NES Games with Famicom Adaptors

[fcgamer | 4,729]

Does anyone have a list of NES games that are confirmed to have been released with the Famicom adaptors inside? Thanks in advance.

[Tulpa | 3,517]

These are the ones that I've seen with adapters in them.

Gyromite

Excitebike

Pinball

Stack Up (all Stack Ups supposedly have an adapter. At least one without an adapter hasn't been discovered to my knowledge.)

Duck Hunt

Hogan's Alley

Wrecking Crew

 

Someone came on here with a MTPO with an adapter in it, but we were never able to say whether it was legit or not. I mean, nothing about it screamed fake, but people had doubts.

 

This is the list from Famicomworld, but I don't know how accurate it is.

1942
Clu Clu Land
Donkey Kong Jr.
Duck Hunt
Elevator Action
Excitebike
Golf
Gumshoe
Gyromite
Hogan’s Alley
Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out!!
Pinball
Raid on Bungeling Bay
Rygar
Soccer
Stack Up
Tennis
Urban Champion
Wizards and Warriors
Wrecking Crew

Edited December 20, 2022 by Tulpa

[the_wizard_666 | 1,325]

25 minutes ago, Tulpa said:

Someone came on here with a MTPO with an adapter in it, but we were never able to say whether it was legit or not. I mean, nothing about it screamed fake, but people had doubts.

I can't speak to the veracity of that particular copy, but I can say it has been confirmed years ago.  Multiple copies are known to exist, though I don't think anyone ever figured out why they exist.  Realistically though, no post launch game should exist in that manner, but it could have something to do with the chip shortages that happened in the 80s...maybe converters bypassed a part that couldn't be sourced?

 

[Tulpa | 3,517]

27 minutes ago, the_wizard_666 said:

I can't speak to the veracity of that particular copy, but I can say it has been confirmed years ago.  Multiple copies are known to exist, though I don't think anyone ever figured out why they exist.  Realistically though, no post launch game should exist in that manner, but it could have something to do with the chip shortages that happened in the 80s...maybe converters bypassed a part that couldn't be sourced?

 

Interesting.

Where were you when we were discussing this?

[the_wizard_666 | 1,325]

23 minutes ago, Tulpa said:

Interesting.

Where were you when we were discussing this?

No idea.  I don't read much anymore, since new info is so damn rare for me.  The discovery predates NintendoAge, so it would definitely fall into the "old news" category for me  

[Tulpa | 3,517]

1 minute ago, the_wizard_666 said:

No idea.  I don't read much anymore, since new info is so damn rare for me.  The discovery predates NintendoAge, so it would definitely fall into the "old news" category for me  

Well, what else are you withholding? OUT WITH IT! 

[the_wizard_666 | 1,325]

11 minutes ago, Tulpa said:

Well, what else are you withholding? OUT WITH IT! 

Probably a lot of things man I've forgotten more things than you'll ever know in this hobby. 25+ years collecting will do that to ya

[Tulpa | 3,517]

Well, going forward, we're going to download your brain and upload the knowledge here. If we have any shot at recreating the NA archives, that'll be it.

 

Anyway, any insight onto the Famicomworld list? I assume the other four launch titles (Clu Clu Land, Golf, Tennis, and Soccer) are safe bets to have adapters.

[Dr. Morbis | 2,091]

"Listing" and collecting these is pointless since every single licensed game ever made has the inner tabs to support an adapter, so literally any 52 pin Famicom pcb can be placed inside of its North American counterpart using one of these adapters inside of the cartridge....

Edited December 20, 2022 by Dr. Morbis

[darkchylde28 | 1,546]

31 minutes ago, Dr. Morbis said:

"Listing" and collecting these is pointless since every single licensed game ever made has the inner tabs to support an adapter, so literally any 52 pin Famicom pcb can be placed inside of its North American counterpart using one of these adapters inside of the cartridge....

You totally missed the point of this thread, and I can't tell for sure whether it was intentional or not.  The ask wasn't what games could an adapter be placed in, it was which games came from the factory with  an adapter + famicom board inside?  The list of the games being asked about should be exceedingly small, since, as mentioned above, only games that came out at or very near the launch of the NES should have ever had those inside from the factory.

Edited December 20, 2022 by darkchylde28

[the_wizard_666 | 1,325]

24 minutes ago, Dr. Morbis said:

"Listing" and collecting these is pointless since every single licensed game ever made has the inner tabs to support an adapter, so literally any 52 pin Famicom pcb can be placed inside of its North American counterpart using one of these adapters inside of the cartridge....

That's not true at all.  Standard sized boards sure, but the tall ones require modification to the case to be able to physically close the case.

