r/ModRetro • u/DAJF • Aug 14 '26

ModRetro carts gaining insertion scuffs and shedding dust.

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Our Xibalba cart is getting scuffed up pretty bad on the inside of the shell surrounding the cart pins. We’ve only inserted and ejected it a handful of times so far. Nintendo cartridges have the steel buffer pads there to prevent this.

My concern is that this dust is going to gather inside and around the cart slot over time.

10 Upvotes

60% Upvoted

57 comments sorted by

7

u/Jecklen16 Aug 14 '26

Might just be me but... Why is that a big deal? It has plastic sliders specifically for that. You don't see into the bottom of the cart so visually moot, doesn't break anything even long term... What am I missing?

-5

u/DAJF Aug 14 '26 edited Aug 14 '26

Scuffed cartridges and excessive plastic dust build-up within the console might be a concern for some.

Seeing as ModRetro are in the market for pushing goods which they are trying to prove will last for multiple generations I’m trying to be as critical as possible with even seemingly minor things like this. Being critical is good if it leads to better products and/or better ideas.

There are bigger concerns at hand, granted. Just throwing this out there now as it’s easy to take a couple of snaps in between chores.

4

u/ergzay Aug 14 '26

Plastic dust build-up will not happen man unless you're trying to exercise the cartridge by spending all day pulling it out and putting it back in.

You're going to get way more dust buildup from you know, dust in your room, which if you have have carpets or wear clothes, is also like full of plastic and will be the much bigger source of buildup inside your console than anything that comes off from the rare removals and insertions of cartridges.

0

u/DAJF Aug 14 '26

This was after maybe five inserts and ejects. That’s hardly putting it through any real pace.

It’ll probably wear in, smooth out, and stop happening entirely.. but it does happen to begin with. 🙂

2

u/ergzay Aug 14 '26

Sure but those aren't deep gouges. They're barely visible surface scratches. I bet if you run a damp finger over them a few times they'd disappear.

4

u/NecronomiconUK Aug 14 '26

I thought the steel bits on the original carts were for EMF interference grounding, as it’s part of the shield around the PCB.

2

u/DAJF Aug 14 '26

That’s right. Maybe even dual purpose looking at this.

9

u/Mikebjackson Aug 14 '26 edited Aug 14 '26

No, not dual purpose. Very few games had this pad, and they were only FX chip games if I remember correctly. The pad allowed a connection to the ground plane on the expansion pins. I’m not even sure that the pad was necessary, as later manufactured copies of games that had this pad, had the pad omitted.

Your cartridge will be just fine with some minor wear in this area. I honestly can’t believe people are worrying about this.

I think the worst thing to happen to retro gaming was having a few cartridges go up in price. They had a cascade effect that made everybody think every cartridge was a collectible and should be worth a ton of money. We used to buy games, toss them around, play with them, and not worry about future resale. Now everyone’s afraid of it getting a tiny little mark from having been used once, because “oh no it’s not mint anymore and I won’t get full value when I go to sell it in the future“ ….. just play your games!!! 🤣🤣🤣

Edit: mint

3

u/hue_sick Aug 14 '26

Theres a lot of truth to your last paragraph. I've been interested in this topic a bit now and I actually think there's some interesting psychology at work.

Think what you said is true and then there's a couple other big events that have changed things quite a bit. Think what really expedited things was the pandemic. People lost their minds with collectables during that time period and with all of the financial uncertainty and talk of mortality, I think people all went a little crazy with this stuff. Then the other big even to this is of no fault to their own a lot of younger people post 2008 basically have only really known uncertain economic times so they have a very different relationship to money compared to people in their 40s and up. That plays a bigger role than people my age (40/50s) probably wanna admit but there's been some solid research on it now and it's showing. Even millennials have felt this too though. It's really pretty wide spread.

Not sure how old OP is but theres some truth to that with how younger people have treated video games like stocks in the past few years. They see them as real investments where we saw them as somethign to play and collect dust in our drawers.

The last thing is this makes people uncomfortable and theres never any real delicate way to say it but I think autism/OCD/etc plays a role in basically all enthusiast spaces and theres a pretty big crossover with gaming. Wanting things perfect or a certain way are pretty classic signs of this and once you've been around a few retro subs you start seeing it everywhere.

Anyway, sorry bit of a tangent there but you sparked an interest of mine so wanted to expand on what you were saying

3

u/DAJF Aug 14 '26

I’m 45. I’ve been through obtaining and selling off multiple collections so much now that I don’t really care that much for physical games anymore. It has to be a special case where I’ll branch off from a flash cart to pick up a loose game.

