  These two carts are a highlight of my collection.

New Leaf Cartridge

Game Factory - Green (16MB Cartridge)

Game Factory - Blue (32MB Cartridge)

 

Edited October 18, 2022 by RH

[phart010 | 1,705]

I had a chance to buy the green Game Factory several years ago at a pawnshop. It was in the bargain section for like $5. I was holding it in my hand wondering what it was but I put it down while thinking about my wife criticizing me for buying stuff I don’t need.

After learning what it was I rushed back only to find it was gone. The one I was holding actually had the address of the Blockbuster printed on the front, it was either South Carolina or Georgia if I recall correctly 

Edited February 25, 2022 by phart010

[RH | 4,894]

6 minutes ago, phart010 said:

I had a chance to buy the green Game Factory several years ago at a pawnshop. It was in the bargain section for like $5. I was holding it in my hand wondering what it was but I put it down while thinking about my wife criticizing me for buying stuff I don’t need.

After learning what it was I rushed back only to find it was gone. The one I was holding actually had the address of the Blockbuster printed on the front, it was either South Carolina or Georgia if I recall correctly 

Odd.  I've never seen an address.  All information I've ever seen has stated the test market was in Columbia, SC.  I'm guessing that what actually happened at the end of these things lifecycle is that when the project was nixed, Blockbusters just sold these off with whatever games were on them.  In fact, this feels right because I think I had a few buddies that owned some of these carts, but I could be wrong about that.

New Leaf was based out of Florida, though.  I could see there being a Florida address on them, but Georgia would be odd.

[phart010 | 1,705]

4 minutes ago, RH said:

Odd.  I've never seen an address.  All information I've ever seen has stated the test market was in Columbia, SC.  I'm guessing that what actually happened at the end of these things lifecycle is that when the project was nixed, Blockbusters just sold these off with whatever games were on them.  In fact, this feels right because I think I had a few buddies that owned some of these carts, but I could be wrong about that.

New Leaf was based out of Florida, though.  I could see there being a Florida address on them, but Georgia would be odd.

It was the green cart with the white sticker on front just like you have pictured above. It was not the New Leaf cart. I recall it saying Blockbuster video and the next line down having an address. Good thing I didn’t buy it because I would have probably peeled of the sticker and cleaned up the label not knowing any better 

[nrslam | 474]

I have 1 of the blue and 1 of the green carts. Like most everything I own, they were found at thrifts or garage sales in western WA state between 1995 and 2005, and probably cost about $1 each.

I'll try to find them for sticker checks and photos within the next week or so. As I recall, neither has a bootable game on it.

[RH | 4,894]

Thanks for all of the likes guys.  I'm going to bump this from time to time, just to get it noticed.

I also asked on Reddit but, as expected, no response.  I don't think most people over there even know what a Game Factory is.

[nrslam | 474]

Attached are pics of outside front and both sides of the boards for mine. Unfortunately, it seems the paper labels were removed (badly) from both of mine, leaving behind damaged, generic, Game Factory labels. First 3 pix are blue label cart, last 3 are for the green.

 

[RH | 4,894]

40 minutes ago, nrslam said:

Attached are pics of outside front and both sides of the boards for mine. Unfortunately, it seems the paper labels were removed (badly) from both of mine, leaving behind damaged, generic, Game Factory labels. First 3 pix are blue label cart, last 3 are for the green.

 

Great, thanks!  I'll add these to my Db tomorrow.  No worries about them missing labels.  They sure would be nice, but considering the New Leaf types never had such labels, and from my observations, over half of them were missing white labels, I kind of expect this to happen more often than not.

[nrslam | 474]

I'm curious about how many of these you've turned up, since we're the only contributors here so far.

Edited February 28, 2022 by nrslam

[RH | 4,894]

5 minutes ago, nrslam said:

I'm curious about how many of these you've turned up, since we're the only contributors here so far.

14 total, including yours, but remember I started this briefly in 2020 and didn't pick it up until now.  I have always had my eBay searches subs open, and I've seen them trickle through for years.  However, I've not paid attention if it's been the same 3-5 carts trickling through the system and not being purchased.  I've probably missed 3-8 sales in that amount of time. 

