What "pack-in" games do you remember? (came with system)

[retrorussell]

Any kind of console or handheld system. This could be the initial pack-in game for the system or a later release with a different pack-in game.

I remember getting TETRIS with my Game Boy. I think that was its first pack-in game.

I think Atari 2600s first came released with COMBAT.

I think the Genesis first came with Altered Beast.

That's it for me now. You guys take over!

[Newsdee]

IIRC, Super Mario World came bundled with the French Super Nintendo.

I remember seeing some branded PC (e.g. Gateway, Dell) shipping with games and software but I can't remember which ones.

I do have an Origin collection of ten games which I think was originally packed with a system or at least a sound card. I have the manual somewhere...

Much more recently, my Wii shipped with Wii Sports and my Wii U with NintendoLand plus Super Mario 3D World.

[RandomRonn]

I remember my Genesis came with Sonic the Hedgehog.

 

Not sure if this counts, but when my family got a PS1 it died almost immediately due to the overheating of the first batch models. When Sony sent us a replacement it came with Medievil and Twisted Metal, so my younger self always assumed they must have been pack in games. Only years later did I realize we only got them because my father threw a fit on the phone with Sony, haha.

[mr_me]

Any kind of console or handheld system. This could be the initial pack-in game for the system or a later release with a different pack-in game.

I remember getting TETRIS with my Game Boy. I think that was its first pack-in game.

I think Atari 2600s first came released with COMBAT.

I think the Genesis first came with Altered Beast.

That's it for me now. You guys take over!

I'm surprised you didn't mention Las Vegas Poker & Blackjack for the Intellivision.

[Tanooki]

1985 NES Deluxe Set - Gyromite and Duck Hunt

1989 Gameboy - Tetris

1991 SNES - Super Mario World, later

1991 Neo Geo AES *GOLD* - Baseball Stars or NAM1975 (for a low price of only $650!)

1995 Virtual Boy - Mario Tennis

1999 Neo Geo Pocket Color - Sonic the Hedgehog (bundle edition system)

2004 Nintendo DS - Metroid Prime Hunters First Hunt

 

1987 Master System - Snail Maze built in

1989 Sega Genesis - Altered Beast, later Sonic the Hedgehog etc.

 

Those are launch games, obviously the NES, SNES, Genesis and others swapped the game out over the years. SNES had stuff like Super Metroid, Super Mario World+Allstars, Super Mario Allstars, Donkey Kong Country, Killer Instinct, Mario Paint, Super Gameboy. The Genesis had Sonic titles and others. The Gameboy dropped Tetris for limited stuff like Zelda, Kirby's Dream Land 2, and others. The NES went through a lot of pack-ins with various accessories (power pad, gun, 4 score) or stand alone games (SMB3, etc.)

[agb]

Combat for the 2600.

Super Mario/ Duck Hunt for NES.

[derFunkenstein]

My NES came with the triple pack - Super Mario Bros, Duck Hunt, and World Class Track Meet. Got a Zapper and a Power Pad with it, along with 2 controllers. My Genesis was a model 2 that came with Sonic 2. My SNES came with Killer Instinct. And then pack-ins seemed to die. I don't remember getting any other systems with a game included. My PS1 didn't come with one and I bought WWF Attitude as the first game. That was a mistake.

[0078265317]

1985 NES Deluxe Set - Gyromite and Duck Hunt

1989 Gameboy - Tetris

1991 SNES - Super Mario World, later

1991 Neo Geo AES *GOLD* - Baseball Stars or NAM1975 (for a low price of only $650!)

1995 Virtual Boy - Mario Tennis

1999 Neo Geo Pocket Color - Sonic the Hedgehog (bundle edition system)

2004 Nintendo DS - Metroid Prime Hunters First Hunt

 

1987 Master System - Snail Maze built in

1989 Sega Genesis - Altered Beast, later Sonic the Hedgehog etc.

 

Those are launch games, obviously the NES, SNES, Genesis and others swapped the game out over the years. SNES had stuff like Super Metroid, Super Mario World+Allstars, Super Mario Allstars, Donkey Kong Country, Killer Instinct, Mario Paint, Super Gameboy. The Genesis had Sonic titles and others. The Gameboy dropped Tetris for limited stuff like Zelda, Kirby's Dream Land 2, and others. The NES went through a lot of pack-ins with various accessories (power pad, gun, 4 score) or stand alone games (SMB3, etc.)

 

 

I had the deluxe set also. got it from Kmart 1987 for 130 dollars.