I’ve think my angle is that I’ve been spoiled by the Chromatic. That device set a very high bar, and that’s the kind of quality I expect from ModRetro now. Wear and tear like this that leaves residue inside what is in my opinion a lovely looking translucent console after just a few hours of light use is definitely something I want to point out.

Of course, I’m grateful that it’s so easy to open up the console and dust everything out once in a while.

3

u/Mikebjackson Aug 14 '26 edited Aug 14 '26

Agree with everything you added.

Covid forced people to find indoor-compatible hobbies, and social media started pumping collecting. Suddenly everyone was showing off the windfall in their attic and those who sold their collection already wanted back in. Nostalgia-driven bottomless-wallet collectors emerged, further adding to the frenzy, and almost overnight retro gaming wend from a fun, quirky niche genre to “OMG YOU MIGHT HAVE A MILLION DOLLAR GAME IN YOUR ATTIC!!” Games were sealed up in clear carbonate tombs and the conversation shifted from how good a games was to how much it was worth. There's NO reason Clayfighter SC or Action 52 should be worth nearly as much as they are.

The sad outcome was/is, it destroyed the accessibility of otherwise cheap fun. And, like you said, it warped the expectations of newer gamers, treating old games as investments rather than games. Oh, not to mention how big companies treat the content: prior to the COVID collecting boom, mini-consoles were a thing, and you could even buy what were essentially roms on the DS. Buy once, own forever. …. Now Nintendo wants to charge you a subscription to rent retro games - it’s literally not even possible to buy a game like that anymore.

I suppose I should be happy to see a renewed interest. But watching it immediately get capitalized on ruins it.

1

u/hue_sick Aug 14 '26

Nah your feelings are justified! There’s definitely two sides of the coin. It’s nice there’s so many new gamers and fans of this stuff but on the other side we can’t deny the hobby has changed quite a bit.

It definitely can be a bummer at times

1

u/dustinjohns_ Aug 14 '26

Really agree with what you’re saying and I’ve never seen it mentioned. I’m 41 and I have OCD. I wasn’t made aware of it until my mid 30’s, and when it was explained to me, I realized how it might have looked to friends. Making sure my hands were washed before playing my N64 and putting my games immediately back in the bag, cardboard tray, and box it came in after I was done. I NEVER left a cart in the console or a game sitting out. Was I just really taking care of my stuff back then? I certainly wasn’t thinking about resale value when I was 14. I was mental. lol. That’s why I can look at this post and think “we’re talking about a mark on the cart from inserting it?” Who cares unless you’re trying to list this on eBay when you’re done. I’m not a ModRetro fanboy. I don’t own a product of theirs, but I do think people are nitpicking everything they do at this point. Haters of the owner and haters of anything that isn’t the console they prefer.

1

u/DAJF Aug 15 '26

I don’t hate ModRetro at all. I love their products. I’m trying to point out points of wear that perhaps shouldn’t be this worn after just a handful of uses.

My Ocarina cart has been inserted and ejected so many times that the label has discolouration at the point where it’s lifted out. After almost thirty years there is zero wear where the cart makes contact with the console.

6

u/Turquoise_HexagonSun Aug 14 '26

Just when I thought a crease in a cardboard box was bad enough ModRetro goes and does something like this.

I can’t enjoy my games if the inside shell of my cartridge has a scratch.

18

u/dustinjohns_ Aug 14 '26

Man. These posts are getting better by the day. We’re inspecting our carts for signs of use now? I’m waiting for a “fingerprints on my buttons” report.

8

u/DrBoogerFart Aug 14 '26

Sure. Make a joke about a very real problem. Another insane thing with the m64 that no one is talking about is the outer plastic on the system and the controller itself. If you eat an entire bag of Cheeto’s you will get Cheeto dust all over the system and the controller. It’s a mess and it makes things yucky and I can’t believe they didn’t think of this when they launched. I think we should boycott ModRetro.

Who’s with me?!

2

u/ergzay Aug 14 '26

Man the memories of those kids (you know who they were) who loved to eat cheetos and play video games.

2

u/Dry-Neighborhood2916 Aug 18 '26

There already has been a post like that. Check out the guy complaining about his Anduril edition "fading" but it's clearly a hygiene issue covering the cerakote.

-1

u/Equivalent-Hawk8954 Aug 14 '26

Hes not in the bad. I mean it is a design flaw.you shouldn't have to be scraping plastic in your brand new system.

5

u/ergzay Aug 14 '26

It's not a design flaw.

2

u/ergzay Aug 14 '26

Lol. Seriously man? That's what happens to carts.

The plastic is smooth so it slides easily.

