Are 3rd party carts more prone to failure?

[Rik]

Are 3rd party cartridges more prone to failure?to cut a long story short ,someone i buy cartridges from is running me the line that 3rd party carts are more prone to failure,especially the ones from EPYX,i say hes just trying to cover his ass,cus ive gotten one from him that didnt work,on my 7800,I DONT BUY THE STORY,he says he has about several 3rd party carts that dont work on the 7800,and all the other consoles as well.Sure some carts fail,but not at the rate hes claiming,i dont know where he gets them or what he does,or if hes trying to sell duds,or what.

Edited April 29, 2007 by Rik

[+Mitch]

Are you talking about 7800 or 2600 carts? There aren't any EPYX made 7800 carts.

As far as which carts die faster, I don't think I've noticed one kind that dies sooner than others.

 

Mitch

[Rik]

OOPS,right you are,i meant games by ABSOLUTE,and the game in specific was SUPER SKATEBOARDIN,which he claims wont always run on the 7800.

[+-^CrossBow^-]

I realize this is somewhat of a late answer to your question. But my take is that the ONLY carts I ever had trouble with and still do from time to time on my 7800 are those made by Absolute and Activision. It isn't the quality of the carts it is the way the carts were made. I've found that Absolute/Activision 7800 cart PCBs are in fact a tad thinner than the 1st party Atari made ones. Which means my 7800 back in '88 worked great on all of my games until after about a year. At this point the daily playing of the thing had worn the contacts some on the 7800. As a result I started getting problems with some games not working. I later found out why ..later = 15years later when I still couldn't get these games to work well and starting looking into why.

 

So, I wouldn't say they are more prone to failure, I would just say the 7800 is more picky of the Activision and Absolute made games due to the slightly thinner PCB contacts not making a good connection with the 7800s cart connector.

Some of the Absolute/Activision games were made with EPROMs however. Which means in theory, they do have a lifespan and won't work as long as our masked rom games will.

[Rik]

I realize this is somewhat of a late answer to your question. But my take is that the ONLY carts I ever had trouble with and still do from time to time on my 7800 are those made by Absolute and Activision. It isn't the quality of the carts it is the way the carts were made. I've found that Absolute/Activision 7800 cart PCBs are in fact a tad thinner than the 1st party Atari made ones. Which means my 7800 back in '88 worked great on all of my games until after about a year. At this point the daily playing of the thing had worn the contacts some on the 7800. As a result I started getting problems with some games not working. I later found out why ..later = 15years later when I still couldn't get these games to work well and starting looking into why.

 

So, I wouldn't say they are more prone to failure, I would just say the 7800 is more picky of the Activision and Absolute made games due to the slightly thinner PCB contacts not making a good connection with the 7800s cart connector.

Some of the Absolute/Activision games were made with EPROMs however. Which means in theory, they do have a lifespan and won't work as long as our masked rom games will.

Thanx crossbow,for your detailed reply!