Only two of the carts in my list are New Leaf carts so, surprisingly, those are the rarest ones.  I can confirm that with my soft-paying attention these past couple of years.  New Leafs just don't show up even half as much as Game Factory carts.

I am making a spreadsheet on Google Docs containing all of these details.  I'm also saving and placing all of these files in many galleries on Google Drive.  My last steps are to add your carts to the spreadsheet and put each cart image in their respective location.  I need to then add a link for each carts photo gallery to the spreadsheet, make sure they are all publicly browsable (or just move them to Imgur, still debating that one) and then I want to share the list here.  The full break down so far is this.

Counts

• New Leaf - 2
• Green GF, w/ Label - 4
• Blue GF, w/ Label - 1
• Green GF, No Label - 3
• Blue GF, No Label - 4

[VGCollectaholic | 111]

I've got one of each New Leaf and Blue & Green w/ labels (both New Leaf and Blue have Jungle Book, green has nothing).  I'll snap some pics and report back here sometime this week.

[RH | 4,894]

6 minutes ago, VGCollectaholic said:

I've got one of each New Leaf and Blue & Green w/ labels (both New Leaf and Blue have Jungle Book, green has nothing).  I'll snap some pics and report back here sometime this week.

Awesome and thanks!  Since New Leaf's had no special ID labels, if there are any markings that make it unique, please try to get photos of those areas.  The more the merrier.

[RH | 4,894]

All, I've updated the original post to include a link to my spreadsheet.  I've added all details for all carts I've found, plus I've added the gallery links.  Thanks @nrslam for you photos!  @VGCollectaholic I hope to hear from you soon!

Enjoy!

[VGCollectaholic | 111]

Here are the pics of my copies, @RH.  

Edit: Wow... for some reason the upload looks like it's really shrinking and compressing the images (and poorly so).  Let me know if it looks like garbage on your end too.

Edited March 6, 2022 by VGCollectaholic

[RH | 4,894]

45 minutes ago, VGCollectaholic said:

Here are the pics of my copies, @RH.  

Edit: Wow... for some reason the upload looks like it's really shrinking and compressing the images (and poorly so).  Let me know if it looks like garbage on your end too.

Yeah, the VGS software crops images. That’s why I ask that if you don’t mind, post them to Imgur or Google Drive. I’m looking at these on my phone and from here they are pretty low quality. If you don’t mind a reupload, I’D appreciate it. Thanks for posting.

[nrslam | 474]

The pix I uploaded look OK, with all the writing legible and sharp and nothing cropped out. Maybe because they were done as individual landscape mode images?

[RH | 4,894]

23 minutes ago, nrslam said:

The pix I uploaded look OK, with all the writing legible and sharp and nothing cropped out. Maybe because they were done as individual landscape mode images?

I noticed yours came from an Amazon host. When I clicked through them, they were full, high resolution. Those were great.

[RH | 4,894]

19 hours ago, VGCollectaholic said:

Here are the pics of my copies, @RH.  

Edit: Wow... for some reason the upload looks like it's really shrinking and compressing the images (and poorly so).  Let me know if it looks like garbage on your end too.

Ok, interesting stuff, I went to add these to my Db, and the New Leaf and Green carts are already on my list, though the blue was new to me.

 

[RH | 4,894]

Oh wow, the history of these carts has just gotten a bit more interesting.  I was speaking to the seller of this eBay item.  He provided additional photos to the listings at my request for my Db.  Nice guy and I asked him about where he picked this up.  His response:

"I got this one from a Blockbuster store, can't recall which one but somewhere near Flint, MI. I paid $1.99 for this one."

So, it sounds like these things somehow made there way to around Flint, MI.  Anyone ever hear of this?  I thought New Leaf was based out of Florida, so it wouldn't surprise me that some of these might have ended up in Blockbusters or for sale with games in that area, but Flint, MI is a long way from Florida or South Carolina.

Ebay Reference Link:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/325083183527

Edited March 7, 2022 by RH

[Kguillemette | 1,543]

FYI, there is one each of the green version for sale on both eBay and mercari at the moment. Copy/paste urls seems to be not working on my phone right now. The eBay one has no sticker and the mercari one has a cartridge number of 5253. Might be worth reaching out to the sellers to see if they have any info on the carts themselves.