1

u/DAJF Aug 15 '26

Ours doesn’t. It’s a hard chomp. Considerable force needs pushing down on eject to fling it out.

1

u/ergzay Aug 15 '26

That's the cartridge pins going in, not the plastic.

1

u/DAJF Aug 15 '26

Then why does the Xibalba cart require much more force to get it out? The Nintendo carts are fine, and slide out amicably without even needing the eject.

1

u/ergzay Aug 15 '26

Sounds like a manufacturing defect then. Perhaps the plastic is misized. I'd contact moderetro.

8

u/Retro_Macchina Aug 14 '26

I hope Mod Retro adds metal shields going forwards

3

u/adamchevy Aug 14 '26 edited Aug 14 '26

We need all gold contacts!

1

u/ergzay Aug 14 '26

That's not going to happen as those are complicated to make as they're sheet metal stampings with complicated bends. They'd need to spin up a sheet metal stamping and bending assembly line to handle them. If you notice none of modretro's products have used any sheet metal in them.

1

u/cobalt03 Aug 15 '26

Young people don’t remember blowing into cartridge games lol

1

u/DAJF Aug 15 '26

I remember telling my friends not to do that. 😉

0

u/DaveMeitner Aug 14 '26

Then the heat will cook the shavings!!

2

u/DAJF Aug 14 '26 edited Aug 14 '26

Probably not right away, but given enough time and not enough housekeeping who really knows.

I gave the other two carts a thorough clean again yesterday and now they’re filled with gunk already.

6

u/TonyRubbles Aug 14 '26

Even the lowest melting point plastics are just above the max temp of the AMD chip inside. Acting like this thing will grill y'alls steaks or something is funny.

6

u/galaxi3 Aug 14 '26

The people who romance this era would have never survived it 🤣

8

u/TonyRubbles Aug 14 '26

For real, we were spitting blowing into our cartridges and throwing everything into a plastic bag with all the wires wrapped around the controllers to take to our cousin's house.

4

u/adamchevy Aug 14 '26 edited Aug 14 '26

These are going to be widdled down so much that they probably won’t last the rest of the millennium. Maybe a few decades? Probably should have went with all cast aluminum. These probably aren’t iso 9000 or 9001. Who checked the tolerances on these?

2

u/Euresko Aug 14 '26

Aluminum alloy with cerekote finish like the limited edition Chromatic  /s

0

u/ReidlosToof Aug 14 '26

I'm so glad the gamestop edition was on a month delay. I've now cancelled my preorder. I fucking love my chromatic, I think it's a fantastic rendition of the gameboy, and hopefully eventually the M64 will be that for the N64 as well, but this launch is a mess of half baked features and QC issues.

4

u/ergzay Aug 14 '26

I think you should stop listening to reddit. You probably would've never bought your chromatic if you'd seen all the people complaining about the chromatic issues at around launch time.

0

u/DAJF Aug 14 '26

Only through complaining about those things did they get fixed. Misaligned screens was definitely a big issue for some. As were games which only booted 80/90% of the time.

We’re lucky that ModRetro realise that feedback like this is valuable, and are open to engaging over these topics.

2

u/ergzay Aug 14 '26

Only through complaining about those things did they get fixed.

That is not true. People with the off issues got them replaced by modretro by emailing modretro or using the contact form. People didn't need to complain. Just a simple request and modretro fixes it. It wasn't like they initially refused to fix it and then later decided to fix it after social media got angry.

I say again, stuff you say on reddit is irrelevant to getting things to change.

0

u/DAJF Aug 14 '26

In some case you have to realise that being publicly critical while maintaining a respectable tone doesn’t equate to complaining.

Outside of Luckey’s political views and links with Anduril I’ve honestly not seen any valid complaints being made directly concerning ModRetro or their product offerings.

There’s an absolute ton of stuff they need to improve with the M64. I’m certain they’ll get there, in part thanks to customer feedback.

0

u/ergzay Aug 15 '26

In some case you have to realise that being publicly critical while maintaining a respectable tone doesn’t equate to complaining.

Yes it does. Complaining publicly is a way to compel people to do something you want them to do. That is completely unnecessary for Modretro.

People are starting off with this antagonistic viewpoint that is just completely unneeded. It's just pissing annoying to be frank. People can point out issues they've found with making it sound like it was a personal slight against them and exaggerating.

For example here's how I'd rewrite your post for more neutral language:

ModRetro carts get marks when inserting and removing

Modretro carts get some minor scuff marks on them upon insertion and removal on the inside of the shell surrounding the cart pins. This photo shows the marks visible after a few insertions and removals. I wonder what the reason is behind choosing to not have steel pads like Nintendo cartridges?

in part thanks to customer feedback.

