ROM Cartridges, Cards and Solid-State Media

Sega Master System Cartridge

The Sega Master System used interchangeable ROM cartridges for its games, following the traditional cartridge-based approach of the 1980s. Unlike some later systems, the Master System also supported a much smaller card format for selected games.

Sega Master System Card

Sega Cards were credit-card-sized game media designed for the Master System. They were much thinner and more compact than conventional cartridges, but their limited capacity meant that only a relatively small number of games were released in this format.

Sega Mega Drive / Genesis Cartridge

The Mega Drive, known as the Genesis in North America, continued Sega's use of ROM cartridges into the 16-bit era. Some cartridges also contained additional hardware, allowing developers to expand the capabilities of the console beyond what was built into the machine.

Interton VC 4000 Cartridge

The Interton VC 4000 was a German console introduced in 1978 by a company better known for manufacturing hearing aids. Its games were sold as ROM cartridges called "cassettes", with some containing as little as 2 KB of ROM — yet this was enough for surprisingly varied games.

Atari 2600 Cartridge

The Atari 2600 helped establish the interchangeable game cartridge as a standard feature of home consoles. Its cartridges contained the game's program in ROM, allowing players to change games simply by removing one cartridge and inserting another.

Philips Videopac Cartridge

Philips Videopac cartridges were used by the Videopac G7000 console, known as the Odyssey² in North America. The cartridges were unusually compact and often contained very simple games, reflecting the limited memory and processing power of late-1970s home consoles.

Fairchild Videoplay Cartridge

Fairchild's Channel F was the first home video game console to use interchangeable ROM cartridges. Released in 1976, its cartridges were therefore among the earliest examples of a technology that would dominate console gaming for decades.

Nintendo Famicom Cartridge

The Japanese Nintendo Family Computer, or Famicom, used compact cartridges that contained the game's ROM chips. Some later cartridges became surprisingly sophisticated, incorporating additional memory and special chips that expanded the capabilities of the console.

Nintendo NES Cartridge

The Nintendo Entertainment System continued the cartridge-based approach of the Famicom for the international market. The cartridges were available in several different physical designs, and some contained special mapper chips that allowed games to use more memory or more advanced graphics techniques.

Nintendo SNES (North America) Cartridge

The North American Super Nintendo used a distinctive larger cartridge with a rounded shape that differed from the Japanese and European versions. Some cartridges contained special enhancement chips, including the famous Super FX chip used for games such as Star Fox.

Nintendo SNES Cartridge

The Japanese and European SNES cartridge design was noticeably different from the North American version. Inside, however, both versions served the same basic purpose: storing the game's program and graphics in semiconductor ROM memory rather than on a magnetic or optical medium.

Nintendo Virtual Boy Cartridge

Nintendo's Virtual Boy used small cartridges designed for its unusual stereoscopic gaming system. The console was released in 1995 and discontinued only about a year later, making its cartridges physical reminders of one of Nintendo's shortest-lived gaming platforms.

Nintendo N64 Cartridge

The Nintendo 64 was unusual among fifth-generation consoles because Nintendo continued using cartridges while competitors such as Sony and Sega were moving to optical discs. The cartridges offered very fast access times and made loading screens much less common, but their limited capacity made them considerably more expensive to manufacture.

Nintendo Game Boy Cartridge

The original Game Boy used small ROM cartridges that made it possible to carry several games in a pocket-sized form. Some cartridges also contained additional hardware such as battery-backed RAM, allowing games to save progress long before memory cards became common.

Nintendo Game Boy Advance Cartridge

Game Boy Advance cartridges became considerably smaller than those of the original Game Boy. Some later cartridges could also contain additional hardware, while special versions such as the Game Boy Advance Video cartridges stored compressed video content rather than conventional games.

Nintendo Switch Card

The Nintendo Switch returned to a small cartridge-like game medium after several generations of Nintendo consoles had experimented with optical discs. The tiny Game Cards contain solid-state memory and are much smaller than the cartridges used by earlier Nintendo consoles.

Nintendo Switch Card

Nintendo Switch Game Cards are among the smallest physical game media ever used by a major home console. Unlike conventional ROM cartridges from the 1980s, they use modern non-volatile memory technology, allowing several gigabytes of data to fit into a tiny card.

CBS ColecoVision Cartridge

ColecoVision cartridges contained the game's ROM and were designed to be easily exchanged by the player. The console was released in 1982 and became known for bringing graphics and gameplay that were relatively close to arcade machines of the period.

XD-Picture Card

The xD-Picture Card was a tiny flash-memory card introduced by Fujifilm and Olympus in 2002, mainly for digital cameras. Its name came from "eXtreme Digital", and its extremely small size made it attractive for compact cameras before SD cards became dominant.

Sony Memory Stick

Sony introduced Memory Stick in 1998 as its own removable flash-memory standard. Unlike CompactFlash and later SD cards, Memory Stick was heavily associated with Sony's ecosystem and appeared in cameras, camcorders, computers, music players and the PlayStation Portable.

Vtech V.reader

VTech's V.Reader was an electronic reading system for children that used interchangeable cartridges containing interactive books and educational content. The cartridge therefore worked more like a small solid-state software package than a conventional computer memory card.

Vtech Mobigo

The VTech MobiGo was a touchscreen educational gaming system aimed at young children. Its cartridges contained games and learning applications and used solid-state memory instead of discs, making them robust enough for a device designed to be handled by children.

Vtech V.Smile and V.Smile Motion Cartridges

VTech's V.Smile educational consoles used interchangeable cartridges containing games and learning programs. The system was unusual in combining console-style gaming with educational content, and its cartridges allowed the same console to be used for many different subjects and activities.

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