190 in 1 Pirate Cart - in caltron 6-1 shell

[NESfiend | 1,514]

5-6 years ago when my collecting turned from commons to uncommon and rare carts, I bought this. At the time, pricecharting had 190 in 1 on their price list, but no other blank in 1 pirates, so I bought it thinking it was a legit unlicensed release. And I paid too much, but thats life. Luckily most of the other carts l bought then went nuts so its an easy write off now. 

Weird thing is I haven't ever seen another one of these and I have seen a milliion other 'blank in 1' carts. Its a caltron 6-1 shell no doubt. I am curious how this came about and would love any insights from people who know about pirates, caltrons, etc.

If nothing else, enjoy looking at a weird item. 

Edited June 13, 2021 by NESfiend

[fcgamer | 4,719]

Very cool cart! I have a lot of (Famicom) multicarts and even a 190 in 1, but I don't have this exact one.

Caltron was a Taiwanense company. Actually, Caltron seems to have been a shell, essentially just existing for the sake of selling unlicensed Taiwanense games in the States, possibly also to avoid taxes and legalities.

See, in Taiwan and other places abroad, the company was first known as Nintendo Electronic Co. (NTDEC). They sold a ton of bootleg Japanese games for Famicom, single carts, multicarts, etc. They also made some original games.

There were some recorded incidents in the States where NTDEC folks from Taiwan got arrested for trying to sell these bootleg games, and they were even taken to court. Likely that brought NTDEC to start making original games. 

Caltron is just one alias of NTDEC used abroad in the States. So it makes sense they would have used the same shells for a variety of their products.

 

 

[ThePhleo | 2,184]

On 6/9/2021 at 1:46 AM, fcgamer said:

Very cool cart! I have a lot of (Famicom) multicarts and even a 190 in 1, but I don't have this exact one.

Caltron was a Taiwanense company. Actually, Caltron seems to have been a shell, essentially just existing for the sake of selling unlicensed Taiwanense games in the States, possibly also to avoid taxes and legalities.

See, in Taiwan and other places abroad, the company was first known as Nintendo Electronic Co. (NTDEC). They sold a ton of bootleg Japanese games for Famicom, single carts, multicarts, etc. They also made some original games.

There were some recorded incidents in the States where NTDEC folks from Taiwan got arrested for trying to sell these bootleg games, and they were even taken to court. Likely that brought NTDEC to start making original games. 

Caltron is just one alias of NTDEC used abroad in the States. So it makes sense they would have used the same shells for a variety of their products.

 

 

Caltron carts are also “Gluk” cartridges too.

[guillavoie | 1,208]

This 190 in 1 multicart is one of my favorite from my childhood, along with Golden game 260 in 1 multicart. You get a few Famicom exclusive games in it that are usually not in the common multicarts, like Astro Robo Sasa, Son Son, Ponycat (or whatever its real name), Moai-kun, etc. There's also some licensed games you never see in multicarts at the time, like Gyruss and Spelunker.

Plus, some of the 'crazy' version of games feature  interesting modification, like shooting bullet super fats and stuff like that. Really cool multicart overall IMO!

[Tulpa | 3,488]

1 hour ago, ThePhleo said:

Caltron carts are also “Gluk” cartridges too.

I was about to say, weren't several of the games on Caltron 6-in-1 also individual Gluk releases?

[guillavoie | 1,208]

@NESfiend, I just realized that the titles of the games listed on the back label look VERY different from the 190 in 1 I was thinking about. Would you care to take some screenshots of the game selection menus? This might be a completely different multicart than I thought, with the exact same generic 190 in 1 front label. Also, I'm pretty sure the 190 in 1 I was referring to do not comes in a Gluk case (which I should have realized right away).

 

[NESfiend | 1,514]

@guillavoieIll fire it up tonight and get some screebshots. I remember thinking 190-1 was a scammy title to this. Theres like 10-15 games, just 15 different versions of each. But I dont think the different versions are all that different. 

[Tulpa | 3,488]

Yeah, that's common on these multicarts. Usually the extra "games" are the small batch of games started on different levels, like world 5-1 of SMB instead of 1-1. They're kind of cool as a practice tool, sort of crude save states, but other than that it depends on which games they have. Usually it's the Famicom ROMs if there are any differences.

Occasionally you find the cool hacked one that has Mario replaced with Shrek or something equally goofy (often you can tell when it was made by the IP they're ripping off.) Those are the ones I like.

Edited June 12, 2021 by Tulpa

[fcgamer | 4,719]

Generally smaller numbers = better. But even on these large number carts, the old O rs like this, it's probably got 50 or 60+ unique games, mostly first gen NES but they're still fun in their own right.

[Tulpa | 3,488]

By the looks of the label, I'm guessing it has Bomberman, Battle City (Tank), Galaxian, Ice Climber, Duck Hunt, Hogan's Alley, Wild Gunman, and Lunar Pool (Lunar Ball.) Pretty typical game lineup for these.

[NESfiend | 1,514]

7 hours ago, Tulpa said:

By the looks of the label, I'm guessing it has Bomberman, Battle City (Tank), Galaxian, Ice Climber, Duck Hunt, Hogan's Alley, Wild Gunman, and Lunar Pool (Lunar Ball.) Pretty typical game lineup for these.

OP edited to add all game selection screens. Dead on with that list. 

[Tulpa | 3,488]

Yeah, it's usually arcadey stuff. I've also seen Lode Runner, Nuts & Milk, and a lot of the black box games. Sometimes something a little deeper like Adventure Island will be on them.

[fcgamer | 4,719]

That is a wannabe "golden" cartridge, lol. Terrible selection of games compared to most others of that era.

[Gotchy1 | 83]

110 on 1 was the perfect cart of my childhood

[Speedy_NES | 102]

Nice find! There are a number of different Caltron carts like these out there; I have been hunting them down since I started collecting. I don't think I have this one, though. The cool thing about them is that the NTDEC multis (not this particular 190in1) typically have very cool title screens, more unique than most of the generic multis like this (and they come in NTDEC-specific sleeves, sometimes with manual). I also found two Master Fighter variants on Caltron shells (8-bit Street Fighter II ports), which are pretty cool, too. You can see the Caltron Master Fighters on one of my earlier Instagram posts. 

Edited November 18, 2022 by Speedy_NES