Game Gear trays: from plastic to cardboard

[monsterG | 17]

When did Sega move from plastic trays to cardboard inside GG games?

I have a better understanding of when Nintendo moved from plastic to cardboard inside GB games. 

[Tyree_Cooper | 747]

There are GG games as late as 1997/1998 which still use plastic trays. Though probably not US releases.

[RH | 4,897]

From general observation of these things, you can’t ever really pin a specific date.  Companies don’t change minor details like plastic/cardboard trays and then just throw out old stock.  Depending on how wide their manufacturing and assembly locations were across the globe, the switch might have taken 1-2 years to complete.  There’s even a chance one of the larger assembly plants found a large case of older style inserts well over a year after the transition and then decided to just go back to using them to finish out the lot.

I’ve worked in various forms of manufacturing for years.  This stuff happens all the time and new old stock is rarely scrapped if it can be used. I don’t have an answer for the Game Gear but, yeah, seeing how most of Sega’s stuff feels cobbled together and there are so many packaging variations for Game Gear and Genesis games, it wouldn’t surprise me if the switch took 2-3 years to fully complete.