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The very last manufactured NES game? - Date codes?


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It has to be a PAL game, right? I want to know if anyone's discovered which NES title was the very last to roll off of Nintendo's assembly line.

I was going through a bunch of PAL NES CIBs and checking box/manual date codes, I saw a German or French "The Smurfs" with a '96 date code. 

Also, kinda interesting, but I ran across a German "Donkey Kong Classics" with a '94 code which exhibited the same sticker lifting as the US "Wario's Woods" is known for. Was it produced using the same batch of labels with weak glue in '94? 

I saw @ThePhleo posted his Super Jeopardy with a '95 date code which is insane to me. That's probably the latest "US" region NES print, right?

 

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That's a good question. I imagine they were rolling off games at least until the end of NES production in August of '95.

I know Wario's Woods and The Lion King are the latest US and PAL games with an initial release date, but that doesn't mean some other games continued production past the last of those.

I've heard anecdotal evidence of new old stock stuff like Zoda's Revenge found well into the late 90s, but I don't know if those were late late manufacture or if stores just happened to have a bunch of overstock.

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On 5/23/2023 at 2:17 AM, acromite53 said:

It has to be a PAL game, right? I want to know if anyone's discovered which NES title was the very last to roll off of Nintendo's assembly line.

I was going through a bunch of PAL NES CIBs and checking box/manual date codes, I saw a German or French "The Smurfs" with a '96 date code. 

Also, kinda interesting, but I ran across a German "Donkey Kong Classics" with a '94 code which exhibited the same sticker lifting as the US "Wario's Woods" is known for. Was it produced using the same batch of labels with weak glue in '94? 

I saw @ThePhleo posted his Super Jeopardy with a '95 date code which is insane to me. That's probably the latest "US" region NES print, right?

 

Super Jeopardy, and Tecmo Bowl are confirmed 1995 prints in the USA. Ninja Gaiden III, and Tecmo Super Bowl may be another.

Also, @acromite53 just posted one of the final NES prints, but also, Asterix is another and I think it has a November/December 1996 print run too? I can't remember off the top of my head at the moment, but I think it would be reprinted along side Smurfs as well.

Finally, I think "The Lion King" is the final officially licensed title to be made for the NES anywhere around the globe. May 25, 1995 was its first print run, making the Nintendo 8-Bit Family game launch window officially 4332 days long, almost 12 years. (July 15, 1983 the Famicom launched in Japan with Donkey Kong, DK Jr., and Popeye, And then the launch of Lion King being the final game launched)

If you count just the final confirmed print date of Asterix at 1996 August 9th, and the FC Launch of July 15, 1983 then you have a ~4774 day lifespan of the entire Nintendo 8-Bit console family...roughly a bit over 13 years.

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1 hour ago, ThePhleo said:

Super Jeopardy, and Tecmo Bowl are confirmed 1995 prints in the USA. Ninja Gaiden III, and Tecmo Super Bowl may be another.

Also, @acromite53 just posted one of the final NES prints, but also, Asterix is another and I think it has a November/December 1996 print run too? I can't remember off the top of my head at the moment, but I think it would be reprinted along side Smurfs as well.

Finally, I think "The Lion King" is the final officially licensed title to be made for the NES anywhere around the globe. May 25, 1995 was its first print run, making the Nintendo 8-Bit Family game launch window officially 4332 days long, almost 12 years. (July 15, 1983 the Famicom launched in Japan with Donkey Kong, DK Jr., and Popeye, And then the launch of Lion King being the final game launched)

If you count just the final confirmed print date of Asterix at 1996 August 9th, and the FC Launch of July 15, 1983 then you have a ~4774 day lifespan of the entire Nintendo 8-Bit console family...roughly a bit over 13 years.

I have a Millipede cartridge with 1995 chips.

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54 minutes ago, phart010 said:

I read that Takahashi Meijin 4 was the last Famicom game.. but that’s not NES tho 

It was also released six months before Wario's Woods and almost a year before The Lion King.

But that's just the initial release date. It doesn't tell you whether that game or some other game was last off the assembly line.

 

Come to think of it, I've never seen a definitive release date for Sunday Funday, or whether it was released before or after The Lion King. And that's just the recognized unlicensed North American retail NES games.

No telling what the other regions had and when they went out of print.

I know the OP said Nintendo's assembly line, which de facto means licensed.

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On 5/26/2023 at 9:34 PM, Avgn Gamer said:

Playtronic Mega Man 6 has a 96 date code.

 

On 5/27/2023 at 7:21 AM, DK said:

I have a Ninja Gaiden III (Playtronic) that has a 9626 code.

 

I figure if we do find it (or at least a reasonable candidate), it'll be a last entry from a popular series, trying to squeeze out a few $$ from NES late adopters.

 

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On 5/27/2023 at 9:21 AM, DK said:

I have a Ninja Gaiden III (Playtronic) that has a 9626 code.

 

Woah! This one is the latest one yet!

A question about Playtronic games, were the carts, manuals, and boxes all produced in Japan? I see their labels have more rounded labels. Are these official from Japan or produced in Brazil?

 

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13 hours ago, acromite53 said:

Woah! This one is the latest one yet!

A question about Playtronic games, were the carts, manuals, and boxes all produced in Japan? I see their labels have more rounded labels. Are these official from Japan or produced in Brazil?

 

I'm 99% sure that Playtronic boxes/manuals/labels were produced in Brazil and not Japan. The tell tale sign being "Made in Japan" on the label of my USA Jackal, but it doesn't have that on my Playtronic Jackal.

Speaking of which, I opened up 2 more Playtronic carts (Jackal and Vice Project Doom) and both also had the 9626 date.

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