All North American NES launch titles

[Mario_Friend1982 153]

So far, I have the following North American NES launch titles:

1. 10-Yard Fight
2. Baseball
3. Clu Clu Land
4. Duck Hunt
5. Excitebike
6. Golf
7. Gyromite
8. Hogan's Alley
9. Ice Climber
10. Kung Fu
11. Pinball
12. Soccer
13. Super Mario Bros.
14. Tennis
15. Wild Gunman
16. Wrecking Crew

The games I don't have are:

1. Stack-Up

Edited November 19, 2020 by Mario_Friend1982
Added Wild Gunman and Wrecking Crew to the games I got.

[docile tapeworm 3,463]

That’s pretty cool.

[guitarzombie 738]

ok

[DorkOverlord 617]

The only one I'm missing is Stack-Up because a) I'm cheap b) I have the Famicom version CIB. I doubt I'll ever shell out the $$$$ for the US version.

[Mario_Friend1982 153]

53 minutes ago, DorkOverlord said:

The only one I'm missing is Stack-Up because a) I'm cheap b) I have the Famicom version CIB. I doubt I'll ever shell out the $$$$ for the US version.

I hear you, dude! I've seen how much the North American version of Stack-Up costs on ebay!

[MrWunderful 2,585]

Nice. 

[Tulpa 2,839]

*waiting for the debate about whether or not SMB was a launch title to begin*

[mbd39 1,667]

I have Kung Fu, SMB, Pinball and Mach Rider.

 

[austin532 457]

What's the earliest known chip production date with SMB? That will give us the answer. If it's like 8537 then yeah, it was a launch title.

Edited December 20, 2019 by austin532

[Tanooki 4,551]

I still wonder why it even has to be debated about SMB1 as it's stupid.  My word against anyone else's but I know what I was playing on Dec 25th 1985 when it got unwrapped under the tree, and it has been bought along with the (pre) deluxe set and hogan's alley too when they hit the market.  I've never understood the argument.

 

Either way it's a nice healthy chunk of the original library there, interesting choices  (mostly, stack up I get) to not have at this rate.  Am I missing something (or forgetting?) but where's Balloon Fight?

Edited December 20, 2019 by Tanooki

[Tulpa 2,839]

3 hours ago, Tanooki said:

I still wonder why it even has to be debated about SMB1 as it's stupid.  My word against anyone else's but I know what I was playing on Dec 25th 1985 when it got unwrapped under the tree, and it has been bought along with the (pre) deluxe set and hogan's alley too when they hit the market.  I've never understood the argument.

The debate is whether it was available on October 18, 1985, or if it was released in November of that year. It depends on your definition of "launch."

[guitarzombie 738]

13 hours ago, austin532 said:

What's the earliest known chip production date with SMB? That will give us the answer. If it's like 8537 then yeah, it was a launch title.

We'd have to open up and find out.  On boogod the earliest date is Sept of 86 which can not be true.  Its just the earliest they had.  

 

Everyone open up those SMB carts and hopefully its not a blob PCB!\

EDIT - FWIW I looked at the famicom SMB and their chip codes are 8538 so the game at least existed but the product code is HVC (which means famicom).  Im fuzzy but is there a difference between the Japanese and American games?  If there isn't (like with most of those early black box titles) Id bet that the launch title SMBs probably have HVC chips and not NES ones.

Edited December 20, 2019 by guitarzombie

[Tulpa 2,839]

43 minutes ago, guitarzombie said:

  Im fuzzy but is there a difference between the Japanese and American games?

In terms of code? Not that I know of. The Famicom one came out in September of 1985.

[guitarzombie 738]

Yeah, if there were any game differences.  Werent the background graphics slightly different?  I gotta look online now.

[Tanooki 4,551]

Well I just opened up a cart I've had since it came out, never unscrewed it before so it was a bit stuck.  There are no glop tops in there just a small board.

 

The bootgod pic of a PCB/chips matches mine almost entirely, just the four digit number below the larger LH figure is different a little and the 4 digit on the side chip too.

[0xDEAFC0DE 1,270]

1 hour ago, Tanooki said:

Well I just opened up a cart I've had since it came out, never unscrewed it before so it was a bit stuck.  There are no glop tops in there just a small board.

The bootgod pic of a PCB/chips matches mine almost entirely, just the four digit number below the larger LH figure is different a little and the 4 digit on the side chip too.

Those four digit numbers are the date codes for the chips (first two are the year, second two are the week of the year). Can you post what all three are?

[guitarzombie 738]

The chips usually have 3 markings on them.  The item code (NES-gamecode-PRG for Program, CHR for Graphics chip), the manufacturer and part number of the chip and date code.  And in rare instances certain companies have their own date code style, instead of the year/week number.

