Difference between revisions of "Game Factory"

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| accessoryimage=GameFactory logo.png
 
| accessoryimage=GameFactory logo.png
 
| title=
 
| title=
| maker=[[NewLeaf Entertainment]]
+
| maker=[[NewLeaf Entertainment]]{{magref|egm2|1|28}}
 
| licensor=[[Blockbuster]]
 
| licensor=[[Blockbuster]]
 
| type=Backup tool
 
| type=Backup tool
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}}
 
}}
 
}}
 
}}
{{sub-stub}}'''{{PAGENAME}}''' was a rewritable [[Sega Mega Drive]] cartridge service run by [[Blockbuster]] around late 1994, developed through a collaboration between [[Sega of America]] and [[NewLeaf Entertainment]]. A novel idea in the world of home rentals, the service was highly ambitious and critically well-received, but suffered from a number of problems and had its subsequent nationwide rollout eventually cancelled.
+
'''{{PAGENAME}}''' was a rewritable [[Sega Mega Drive]] cartridge service run by [[Blockbuster]] around late 1994, developed through a collaboration between [[Sega of America]] and [[NewLeaf Entertainment]].{{magref|egm2|1|28}}{{magref|sv|20|8}} A novel idea in the world of home rentals, the service was highly ambitious and critically well-received, but suffered from a number of problems and had its subsequent nationwide rollout eventually cancelled.{{ref|1=https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/nrUWIHasHPQ|2=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nrUWIHasHPQ}}
  
 
==Service==
 
==Service==
Manufactured by [[NewLeaf Entertainment]] subsidiary Fairway Technologies{{magref|egm2|1|28}}, three different cartridges were available for users to rent games through. Easily most common were the Game Factory-branded green and blue cartridges, equipped with different amounts of internal memory for storing multiple sizes of games.
+
Manufactured by [[NewLeaf Entertainment]] subsidiary Fairway Technologies{{magref|egm2|1|28}} exclusively for Blockbuster, two types of cartridge were offered; a green-labelled version (NL103) which could store up to 16 megabits, and a blue-labelled version (NL102) which could hold 32 megabits, both using a standard NTSC Genesis cartridge shell. A third cartridge, labelled with NewLeaf's logo (NL101) also exists, but appears not to have been intended for general consumers. Altogether, the process of flashing a cartridge with a new title took roughly 45 seconds.
  
{| class="wikitable sortable"
+
Games available for rent through Game Factory appear to contain different ROMs than their original releases, with titles like ''[[The Jungle Book]]'' displaying a unique '''<tt>B.B. FLASH ROM</tt>''' message at the title screen to indicate its purpose.{{fileref|TheJungleBook MD US BBFLASHROM.jpeg}} The cartridges themselves use CR2032 batteries to preserve saved data.
|+ Cartridges
 
! Code
 
! Memory size
 
! Description
 
! Image
 
|-
 
|NL101
 
|unknown
 
|A [[NewLeaf Entertainment]]-branded cartridge with a black label.
 
|[[File:GameFactory MD NewLeaf cart front.png|200px]]
 
|-
 
|NL102
 
|32Mb
 
|A Game Factory-branded cartridge with a blue label.
 
|[[File:GameFactory MD blue cart front.png|200px]]
 
|-
 
|NL103
 
|16Mb
 
|A Game Factory-branded cartridge with a green label.
 
|[[File:GameFactory MD Cart Green.jpg|200px]]
 
|}
 
  
===List of flashable games===
+
===List of rentable games===
 +
{{IncompleteList}}
 +
{{multicol|
 
*''[[Earthworm Jim]]''{{ref|1=https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1pOsHrcfrjqzgSbIXidj0JfLqgWX-ftIczHX0VcPUcV0/edit?usp=sharing}}
 
*''[[Earthworm Jim]]''{{ref|1=https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1pOsHrcfrjqzgSbIXidj0JfLqgWX-ftIczHX0VcPUcV0/edit?usp=sharing}}
 
