How does everyone stack their cartridges?

[PressureCooker2600]

Recently, I’ve downsized my gaming area and use a couple bookshelves for Atari and NES game storage. Since I have so much, I’ve had to stack my NES carts around ten carts high per stack and my Atari carts almost 15 high per stack. Is this safe? I’ve started thinking excess weight might warp the plastic shells on the lower carts. Should I worry or is it just my OCD talking? Does anyone else keep their cartridges like this and have any problems?

[CatPix]

It is safe. The cart shells are incredibly robust, designed to stand being grabbed, pulled, falling on the ground, etc. Atari carts are excessively robust, you can probably step on them without any issue. The larger size of NES ones meant I wouldn't do that, but when stacked you spread the weight over all the cart evenly. So really I think you could stack dozens atop of each other.

The issue I would see is more about label damage, as stacking carts mean you're more likely to not lift all the carts, especially for the lower ones. But even that would be minimal, and totally mitigated if you take care to unstack your carts or lift them to get the one you want. Or if you store them in sleeves.

[Tanooki]

Crazy enough I actually don't stack them, no reason to because of a fairly good size media shelf I have that's in 3 divided sections but with pins to setup on each 7 different potential heights of shelving across in each.  It's CD/DVD depth and with height my choice it's not a problem.

 

NES, SNES, Genesis, N64, Neo Geo MVS, Gamecube, Wii, Switch, Famicom, DS, 3DS all up there lined up like books.

[fiddlepaddle]

I've been stacking my NES carts 12-high for at least 15 years with absolutely nothing negative to report. I have, however, experienced labels fading from being in the sun day after day.

[PressureCooker2600]

Thanks for the feedback, guys.

[Video]

I usually set mine edgewise (I like to see the title for convenience) I also use a common media shelf, which is perfectly sized for most carts.

 

If you do stack vertical, I doubt it would hurt anything, even long term. Even Nintendo carts could probably be stacked to the ceiling with no risk of damage (well, due to the stack, trying to extract a game on the other hand ? )

[PressureCooker2600]

On 11/12/2021 at 7:59 PM, fiddlepaddle said:

I've been stacking my NES carts 12-high for at least 15 years with absolutely nothing negative to report. I have, however, experienced labels fading from being in the sun day after day.

I’m just worried about my shells getting cracked. Since an NES game doesn’t weigh much….stacking my carts that high shouldn’t be a problem. I hear some people say it’s not good and some people say don’t worry.

[HoshiChiri]

Stacking is hardly going to damage things, but my preference is boxes- makes it easier to get games in & out, even if you have to move the boxes around!