NES Hang Tab games

[Bear78]

So I was watching a recent John Hancock video and he brought up NES hang tab games (check around the 8 minute mark).



I guess I never realized there were variations here (hang tab vs non hang tab).  I don't know if we have any of these tracked in the DB as we mostly tracked seal / screw variations.  Is this something that should be added?  looks like there are some lists out there of all the games that had a hang tab variation.

Here's a thread on it on NA: http://nintendoage.com/fo...tid=5&threadid=163178

[tactical_nuke]

Yep, go for it.

[Bear78]

Well I think I researched my way out of it lol.  There's just way too many small variations to even try and track this.  It looks like the hangtab boxes are mostly the 5-screw 1987 games but some hangtab boxes also had 3-screw carts.  Then there's different revisions, etc.  So yeah, I'm good lol.

https://www.watagames.com...-black-box-variant-guide/

http://nintendoage.com/fo...did=187376&StartRow=1

http://nintendoage.com/fo...tid=5&threadid=186589

[Schlibby]

Don't forget the boxes and carts werent sold as separate things. If a hangtab was generally with a 5 screw then its already in the database as a 5 screw game.

It would only generate a separate entry in the database if eg there were 5 screw copies of a game with hangtabs and a 2nd release with 5 screw but no tab.

[Bear78]

It would only generate a separate entry in the database if eg there were 5 screw copies of a game with hangtabs and a 2nd release with 5 screw but no tab.

And there are examples of that from what I can tell but it's literally all over the place.  From one of those links:

5 screw carts came with hangtab boxes.
5 screw carts came with boxes without hangtabs and no rev-a
3 screw black box carts have been confirmed in hangtab boxes (dk jr math)
3 screw carts came with boxes without hangtab and no rev-a
5 screw carts came with boxes without hangtab and with rev-a (MTPO)
5 and 3 screw carts came with daytime rad racer
5 and 3 screw carts came with no banner ring king
5 and 3 screw carts came with white outline lunar pool
5 and 3 screw carts came with early acclaim games
5 and 3 screw carts came with LJN Jaws and Gotcha no rev a
5 and 3 screw carts came with Konami double dribble, top gun and track and field.
5 screw castlevania, both label variations came in hangtab box - hangtab box has slight art shift on back between variations.
3 screw castlevania w/o security screws came with no rev a box

the 1987 cross over is all over the map. I could keep going...

[tactical_nuke]

I’m for adding back of box scans under extra media for hangtabs then. We had a similar situation with Atari era games that had too many variations. We gotta draw the line somewhere.

[blcklblskt]

AFAIK, there were something like 15 ish variants of Super Mario Bros alone.  I'd lean more towards Extra Media in that case.

[Schlibby]

A variant is a variant. I say we track them if anyone wants to correctly define the variants.

I guess it comes down to whether we want a simplified listing of games that makes it easier for people to track their games, or a more detailed database that will form a complete record of gaming history. I always lean to the latter.