[0xDEAFC0DE 1,270]

44 minutes ago, guitarzombie said:

The chips usually have 3 markings on them.  The item code (NES-gamecode-PRG for Program, CHR for Graphics chip), the manufacturer and part number of the chip and date code.  And in rare instances certain companies have their own date code style, instead of the year/week number.

For the odd looking date codes I usually look up the chip on bootgod and reverse engineer the scheme from the examples there. Sometimes they only use one number for the year, sometimes they stick in the month, etc. 

[Tanooki 4,551]

10 hours ago, 0xDEAFC0DE said:

Those four digit numbers are the date codes for the chips (first two are the year, second two are the week of the year). Can you post what all three are?

Are you sure about that being a solid date code?  The PRG chip says 8624.  The CHR 8624.  The 3rd chip 8538 (September 1985 if what you said is right).  I know when I got my system, not that I have the pictures anymore, but I do remember everything from that point to even what pick ups we got the following year out of the black box limited line up (which were Kung Fu, Balloon Fight, Mario Bros, and Donkey Kong 3.)  I'm fairly certain our earliest 3rd party game was Ghosts n Goblins pick up new at a swap meet, the one time my father ever got me a game which was surprising, but more so that his mother who really didn't get or like the things got us our only game too for the following Christmas which was Gradius.

Edited December 21, 2019 by Tanooki

[0xDEAFC0DE 1,270]

16 minutes ago, Tanooki said:

Are you sure about that being a solid date code?  The PRG chip says 8624.  The CHR 8624.  The 3rd chip 8538 (September 1985 if what you said is right).  I know when I got my system, not that I have the pictures anymore, but I do remember everything from that point to even what pick ups we got the following year out of the black box limited line up (which were Kung Fu, Balloon Fight, Mario Bros, and Donkey Kong 3.)  I'm fairly certain our earliest 3rd party game was Ghosts n Goblins pick up new at a swap meet, the one time my father ever got me a game which was surprising, but more so that his mother who really didn't get or like the things got us our only game too for the following Christmas which was Gradius.

Yes, they are definitely date codes. They are found on most IC chips (not just in video games). Bootgod has a column for them in the "Detailed Chip Info" (link: http://bootgod.dyndns.org:7777/profile.php?id=270). Unfortunately, something doesn't quite line up. Your latest date code is 8624 (June 8-14 1986) which contradicts you getting it Christmas 1985. If you are sure that this is the same cart from your childhood, maybe you were off a year? Not sure what else might be going on here.

[Tanooki 4,551]

I know I never traded my game out nor replaced it, which is why I'm calling bullshit on the date code theory.  I know when I got the system and the game along with Hogan's Alley was bought as extras.  I can fairly well mentally account for Christmas and Birthday purchases by family as I was on a very small allowance, so I'd be stuck with games for many months at a time since I refused to get caught up wasting my time on rentals.  Something just isn't right here.  How about the Deluxe Set itself, what is the date they started labeling the box as such?  The one I got the console was a low serial number and the box did not have it written on there.  I wish I still had the box but I had a forced purge of most boxes I had about 15 years ago now unfortunately as that might have helped.

[Tulpa 2,839]

16 minutes ago, Tanooki said:

  How about the Deluxe Set itself, what is the date they started labeling the box as such?  

It's whenever the Control Deck set was also released, which was the first non-Deluxe package, so they named the original the Deluxe Set to differentiate them. But I've seen conflicting information on when that exactly was.

Edited December 21, 2019 by Tulpa

[austin532 457]

I've never seen a chip with a future date on it. The chips were usually made a month ahead of time so 8624 means it was released in July of 1986. @Tanooki are you 100% sure from the bottom of your hear that you got SMB for Christmas of 85 and not 86 and you know for a fact that's your original cart? Sometimes I have a mandela effect and swear a got a particular game on a certain date when in fact it was another.

[8bitdontquit 207]

@Tanooki. Do you still have the hogans alley? 

[Bearcat-Doug 4,274]

5 hours ago, Tulpa said:

It's whenever the Control Deck set was also released, which was the first non-Deluxe package, so they named the original the Deluxe Set to differentiate them. But I've seen conflicting information on when that exactly was.

I think it was in mid/late 1986. Several years ago I had an unused Control Deck set with the SMB pack in game and it was a hangtab box, but it wasn't sticker sealed. When I was a kid I had the gray Zapper Action Set that I'm 99% sure I got in the summer of 1987. Every kid I knew had that same one and I don't even remember seeing the Deluxe Set back then so I'm guessing the Action Set replaced it along with changing the pack in games from Gyromite and Duck Hunt to the SMB/Duck Hunt cartridge when they did away with ROB and the Robot Series games.