[Dr. Morbis | 2,091]

33 minutes ago, darkchylde28 said:

You totally missed the point of this thread, and I can't tell for sure whether it was intentional or not.  The ask wasn't what games could an adapter be placed in, it was which games came from the factory with  an adapter + famicom board inside?  The list of the games being asked about should be exceedingly small, since, as mentioned above, only games that came out at or very near the launch of the NES should have ever had those inside from the factory.

I think you're the one missing the point.  Unless a game is opened from sealed and then the cartridge is immediately opened up to see what's inside, it is impossible to know if any cartridge found with an adapter inside was "released" that way.  Sure, games that have a large number of finds are almost certainly legit, but any game that has only one or two known copies with adapters is entirely suspect.  The Mike Tyson cart, for example, is impossible to prove (outside of my method described above) because the Famicom release is entirely in English and byte for byte identical to the NES release (and I'm not talking about Gold PO, obviously, but Famicom MTPO).

So I will state it again, although this time with a caveat: any game released in English on the Famicom with identical data to the NA release (think SMB, and many many more first party releases) can be "made" quickly and easily by anyone, anytime without any way for the cartridge to be disproven.  As such, trying to make a list is pointless, and anyone wanting to collect them could just make his own for all the titles he needs.  If the MTPO with an adapter was worth ten grand, anyone could make one and throw it up on eBay tomorrow...

Edited December 20, 2022 by Dr. Morbis

[Dr. Morbis | 2,091]

15 minutes ago, the_wizard_666 said:

That's not true at all.  Standard sized boards sure, but the tall ones require modification to the case to be able to physically close the case.

I haven't researched for any sort of population report, but it's probably always the case that games with oversized boards are text heavy, rendering your point moot for the purpose of refuting my claim.  Obvioiusly if a game is entirely in Japanese then it would not be thrown in an adapter and "released" on the NES.

To sum up, any game can be made to seem "legit" with one of these adapters if:

a) the game was released in both NA and Japan, and
b) the game's data was not changed between regions (ie: Super Mario Bros, and many many early NES titles)

So there's your list, every single game that fits the two conditions above could have had an adapter on release and can be made to have one any time by anybody... 

[the_wizard_666 | 1,325]

2 minutes ago, Dr. Morbis said:

I haven't researched for any sort of population report, but it's probably always the case that games with oversized boards are text heavy, rendering your point moot for the purpose of refuting my claim.  Obvioiusly if a game is entirely in Japanese then it would not be thrown in an adapter and "released" on the NES.

To sum up, any game can be made to seem "legit" with one of these adapters if:

a) the game was released in both NA and Japan, and
b) the game's data was not changed between regions (ie: Super Mario Bros, and many many early NES titles)

So there's your list, every single game that fits the two conditions above could have had an adapter on release and can be made to have one any time by anybody... 

You said literally any game can be put into an NES cart with a converter.  No caveats.  That is physically not possible for many games.  To come back with a caveat after without admitting your mistake is poor form.  

Anyway, considering some of the games came to light before faking such things would benefit anyone, I'm inclined to say they were legitimate.  And being that there was a chip shortage during the late 80s, it actually makes sense that things like MTPO and Raid on Bungeling Bay would've had this treatment - convert some overstocked Famicom carts to US carts to avoid having to remanufacture them.  I'm with you now that I'd be skeptical of any new ones that popped up nowadays, but a blanket statement about there being no legitimacy to them at all is asinine at best.

[Dr. Morbis | 2,091]

3 minutes ago, the_wizard_666 said:

You said literally any game can be put into an NES cart with a converter.  No caveats.  That is physically not possible for many games.  To come back with a caveat after without admitting your mistake is poor form. 

Dude, wtf?!?!  Have you ever seen a Famicom game that's longer than a NES cart in your entire life?  My original statement was that I thought every single Famicom pcb would fit in a NES cartridge and I'll stand by that.  If you think I'm wrong, then post pics or stfu!

[Dr. Morbis | 2,091]

Oh, and if I am wrong, the number of oversized carts on the Famicom that wouldn't fit with a converter out of like 1100 legit releases will be like single digit numbers - less than half of one percent of the library, and considering such titles will either be unreleased here or very late releases or both, rendering them pointless for the topic of this thread, it makes me doubly wonder why you bothered to bring it up...

[Dr. Morbis | 2,091]

12 minutes ago, the_wizard_666 said:

a blanket statement about there being no legitimacy to them at all is asinine at best.

I made no such statement about there being no legitimacy; my point is that it is entirely irrelevant due to the fact that they are 100% replicable in the present by anybody...

[the_wizard_666 | 1,325]

8 minutes ago, Dr. Morbis said:

Dude, wtf?!?!  Have you ever seen a Famicom game that's longer than a NES cart in your entire life?  My original statement was that I thought every single Famicom pcb would fit in a NES cartridge and I'll stand by that.  If you think I'm wrong, then post pics or stfu!