*''[[The Jungle Book]]''{{ref|1=https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1pOsHrcfrjqzgSbIXidj0JfLqgWX-ftIczHX0VcPUcV0/edit?usp=sharing}}
 
*''[[The Jungle Book]]''{{ref|1=https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1pOsHrcfrjqzgSbIXidj0JfLqgWX-ftIczHX0VcPUcV0/edit?usp=sharing}}
Line 46: Line 27:
 
*''[[Pitfall: The Mayan Adventure]]''{{ref|1=https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1pOsHrcfrjqzgSbIXidj0JfLqgWX-ftIczHX0VcPUcV0/edit?usp=sharing}}
 
*''[[Pitfall: The Mayan Adventure]]''{{ref|1=https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1pOsHrcfrjqzgSbIXidj0JfLqgWX-ftIczHX0VcPUcV0/edit?usp=sharing}}
 
*''[[Spider-Man and Venom: Maximum Carnage]]''
 
*''[[Spider-Man and Venom: Maximum Carnage]]''
 +
}}
  
 
==History==
 
==History==
 
===Background===
 
===Background===
 
<br>{{quote|Game rental has become an increasingly important market segment, with estimates at about $1.5 billion a year industrywide. But with nearly 1,000 great Genesis and Game Gear software titles available, it’s tough keeping an inventory broad and deep enough to satisfy peak demand. This system ensures that every customer will be a satisfied customer.|''[[Tom Kalinske]]''|ref={{magref|sv|20|8}}}}
 
<br>{{quote|Game rental has become an increasingly important market segment, with estimates at about $1.5 billion a year industrywide. But with nearly 1,000 great Genesis and Game Gear software titles available, it’s tough keeping an inventory broad and deep enough to satisfy peak demand. This system ensures that every customer will be a satisfied customer.|''[[Tom Kalinske]]''|ref={{magref|sv|20|8}}}}
The concept involved customers renting [[Sega Mega Drive]] video games stored on reprogrammable flash cartridges. Avoiding the need to stock potentially hundreds, if not thousands of official video game cartridges for rent, Blockbuster could instead use a Game Factory cartridge, flash the contents of a ROM image onto the memory inside, and distribute that instead. When the customer had finished borrowing the game, the cartridge could then be flashed with another ROM image and be recycled for further use{{magref|egm2|1|28}}.
+
In the early 1990s, the success of the [[Genesis]] and [[Super Nintendo]] in North America had resulted in the creation of a profitable video game rental market for [[Blockbuster]]. However, as technology continued to improve, the company was worried that upcoming systems of digital distribution (which could deliver movies and games directly to customer's homes) would negate the need for Blockbuster entirely, and looked to invest in new technologies to improve the customer rental experience.
  
===Launch===
+
The popularity of Blockbuster's game rentals also created the problem of inventory shortage, especially with certain hot-selling titles. Reportedly, one-third of customers were unable to rent their desired game due to it being unavailable. To address this issue, Blockbuster turned to the technology firm Soundsational, a company which produced networked music kiosks (at which customers could purchase an album and have it burned to CD or cassette while they waited. While Blockbuster's traditional fare of movies presented considerable technical hurdles in instant rewritability, video games were more compact in terms of filesize and distribution, and being able to utilize existing cartridge rewriting technology made the future-proofing of Blockbuster's game rental market an appealing investment.
[[File:GameFactory MD cart alt.png|360px|thumb]]
 
The Mega Drive Game Factory was the first of its kind (though the concept of using reprogrammable cartridges is as old as the game cartridge itself, as it is a vital tool for cartridge game development), and was initially offered between the 10th and 15th of August 1994{{magref|egm2|1|28}} to ten Blockbuster stores in Columbia, South Carolina (alongside at least one store in [[NewLeaf Entertainment|NewLeaf]]'s hometown of Boca Raton, Florida). The real plan, however, was to gauge interest in whether the concept would be feasible with the upcoming generation of consoles, namely the [[PlayStation]] and [[Sega Saturn]]. A [[Sega Game Gear]] variant was planned{{magref|egm2|1|28}}, but does not appear to have made it to consumers.
 