[+save2600]

Dont think its been mentioned yet, but the TG-16 came with Keith Courage in Alpha Zones. TurboDuo came with 5 great games: Bonks Adventure, Bonks Revenge, Gate of Thunder, Ys I and II, and Bomberman. The overpriced TurboExpress didnt come with diddly squat.

 

Besides the snail maze game, the Master System had a few different bundles at various times. Hang-On and Safari Hunt were on a cartridge together. Master System II didnt come with a cartridge, but might have had a game built in?

 

Gemini VCS clone came with Donkey Kong.

 

Intellivision came with Las Vegas P&BJ, and played the hell out of that BITD.

 

5200 came with Super Breakout, 7800 came with Pole Position II, Lynx had California Games (and later on with the revision II system came a bundle of 4 games), and the Jaguar came with Cybermorph.

 

My CD32 came with Pinball Fantasies and Sleepwalker on one disc.

[mbd30]

I think that Ghouls n Ghosts should have been the original Genesis pack-in game rather than Altered Beast. It has definitely aged much better than Altered Beast.

[Flojomojo]

Combat, Pac-Man, Speedway/Spinout/Cryptologic, Smb/Duckhunt, Las Vegas Poker & Blackjack, Mario's Tennis, Altered Beast, Sonic the Hedgehog, Pole Position II, Tetris, California Games, Cybermorph, Super Mario World, Virtua Fighter, blah blah blah

This is my favorite pack-in, a bunch of Lucasarts adventure games that came with my first CD-ROM drive.
http://macintoshgarden.org/forum/lucasarts-mac-cd-game-packs-0

[Gabriel]

My Atari VCS came with Combat. I liked the Tank games, but hardly ever had anyone to play with. When friends were over to play Atari, no one ever wanted to play Combat and the whole cartridge was seen as a lame throwaway.

 

My Atari 5200 came with Super Breakout. I was so happy to have a 5200 that I was even happy to play Super Breakout. After I had a couple more games, though, I hardly ever loaded it again.

 

It wasn't mine, but I very vividly recall that when my stepdad bought a NES, it came with a bare Super Mario Bros cart with no box or instructions. I remember playing the game and not being too impressed other than how the graphics seemed arcade quality.

 

When I got my Sega Genesis it came with Sonic the Hedgehog. I remember I had initially intended to purchase a system without a pack-in, but my best friend convinced me to buy the one with Sonic. It worked out, because I ended up really liking the game.

 

When I got my model 1 Sega CD it had a lot of packins. It had a 5 in one game disc with Golden Axe, Streets of Rage, Revenge of Shinobi, Columns, and ... some other game I don't recall. I still have that disc somewhere around here. It also came with Sol-Feace, Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective, and some kind of CD+G disc.

 

When I got a 3DO there was some kind of special deal where it came with some games. I know it came with an Interactive Sampler disc, of which the only thing that stood out was an utterly horrible minigame called Racing in Hell or something like that. Total Eclipse was also included. I also got Star Control II and Need for Speed along with it, but I don't recall if they were part of the special deal or a separate purchase.

[ed1475]

The ones I remember:

 

Combat - Atari 2600

Las Vegas Poker & Blackjack - Intellivision

Donkey Kong - Colecovision

Buck Rogers: Planet of Zoom Super Game - Coleco ADAM

Megarace - 1995 Packard Bell Multimedia PC

[Trebor]

Year listed is when purchased.

 

1980 - Atari (2600) VCS (4-Switch 'Woody') with Combat.

1984 - ColecoVision with Donkey Kong.

1986 - Atari 7800 with Pole Position II.

1988 - NES - Control Deck set with "The Official Nintendo Player's Guide" book.

1991 - Sega Genesis with Sonic the Hedgehog.

1994 - SNES with Super Mario World.

 

Every acquisition transpired sometime during the autumn/fall of that year.

[Gabriel]

 

Buck Rogers: Planet of Zoom Super Game - Coleco ADAM

 

It also came with SmartBASIC on digital datasette. I recall coding a lot of goofy little programs until something about my ADAM fritzed out and it would only boot to a non-functional version of the typewriter.

 

I played lots of Buck Rogers during the months to a year that the thing worked.

[high voltage]

 

my vader came with phoenix.

[Flojomojo]

Pack-in games seem to have gone out of fashion. Why do you suppose that is? Greed? Different people wanting different things? Something else?

[mr_me]

Pressure to make the console price as low as possible and higher production cost of games meant no more packins.

Edited February 18, 2019 by mr_me

[Eltigro]

Game.com came with Lights Out, didn't it? As well as Solitaire built in.

[power]

Pack-in games seem to have gone out of fashion. Why do you suppose that is? Greed? Different people wanting different things? Something else?