I said they wouldn't fit without modification.  I didn't say they wouldn't fit at all.  I've had to modify cases before, and will again.  It's the middle screw that fucks it up, as there's nowhere for the screw hole to pass through a tall famicom board.

2 minutes ago, Dr. Morbis said:

I made no such statement about there being no legitimacy; my point is that it is entirely irrelevant due to the fact that they are 100% replicable in the present by anybody...

Well, I'm with you on that, though it still requires the specific converter to make it look authentic, and most wouldn't be worth sacrificing a Stack Up cart to acquire it.

[Dr. Morbis | 2,091]

1 minute ago, the_wizard_666 said:

 

Well, I'm with you on that, though it still requires the specific converter to make it look authentic, and most wouldn't be worth sacrificing a Stack Up cart to acquire it.

That specific converter is bonafide proof that there are many legit releases of these carts, no doubt, but any "rare" ones are not collectible or valuable due to the circumstances I have outlined above...

[Tulpa | 3,517]

Which would be "rare" other than MTPO (which was compounded by the fact that it was also a five screw)?

[the_wizard_666 | 1,325]

20 minutes ago, Tulpa said:

Which would be "rare" other than MTPO (which was compounded by the fact that it was also a five screw)?

Anything that's not Stack Up would be rarer than the 72 pin version.  Anything that wasn't a launch title would be exceedingly rare.  The original runs used converters to fill the supply at launch.  Anything outside of that was likely a result of the 80s chip shortage, but that's entirely speculation on my part.  And anything not using the converter you find in Stack Up is likely fake.

[Tanooki | 4,939]

2 hours ago, Dr. Morbis said:

Dude, wtf?!?!  Have you ever seen a Famicom game that's longer than a NES cart in your entire life?  My original statement was that I thought every single Famicom pcb would fit in a NES cartridge and I'll stand by that.  If you think I'm wrong, then post pics or stfu!

Doesn't need to be longer, it needs to be longer with the adapter Nintendo made to over-size from the plastic mold of the US cartridge shell.  He and I ran in this very thing this year doing a one off Sim City NES cartridge, had to just settle on an oversized FC shell to house that MMC5 beast.

[darkchylde28 | 1,546]

2 hours ago, Dr. Morbis said:

I think you're the one missing the point.  Unless a game is opened from sealed and then the cartridge is immediately opened up to see what's inside, it is impossible to know if any cartridge found with an adapter inside was "released" that way.  Sure, games that have a large number of finds are almost certainly legit, but any game that has only one or two known copies with adapters is entirely suspect.  The Mike Tyson cart, for example, is impossible to prove (outside of my method described above) because the Famicom release is entirely in English and byte for byte identical to the NES release (and I'm not talking about Gold PO, obviously, but Famicom MTPO).

So I will state it again, although this time with a caveat: any game released in English on the Famicom with identical data to the NA release (think SMB, and many many more first party releases) can be "made" quickly and easily by anyone, anytime without any way for the cartridge to be disproven.  As such, trying to make a list is pointless, and anyone wanting to collect them could just make his own for all the titles he needs.  If the MTPO with an adapter was worth ten grand, anyone could make one and throw it up on eBay tomorrow...

Gotcha, so it was intentional on your part.  Attention guys, nobody with a black box game with a famicom board and an adapter that wasn't opened in Dr. Morbis' presence can be verified as legitimate!  It's all a conspiracy to make all those $5 Gyromite carts into $7.50 Gyromite carts!  We've been found out! 

1 hour ago, the_wizard_666 said:

Anything that's not Stack Up would be rarer than the 72 pin version.  Anything that wasn't a launch title would be exceedingly rare.  The original runs used converters to fill the supply at launch.  Anything outside of that was likely a result of the 80s chip shortage, but that's entirely speculation on my part.  And anything not using the converter you find in Stack Up is likely fake.

Bingo.  And I would wager that anything suspicious could be fairly well vetted by looking at the dates on the chips, as they wouldn't even be making or have adapters beyond a certain point, most likely within the year or so after the US launch.  These days, carts with adapters in them are rare as hen's teeth but still not worth much, if anything, more than the regular version, so people faking them really wouldn't profit anyone.

[fcgamer | 4,729]

There's a reason I was inquiring about this, and the question isn't as silly as Dr Morbis is making it out to be.

[Tulpa | 3,517]

22 minutes ago, Tanooki said:

Doesn't need to be longer, it needs to be longer with the adapter Nintendo made to over-size from the plastic mold of the US cartridge shell.  He and I ran in this very thing this year doing a one off Sim City NES cartridge, had to just settle on an oversized FC shell to house that MMC5 beast.

Off topic, I'm pretty sure both Lagrange Point and Metal Slader Glory have no way of fitting in a standard licensed shell using an adapter. Uchuu Keibitai SDF also has a pretty honkin' ROM board.