  
Blockbuster had also tried (and failed) to secure deals for other forms of entertainment, such as VHS videos and music CDs, however despite developing the equipment, big publishers were uneasy with the practise and chose not to license their libraries. Some of these fears were mitigated, however, by Viacom's takeover of Blockbuster in 1993.
+
===Development===
 +
In 1990, Blockbuster acquired Soundsational, and at the same time teamed up with [[wikipedia:IBM|IBM]] to establish a sister company, Fairway Technologies. Soundsational was renamed [[NewLeaf Entertainment]] and assigned to both market the system and acquire licensing deals, while Fairway Technologies created the actual hardware, software, and networking technology. Over the next three years, the two firms set to developing a system of in-house flash cartridge writers for use in Blockbuster's rental stores.
  
Reportedly the entire system originated from reverse-engineering Mega Drive cartridges, as Sega wouldn't put their name to it until a proof of concept was created.
+
The concept involved customers renting [[Mega Drive]] games stored on reprogrammable flash cartridges, and was chiefly pitched as an inventory management solution. Avoiding the need to stock potentially hundreds, if not thousands of official cartridges to rent, Blockbuster could instead use a Game Factory cartridge, flash the contents of a ROM image onto the memory inside, and meet the customer's request on-demand. Upon return, the cartridge could then be flashed with another ROM image and rented to another customer.{{magref|egm2|1|28}} The green-labelled 16 megabit cartridge was originally produced as the system's only cartridge, but during development, Fairway Technologies was hit with the news that ''[[Spider-Man and Venom: Maximum Carnage]]'' (a game [[Blockbuster]] had signed up to promote) would be released on a 32 megabit cartridge, necessitating the need for a larger cartridge variant.
  
The process of reprogramming a cartridge took roughly 45 seconds on hardware built specifically for Blockbuster. Two types of cartridge were offered; a "green" cartridge which could store up to 16 megabits (2MB) and a "blue" cartridge which could hold 32 megabits (4MB), both using similar plastic shells as normal retail games. The cartridge also devotes an area for a printed label, so that Blockbuster staff could easily keep track of their stock. Surprisingly, games available for rent through Game Factory appear to contain different ROMs than their original releases, with titles like ''[[The Jungle Book]]'' displaying a unique '''<tt>B.B.  FLASH ROM</tt>''' message at the title screen to indicate its purpose.{{ref|1=https://drive.google.com/file/d/1-FI5nZvEHe5jo6HAzIoJ6xz1oIPHLEr-/view}}
+
Blockbuster pitched the concept to both [[Nintendo of America]] and [[Sega of America]]. While the former replied with a hard no (as Nintendo was wary of game rentals, having famously [[wikipedia:Nintendo of America, Inc. vs. Blockbuster LLC.|taken Blockbuster to court]] over the matter), the latter was definitely interested, but wanted to see a proof of concept before licensing anything - resulting in Fairway Technologies having to virtually reverse-engineer the [[Mega Drive]]'s cartridge technology to create a working demonstration unit. Thankfully, said demonstration was a success, and Sega granted NewLeaf a license to use several of its first-party games for rental through Game Factory.
  
===Decline===
+
Reportedly, a [[Game Gear]] variant was planned{{magref|egm2|1|28}}, but does not appear to have been developed or advertised.
Though apparently a success, the Game Factory service was not rolled out nationwide, nor to other regions of the world where Blockbuster operated. Aside from the fact that Mega Drive sales were on the decline by the end of 1995, Blockbuster and NewLeaf had a hard time keeping up with the demands of new games, which often included extra features that the Game Factory cartridges couldn't accommodate.
 