 

HEAPS of pack ins still out there, and they are even better now with themed limited edition consoles. Look at all the PS4's, 3DS' even xboxes. The pack in is alive and well. Not only that retailers often will chuck in a game too. If you manage to buy a console without a game you are going out of your way to do it a lot of the time.

 

and on that note. by best pack ins were.

 

Atari 520ST that came with the legendary Power Pack, and more recently my PS4 which is the Batman Arkham Knight edition, obviously came with the game but the entire console was Arkham Knight themed.

 

 

 

Afterburner

Black Lamp

Bomb Jack

Bombuzal

Double Dragon

Eliminator

Gauntlet II

Nebulus

Outrun

Overlander

Pacmania

Predator

R-Type

Space Harrier

Star Goose

Star Ray

Starglider

Super Hang-On

Super Huey

Xenon

 

and my PS4.

Edited February 18, 2019 by power

[+save2600]

Right, but modern pack-ins usually dont happen at the systems launch anymore. My 3rd gen PS3 came with the Uncharted something or other game. And PS2s w/ the hard drive/network doo-dad came with a Final Fantasy game. N64 even had a Pickachu bundle.

 

GameCube wasnt originally bundled with anything either IIRC, but believe I saw a Mario Kart bundle some time later.

 

Same with Saturn... at launch, nothing for your $400, but some time later, systems came with the 3-game bundle: Daytona, Virtua Cop and Virtua Fighter.

 

...and wow! Thats a great set of games for the ST to be sure. Never saw that many give-a-ways for the Amiga here.

[0078265317]

Pack-in games seem to have gone out of fashion. Why do you suppose that is? Greed? Different people wanting different things? Something else?

 

 

 

Greed mostly. My Game Boy Color did not come with a game either.

[John Stamos Mullet]

I specifically asked my parents for a Coleco gemini for Christmas 1983 because it came with Donkey Kong and Mousetrap, which were both way better than Pac-Man and Combat.

 

My SMS came the the Hang-On/Safari hunt combo cart. No other system I ever bought came with a pack-in

 

Sega Gnesis core system had no pack in to make it cheaper.

Gold star 3D0 didn't come with a game.

PS1 model I bought came with a demo disc.

Etc.

 

Edit: my PS3 Move edition did come with "Sports Champions" which is arguably horrible.

[fiddlepaddle]

LOL most of my consoles I got at garage sales, so they usually had a BUNCH of pack ins.

 

But seriously,

 

My Vectrex came with Mine Storm (obviously).

My Colecovision came with Donkey Kong.

My NES top loader didn't come with any game.

My Nomad didn't come with any game.

My Game Gear didn't come with any game, or maybe it came with Sonic 2, not sure.

 

My CDX came with 4 game discs and 2 music discs (which I still keep in my mp3 rotation):

 

1-Sonic CD ("Not for resale"),

2-Ecco the Dolphin ("Not for resale"),

3-Sega Classics on one CD: StreetsOfRage, RevengeOfShinobi, Columns, GoldenAxe, SuperMonacoGP ("Not for resale"),

4-Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective,

and two music CDs:

5-Sega Of America Presents Adventurous New Music CD (various artists I can't credit)

6-Sega Of America Presents Rock Paintings CD (various artists including Little Feat, Chris Isaak, Fleetwood Mac, Information Society, Jimi Hendrix)

 

My NeoGeo Pocket Color came packaged with six games. I thought "Hey! Great start!" then never found any more games for it at retail after that. I hate fighters, and am not a golfer, and I already had a zillion versions of Pac-Man, but Metal Slug is a really good game, so that was what I consider the reason for buying this system.

 

1-Fatal Fury First Contact Pocket Fighting Series

2-King of Fighters R2 Pocket Fighting Series

3-Metal Slug 1st Mission

4-NEO Turf Masters

5-Pac-Man

6-Samurai Showdown! 2 Pocket Fighting Series

 

My PS2 (thin) I bought at Frys Electronics in Sunnyvale. It was some special holiday weekend and it came with eighteen games I could choose from a huge stack of games that were obviously all flops and/or close-outs. I remember there were no driving games or scrolling shooters available (my preferred genres).

[Tanooki]

Pack-in games seem to have gone out of fashion. Why do you suppose that is? Greed? Different people wanting different things? Something else?

Greed completely. Why give something away when you have an established brand and know people will line up to pay for it?

 

Aside from the Nintendo DS getting that Metroid set of a couple mini games as a demo so people could better get the DS, you really didn't have them normally packed in since the time of the Virtual Boy really. The Sonic one on NGPC was optional as a larger package choice at the time to try and push the thing against the GB but mostly it was sold alone too. I wouldn't have even mentioned it had they not done that.