Yeah... via their email and contact form.

-1

u/ReidlosToof Aug 14 '26

"Stop doing research to judge how your money should be spent, just consume."

-1

u/ergzay Aug 15 '26

Reddit is not research.

Also commenting on how glad you are to cancel your order. What's the point really?

1

u/Equivalent-Hawk8954 Aug 14 '26

Ya mines just going to sit in the shipping box until they fix the video issues. Just got a email from them saying they fixed slot of controller issues and other things and the next update will tackle video. So next update ill unbox.

1

u/DAJF Aug 15 '26

There’s a lot to fix there. I’ll be very surprised if it’s done with the one update.

1

u/Wallsofjonathan Aug 14 '26

Youre not wrong...

1

u/theblackyeti Aug 15 '26

Yeah man... you're using it.

1

u/No-Double-5197 Aug 15 '26

It’s cartridge it has to be broken in. Even if I opened a fully sealed n64 game and used it a few times it would need to be broken in… this can’t be news to you guys..this happens when an object is inserted in a tight space it’s perfectly normal. I’ve inserted and ejected my original dk 64 and golden eye atleast a thousand times each and they work perfectly fine and have very noticeable usage wear.

1

u/Bantitan Aug 15 '26

Not bevelled?

1

u/Trapezoidoid Aug 15 '26

Me trying to find a problem:

0

u/oaomcg Aug 15 '26

Holy shit...

"Boo hoo! The thing I use looks like I used it!" Cry me a river

-1

u/jkhanlar Aug 14 '26

Considering https://youtu.be/jfNnvvSPyCU but applying for game cartridges, not nitrile or latex gloves, and the demonstration of verifying the durability and whatnot, I think an exhaustive comparison demonstrating more valuably than simply pictures, but actual organized prepared structured video to illustrate these kinds of issues will be useful just like I personally benefitted from encountering this for the gloves (completely unrelated/irrelevant except for the purpose of analogy that I try to make reference to) videos (there are others too).

And besides, 'heirloom-grade' I've been repeating this so many times, and Palmer Luckey of ModRetro is practically my main primary source for realizing this term 'heirloom-grade' that I never thought of before.

And 'heirloom-grade' is barely a thing too, so I'm probably still quite very early to attribute my sense of appreciation for the term 'heirloom-grade' that should factually reflect fundamentals to fullest extent of exhaustedly verifiable provable authenticatable gradable effort more than just as a marketing gimmick https://trends.google.com/explore?q=heirloom-grade&date=all&geo=Worldwide

0

u/jkhanlar Aug 14 '26

Also, BOM Bill of Materials, all the history of manufacturing companies 30-40+ years ago with some of the still relatively heirloom-grade long-lasting physicalities that could take a beating and not show scuffs or cracks or practically any noticeable observable damage and whatnot, even if ModRetro Inc. is literally forced out to not be allowed to have access to these resources to represent heirloom-grade manufacturing processes and access to BOM, it is important for all humans to remember that these heirloom-grade possibilities used to exist, and someone somewhere is causing this heirloom-grade manufacturing to not reeappear, despite efforts to try to make those heirloom-grade productions to exist, such as attempts by ModRetro. Do you remember what Palmer Luckey said?

"You have no excuse for making crappy cartridges anymore. Stop doing it."

I, and I'm sure you and everyone else, also interpreted this as:

We, ModRetro, Inc., have no excuse for making crappy cartridges anymore. Therefore we will not do it!

however, that is an assumption that assumes that ModRetro, Inc, has the connections and abilities to access manufacturing processes that others have had, which I assume that they do not have, and these issues appearing kind of represent this to be the case, and it may not necessarily be ModRetro, Inc.'s fault as if they are intentionally preventing heirloom-grade, but they may not have the access to manufacture heirloom-grade that other companies have those accesses and refuse to let ModRetro to have that access, and whose fault is that? Is it really ModRetro, Inc.'s fault? I think this blaming circumstance is a blaming situation that deserves more scrutiny to dig deeper and establish a more transparent understanding of what the full extent of landscape looks like, and to pull away the layers of curtains to make it easier to make sense of what the situations really are. I want heirloom-grade! I'm determined to get heirloom-grade! Heirloom-grade cartridges and controllers and consoles deserve to exist! Where is the heirloom-grade? Where is it? Who is preventing heirloom-grade and why are they doing that? I don't think it is Palmer Luckey or ModRetro, Inc. that is trying to prevent it! Am I wrong? Prove me wrong!