  
For example, having successfully built and tested 16 megabit carts, the firm was hit with the news that ''[[Spider-Man and Venom: Maximum Carnage]]'', a game Blockbuster had signed up to promote, would be released on a 32 megabit cartridge. Other games like ''[[Sonic & Knuckles]]'' and ''[[Virtua Racing]]'' were likely skipped entirely, and it is not known if there was compatibility with games which required a battery for saving.
+
===Launch===
 +
[[File:GameFactory MD cart alt.png|right|360px|thumb]]
 +
The Game Factory service was initially available between the 10th and 15th of August 1994{{magref|egm2|1|28}} at ten Blockbuster stores in Columbia, South Carolina (alongside at least one store in [[NewLeaf Entertainment|NewLeaf]]'s hometown of Boca Raton, Florida). The real plan, however, was to gauge interest in whether the concept would be feasible with the upcoming generation of consoles, namely the [[PlayStation]] and [[Saturn]].
  
Blockbuster also had trouble signing deals with third-party publishers, and so could initially only offer the service for first-party [[Sega]] games{{magref|egm2|1|28}} and those developed by [[Virgin]] (owned by Blockbuster). The only outside company which ended up licensing its games to the service was [[Acclaim]].
+
===Decline===
 +
Though the market test was reportedly a success, [[Blockbuster]] chose not to follow through on a nationwide rollout for a number of reasons. [[Viacom]]'s purchase of Blockbuster earlier that year had granted the company access to a larger pool of resources and financing, and this newfound safety diminished its need to invest in emerging technologies to stay profitable.
  
The move to optical media and the security features surrounding Saturn and PlayStation video games proved too much of a challenge for the firm, and the service was quietly discontinued at some point in 1995. It is not fully understood what happened to the Game Factory inventory - cartridges have been spotted on online auction sites, and development cartridges have also been seen. After Game Factory's closure, the cartridges were generally flashed with a single game and sold directly to consumers as a form of liquidation{{ref|1=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nrUWIHasHPQ}}, frequently with the game's title having been crudely written on the label.{{ref|1=https://drive.google.com/file/d/1KrzXK094OdgcxpcSw6oTspZ65TsaUgaf/view}}
+
Blockbuster also encountered trouble signing deals with third-party publishers, and so could initially offer the service only for first-party [[Sega]] games{{magref|egm2|1|28}} and those developed by [[Virgin Interactive]] (a company owned by Blockbuster). Eventually, [[Acclaim]], [[Activision]], and [[Parker Brothers]] all licensed titles for Game Factory, but by the start of 1995, Mega Drive sales were on the decline, and the rise of the significantly cheaper [[compact disc]] deterred companies away from further investment in cartridge technology. Coupled with the various anti-copy security features of disc-based games, Blockbuster chose to discontinue the service later that year.
  
===Legacy===
+
After Game Factory's closure, the cartridges were generally flashed with a single game and sold directly to consumers as a form of liquidation{{ref|1=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nrUWIHasHPQ}}, frequently with the game's title crudely written on the label.{{ref|1=https://drive.google.com/file/d/1KrzXK094OdgcxpcSw6oTspZ65TsaUgaf/view}} Cartridges which could not be liquidated at the store itself were shipped to other Blockbusters through standard inventory practices, resulting in former Game Factory cartridges appearing as far away as Flint, Michigan.{{ref|1=https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1pOsHrcfrjqzgSbIXidj0JfLqgWX-ftIczHX0VcPUcV0/edit?usp=sharing}}
Game Factory cartridges appear to use CR2032 batteries to hold onto data. Should these batteries have died in the last twenty years or more, the cartridge's contents may have been wiped, rendering them unusable.
 