 

 

 

[RH | 4,894]

3 minutes ago, Kguillemette said:

FYI, there is one each of the green version for sale on both eBay and mercari at the moment. Copy/paste urls seems to be not working on my phone right now. The eBay one has no sticker and the mercari one has a cartridge number of 5253. Might be worth reaching out to the sellers to see if they have any info on the carts themselves.

Thanks, but both of these are on my db.  I keep an open search with loose terms on eBay so that nothing should slip by.  But thanks for keeping your eyes open.

[RH | 4,894]

If anyone is caring to follow along, yesterday I just did some google searches across some forums to find some more copies posted over time.  I did, saved any photos I found and updated the spreadsheet.  We're now up to 22 cartridges spotted and cataloged.  I did find another New Leaf, and multiple people mentioning owning a 2-3.  I've messaged some of them, and hopefully they are still around on those forums and have these carts.

It's funny, one of the things I keep hearing from older posts is "I heard that only 10 of these New Leaf carts were ever made..."  Yeah, I doubt that. I've probably spotted/read about at least 6-7 unique New Leafs, and there are certainly numerous more Game Factory carts.   The sample size is still to small but initially, the green carts seemed to be more common.  now after doing my internet digging, the difference in counts is within the range of statistically being about the same.

Anyway, at some point, I want to plot all of the marked, known New Leaf IDs on a spreadsheet, that's color coded and in a grid shape.  The idea is to get a vague idea of how many of these might be out there.  If anyone has any tips for hunting down owners of these carts that might be willing to talk about what they have, I'd appreciate it or if you know someone, let me know!  I don't have a Facebook/Instagram account so that might make it a bit tough, but if you can message anyone you know, I'd appreciate it!

[VGCollectaholic | 111]

Sorry for the delayed reply.  Work's been a bear this week.  I've posted my pics to my webserver:

http://retro-gaming.com/images/sega_genesis/Sega Genesis New Leaf - Cart Compare.png 

http://retro-gaming.com/images/sega_genesis/Sega Genesis New Leaf - Board Compare.png

 

@DefaultGen has a set.

 

[RH | 4,894]

It's been a while.  Bump if anyone is new or missed this back in early March.

[RH | 4,894]

Update!

I'm up to 30 total cartridges found!  As always, if you're not aware of this post, please let me know if you have any New Leaf or Game Factory cartridges and would be willing to share photos and details of what you have.  If you check out my spreadsheet link in my original post, you'll see that I try to keep pretty explicit details and photos.  Any additional info, or clearer photos of blurry carts would be appreciated!

Stats

Counts:

• Game Factory (Green): 13
• Game Factory (Blue): 12
• New Leaf: 5

Initially when I started cataloging these, Blues seemed to be more rare than green Game Factory's but after further research and discovery, they seem to be just as common.  I may have discovered 5 unique New Leaf cartridges, but they seem to be much more rare when finding new listings.

Game Factory ID Ranges:

• Greens: 5210-5595
  • Range of 385. Likely 400-500 total produced.
  • 3 unknown from label removals
• Blues: 6247-6508
  • Range of 261.  Likely range of 350-400 total produced.
  • 5 unknowns from label removals

Considering that Greens and Blues are as common as one another, I'd bet that 400 were made of each.  That's a total of 800 Game Factory cartridges in original circulation.  However, 17 total IDed carts is to small of a sample size to know for sure.  If these ratios are reasonable, then with a 5-to-1 ratio of New Leafs to Game Factory carts then there were probably 160 New Leaf carts produced. 

If the New Leaf company went with round/even numbers and possibly created these carts around the same time, there might be 200 New Leaf carts, making a total of 1,000 produced.  This is highly speculative but is moderately reasonable.

Games

As can be expected, these cartridges are mostly all dead because of the internal batteries dying with age.  However, based off of the games still holding content, and some carts that were blank but that contained game data still, by far the most common game is Disney's The Jungle Book.

Games either found on cartridges or labeled on cartridges:

• Disney's The Jungle Book
• Earthworm Jim
• Monopoly
• Sonic The Hedgehog 2 (I do not have information on this cartridge, but at one point I was told by a trust worthy source that a Sonic 2 cartridge exists.)

 

Edited June 9, 2022 by RH