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An extremely interesting history of game packaging

It's got pictures and stuff

Words: on November 18, 2010
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102 comments

  • Repelstontista - November 18, 2010 1:47 a.m.

    Don't research me look at boxfront

  • bass88 - November 18, 2010 1:44 a.m.

    I loved the PS1 jewel cases. Some did crack but they looked wonderful together on a shelf. Mourned the day they moved to DVD cases. I hated the Xbox ones the most. Just don't like that shade of green on them.

  • cyclone306 - November 18, 2010 1:39 a.m.

    Great article very interesting!

  • MichaelCera - November 18, 2010 1:38 a.m.

    Another Wii game that came in a steel book was the limited edition of Cursed Mountain. I paid 6 whole dollars for it online a few weeks ago.

  • EricBratcher - November 18, 2010 1:35 a.m.

    You know trooper, I thought about those PC boxes, but there were so many different formats, it would have been a whole article unto itself. Remember the Eidos polygons? The dozens of different rectangles? EA's folders, those super-wide things EA and Blizzard put collections in, blahblahblah... And what was the game with a box literally shaped like an angular hourglass? I can't recall. Anyhow, short story made long: There are just too many!

  • batmanboy11 - November 18, 2010 1:29 a.m.

    This was actually very interesting, Brett!

  • Outlander - November 18, 2010 1:24 a.m.

    That was a interesting article Brett. I hated those stupid Jewel cases... I don't think I ever owned one that did not break in the end.

  • BSGVader - November 18, 2010 1:22 a.m.

    I'd like to see what kind of madness would be produced today if 3rd parties were allowed to do whatever they wanted with their boxes like they could back in the 70s. Great work, Brett. I eagerly look forward to the Toys R Us stories on TDAR this Friday about how hard it was to stack this stuff.

  • Crabhand - November 18, 2010 1:21 a.m.

    Great article, Brett. I find it very interesting how much things have changed since the old cartridge days, and to reminisce about how much I despise the jewel cases (which broke entirely too easily). Even though it was unnecessary, I've held on to all of the boxes from my N64/Gameboy days out of some weird desire to pack rat. I prefer the consistent style of today's games, it makes keeping them organized and neat very easy. Probably the strangest change was the little whoosh on the 360 box, the day I bought Halo Reach I as like "The fuck is this?"

  • BK-201 - November 18, 2010 1:12 a.m.

    I think there are actually a couple of those ugly early PS One cases at my house...and I never noticed the different colors on the N64 games, that's a weird thing to do....

  • ultimatepunchrod - November 18, 2010 1:11 a.m.

    cool stuff thanks for all that work man. must have been quite a bit of it.

  • Fuzunga - November 18, 2010 1:08 a.m.

    You didn't mention how PSP cases are transparent and the back of the slip features artwork viewable when the case it opened up. I always liked that. And, on Xbox at least, they frequently change the plastic around the disk and the "button" to pop the disk out.

  • midkemian - November 18, 2010 12:53 a.m.

    Seeing that the vast majority of my games growing up were of the second hand persuasion, I'm kind of surprised at how many different packages games actually came in. Can't say that I yearn for those days. I like uniformity. Nice work Brett, really liked the article.

  • santaclouse37 - November 18, 2010 12:50 a.m.

    YEEEEEESSSSSSSSS! Being completely serious here, I've been anticipating this since last week's TDar.

  • MrTea - November 18, 2010 12:49 a.m.

    Hey Brett, please answer this question. Why the hell do the SNES cartridges have a purple triangle on the left side of the sticker, below the nintento logo? And why is it that the triangle is placed at diffrent hights? 18 year old unanswered question.

  • Pytor - November 18, 2010 12:47 a.m.

    Great article BrrrreeeeEEETTTT! Love that Dig-Dug box art! Doesn't it feel better to keep a positive outlook on life, dropping the cynicism akin to my grandfather's. Hmmm, you are 30 though now ;)

  • SupaNeo - November 18, 2010 12:38 a.m.

    Interesting article. I'm suprised you didn't mention the European Dreamcast jewel cases which were considerably thicker and had room for two discs.

  • Japanaman - November 18, 2010 12:34 a.m.

    Nice article. I always thought PS one games launched in the awful cardboard cases, then got plastic cases, then jewel cases. Why would Sony make the packaging worse each time? And I had no clue that Sega CD games came in cardboard cases. Still, you forgot to mention TurboGrafx 16 card cases, as well as their CD cases, Virtual Boy boxes, Neo Geo Pocket boxes, Neo Geo AES boxes, GameCom boxes, and who could forget Vectrex boxes!

  • NathanXplosion - November 18, 2010 12:33 a.m.

    That Master System and Genesis box art brings back some great memories.

  • trooperdx3117 - November 18, 2010 12:26 a.m.

    Nice article but no mention of the old giant cardboard boxes that PC games used to come in, those things were awesome because you could never lose the god damn game with those and they almost always came with some kind of a tome for a manual

Showing 81-100 of 102 comments

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