  
 
==Magazine articles==
 
==Magazine articles==
Line 101: Line 83:
  
 
==External links==
 
==External links==
 +
*''[https://adage.com/article/news/blockbuster-plays-avenues-software-future-entertainment-giant/90590 Blockbuster Plays Into New Avenues, Software Is The Future For Entertainment Giant]'' by Jeffery D. Zbar at ''[https://adage.com Advertising Age]''
 +
*''[https://www.upi.com/Archives/1993/05/11/Blockbuster-IBM-announce-multimedia-ventures/9385737092800/ Blockbuster, IBM announce multimedia ventures]'' article at ''[https://www.upi.com United Press International]''
 +
*''[https://variety.com/1993/biz/news/blockbuster-ibm-eye-electronic-inventories-106712/ Blockbuster, IBM eye electronic inventories]'' article by Matt Rothman at ''[https://variety.com Variety]''
 
*''[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nrUWIHasHPQ Game Factory: Blockbuster & Sega's On-Demand Game Rentals]'' video essay by Gaming Historian at [https://www.youtube.com YouTube]
 
*''[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nrUWIHasHPQ Game Factory: Blockbuster & Sega's On-Demand Game Rentals]'' video essay by Gaming Historian at [https://www.youtube.com YouTube]
 
*''[https://hackaday.com/2018/10/01/remember-when-blockbuster-video-tried-burning-game-cartridges-on-demand/ Remember When Blockbuster Video Tried Burning Game Cartridges On Demand?]'' article by Drew Littrell at ''[https://hackaday.com/ Hackaday]''
 
*''[https://hackaday.com/2018/10/01/remember-when-blockbuster-video-tried-burning-game-cartridges-on-demand/ Remember When Blockbuster Video Tried Burning Game Cartridges On Demand?]'' article by Drew Littrell at ''[https://hackaday.com/ Hackaday]''
Line 106: Line 91:
 
==References==
 
==References==
 
<references/>
 
<references/>
 +
 +
{{MegaDrive}}

Latest revision as of 20:44, 21 October 2024

GameFactory logo.png
Game Factory
Made for: Sega Mega Drive
Manufacturer: NewLeaf Entertainment[1]
Licensor: Blockbuster
Type: Backup tool
Release Date RRP Code
Sega Mega Drive
US

Game Factory was a rewritable Sega Mega Drive cartridge service run by Blockbuster around late 1994, developed through a collaboration between Sega of America and NewLeaf Entertainment.[1][2] A novel idea in the world of home rentals, the service was highly ambitious and critically well-received, but suffered from a number of problems and had its subsequent nationwide rollout eventually cancelled.[3]

Service

Manufactured by NewLeaf Entertainment subsidiary Fairway Technologies[1] exclusively for Blockbuster, two types of cartridge were offered; a green-labelled version (NL103) which could store up to 16 megabits, and a blue-labelled version (NL102) which could hold 32 megabits, both using a standard NTSC Genesis cartridge shell. A third cartridge, labelled with NewLeaf's logo (NL101) also exists, but appears not to have been intended for general consumers. Altogether, the process of flashing a cartridge with a new title took roughly 45 seconds.

Games available for rent through Game Factory appear to contain different ROMs than their original releases, with titles like The Jungle Book displaying a unique B.B. FLASH ROM message at the title screen to indicate its purpose.[4] The cartridges themselves use CR2032 batteries to preserve saved data.

List of rentable games

px
This list is incomplete.
The following list has been marked as incomplete. If you can, please complete it.

History

Background


Game rental has become an increasingly important market segment, with estimates at about $1.5 billion a year industrywide. But with nearly 1,000 great Genesis and Game Gear software titles available, it’s tough keeping an inventory broad and deep enough to satisfy peak demand. This system ensures that every customer will be a satisfied customer.

Tom Kalinske[2]


In the early 1990s, the success of the Genesis and Super Nintendo in North America had resulted in the creation of a profitable video game rental market for Blockbuster. However, as technology continued to improve, the company was worried that upcoming systems of digital distribution (which could deliver movies and games directly to customer's homes) would negate the need for Blockbuster entirely, and looked to invest in new technologies to improve the customer rental experience.

The popularity of Blockbuster's game rentals also created the problem of inventory shortage, especially with certain hot-selling titles. Reportedly, one-third of customers were unable to rent their desired game due to it being unavailable. To address this issue, Blockbuster turned to the technology firm Soundsational, a company which produced networked music kiosks (at which customers could purchase an album and have it burned to CD or cassette while they waited. While Blockbuster's traditional fare of movies presented considerable technical hurdles in instant rewritability, video games were more compact in terms of filesize and distribution, and being able to utilize existing cartridge rewriting technology made the future-proofing of Blockbuster's game rental market an appealing investment.

