Custom Nintendo Famicom Cases

Being a collector of action figures (Transformers) there came a time where I started to care more about how I displayed my collection. In the past I used open air track shelving, but in recent years started to remove some of the shelves to make room for glass cabinets from Ikea. Then I started to tweak each shelf more by using acrylic risers to get the look that I wanted.

This mind set has eventually manifested itself with my video game collection. While I've always had my games organized on media shelves, I decided to take it a step further to improve the look of the games on the shelves. While I understand that not everyone will understand why I've done what I've done, it's OK. There is no wrong way to collect or to display your hobby.

I'm blessed to have a second living room on the main floor of my home. I'm super blessed that my wife has graciously allowed me to set up an arcade machine, two televisions, over 20 video game consoles along with 5 media shelves that house my games. With my room being wide open on the main floor my wife's one rule is that I keep the room clean and nice looking. While she hasn't specifically told me I needed to "box" my loose cartridge games, it does look the shelves look a little nicer in my opinion.

While there are many options to "case" loose cartridge games like NES, SNES and more, I've yet to find a pre-made hard plastic case for loose Nintendo Famicom games. I know that Namco and Taito released some of their games in hard plastic cases, but even if I could find a supply of cases to use I still wouldn't have the artwork to place inside the exterior sleeve. I've looked all over the web for some type of solution to help me with my dilemma and I finally found what I was looking for...in Russia of all places.

Thanks to eBay seller bitspixels, I now have two hard plastic cases for the games Holy Diver and Tokkyuu Shirei Solbrain (Shatterhand). These are small clamshell like cases, think Sega Genesis/Mega Drive. They snap shut tightly, have clips on the inside to hold the cartridge in place and have a clear film on the exterior of the case for artwork. 

I haven't seen anything like this on The Cover Project's website or in the forums, so I'm assuming this seller is making the artwork himself. I've already been in contact with him to see if it was possible to have artwork created for games I own that he doesn't already have in his eBay store. It'll take some time I'm told, but is doable.

The cartridges fit snugly inside the case with two tight clips on each end to hold the game in place. There are four small raised corners so you know exactly where the cartridge should go. There isn't a clip or a designated place for manuals and unfortunately I didn't have a Famicom manual handy to test. I do believe they'll sit right on top of the cartridge itself, but I don't know if it'll move around once the case is closed.

The plastic seems to be of a good quality. It doesn't feel cheap or brittle, very close to the same quality of a Sega Master System / Genesis case. The clear film on the exterior of the case is just a smooth translucent plastic. I did notice it wasn't perfectly cut above the seam and there was a small piece that overlapped the top or bottom of the case. It was barely noticeable and doesn't detract from the case's overall look. The artwork looks nice, but up close you can tell the level of print quality is sub-par when compared to other custom artwork I've seen online. That said, I've never seen this format anywhere so I may be a little more critical than necessary.

I love how they look spine out on my shelves. As you can see, they are very similar in size to the hard plastic cases Namco used for some of their games. While the case is virtually the same height of the Namco case, they are a little thinner.

I only have one boxed Taito Famicom game and as you can see the Taito case is taller and wider than bitspixels' cases. The depth is about the same however.

These cases sell for $6.99 each plus shipping. The cases I ordered took about two weeks for them to be delivered by USPS. I would've gotten them sooner, but I had to sign for the delivery and they came on a day I wasn't working from home. Overall I'm impressed by these cases. The overall quality is very good and they look beautiful on my shelving. I'm already in the process of reorganizing everything to make room to case all of my loose Famicom games. It'll take some time and money, but I think once it's all said and done it'll be worth it. I'll try to post updates as I'm able to.