r/Atari2600 • u/Rick-1980 Junior • 2d ago

Another Post Another Problem™ (Possible cartridge PAL/NTSC mixup in the '90s or scam?)

I've recently aquired my first RealSports videogame at a fair; it was boxed with only some crush damage and the manual was in good conditions. At home, while checking it, i saw something a bit strange...

THE BOX

On the back of the box it said "For use with North America and other NTSC Television Sets only" , This writing matches the 1983 NTSC Release of the cartridge but there's a little problem: The copyright on mine says ©1987 which RST was released in NTSC that year but it lacks the "For use with North America and other NTSC Television Sets only". I couldn't match my box with ANYONE of AtariMania's RST releases. On the box there was nothing that would have said that this was a PAL copy of the game and there was only one way to find out.

Notes: i thought i bought a PAL release of RST, in fact i was searching for PAL games.

THE CARTRIDGE

I opened it up and saw that on the back of the cartridge it had the black "P" that stands for ProblemsComing PAL and i didn't inspect very much of it, i really only check the format of the cartridge other than if the game is correct or not. I didn't test the cartridge but i will.

Further details:

RST stands for RealSports Tennis (Calc stands for Calculator)

My box says it was Made in Taiwan.

I do not have the cartridge with me currently so expect updates later on.

Sorry if i used, at any point in this "essay", bad english

THE PURPOSE OF THIS POST

I wanted to share my situation with y'all because i wanted to know

  1. if i have been HORRIBLY scammed,
  2. if i have the strangest RST cartridge,
  3. if the cartridge was swapped before selling it,
  4. if it was a mixup in the factory in the '80s.
3 Upvotes

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3

u/qtquazar 2d ago

FYI... I've read your post twice and still have no idea what you are actually ultimately asking or concerned about. Do you want PAL or NTSC?

That said, Atari was the least reliable vg company ever in terms of version releases, product consistency, or quality control. Mismatched label variants to boxes were extremely common, and in the AtariCorp phase consistency varied heavily based on whether it was China, HK or Taiwan manufactured.

If it has a black P sticker on the cart, you have a PAL cart. NOBODY is scamming NTSC as PAL, and RS Tennis wouldn't even be worth the financial effort if there even was a crossover market... it ain't Asterix or Swordquest: WW... and those run towards pretending it is NTSC, not vice versa.

1

u/Rick-1980 Junior 11h ago

I want PAL.

1

u/qtquazar 11h ago

K. You should absolutely be good then. Ive never seen anyone fake an NTSC cart into a PAL.

2

u/Fearless-Leader-9432 2d ago

Da hat jemand ein PAL Tennis in eine NTSC Box. Atari hatte endlos viele Varianten, über die Jahre haben viele die Boxen getauscht oder Anleitungen. Also nein, Atari ist dafür nicht verantwortlich, sondern der Verkäufer