Development

In 1990, Blockbuster acquired Soundsational, and at the same time teamed up with IBM to establish a sister company, Fairway Technologies. Soundsational was renamed NewLeaf Entertainment and assigned to both market the system and acquire licensing deals, while Fairway Technologies created the actual hardware, software, and networking technology. Over the next three years, the two firms set to developing a system of in-house flash cartridge writers for use in Blockbuster's rental stores.

The concept involved customers renting Mega Drive games stored on reprogrammable flash cartridges, and was chiefly pitched as an inventory management solution. Avoiding the need to stock potentially hundreds, if not thousands of official cartridges to rent, Blockbuster could instead use a Game Factory cartridge, flash the contents of a ROM image onto the memory inside, and meet the customer's request on-demand. Upon return, the cartridge could then be flashed with another ROM image and rented to another customer.[1] The green-labelled 16 megabit cartridge was originally produced as the system's only cartridge, but during development, Fairway Technologies was hit with the news that Spider-Man and Venom: Maximum Carnage (a game Blockbuster had signed up to promote) would be released on a 32 megabit cartridge, necessitating the need for a larger cartridge variant.

Blockbuster pitched the concept to both Nintendo of America and Sega of America. While the former replied with a hard no (as Nintendo was wary of game rentals, having famously taken Blockbuster to court over the matter), the latter was definitely interested, but wanted to see a proof of concept before licensing anything - resulting in Fairway Technologies having to virtually reverse-engineer the Mega Drive's cartridge technology to create a working demonstration unit. Thankfully, said demonstration was a success, and Sega granted NewLeaf a license to use several of its first-party games for rental through Game Factory.

Reportedly, a Game Gear variant was planned[1], but does not appear to have been developed or advertised.

Launch

GameFactory MD cart alt.png

The Game Factory service was initially available between the 10th and 15th of August 1994[1] at ten Blockbuster stores in Columbia, South Carolina (alongside at least one store in NewLeaf's hometown of Boca Raton, Florida). The real plan, however, was to gauge interest in whether the concept would be feasible with the upcoming generation of consoles, namely the PlayStation and Saturn.

Decline

Though the market test was reportedly a success, Blockbuster chose not to follow through on a nationwide rollout for a number of reasons. Viacom's purchase of Blockbuster earlier that year had granted the company access to a larger pool of resources and financing, and this newfound safety diminished its need to invest in emerging technologies to stay profitable.

Blockbuster also encountered trouble signing deals with third-party publishers, and so could initially offer the service only for first-party Sega games[1] and those developed by Virgin Interactive (a company owned by Blockbuster). Eventually, Acclaim, Activision, and Parker Brothers all licensed titles for Game Factory, but by the start of 1995, Mega Drive sales were on the decline, and the rise of the significantly cheaper compact disc deterred companies away from further investment in cartridge technology. Coupled with the various anti-copy security features of disc-based games, Blockbuster chose to discontinue the service later that year.

After Game Factory's closure, the cartridges were generally flashed with a single game and sold directly to consumers as a form of liquidation[6], frequently with the game's title crudely written on the label.[7] Cartridges which could not be liquidated at the store itself were shipped to other Blockbusters through standard inventory practices, resulting in former Game Factory cartridges appearing as far away as Flint, Michigan.[5]

Magazine articles

Main article: Game Factory/Magazine articles.

Physical scans

Mega Drive, US (16Mb)

GameFactory MD Cart Top Green.jpg
GameFactory MD Cart Back Green.jpgGameFactory MD Cart Green.jpg
Cart
Mega Drive, US (32Mb)

GameFactory MD blue cart front.png
Cart
Mega Drive, US (NewLeaf Entertainment)

GameFactory MD NewLeaf cart front.png
Cart

External links

References


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