Aladdin Deck Enhancer

Aladdin Deck Enhancer - a modular cartridge system for the NES game console, developed by the British company Codemasters and manufactured since November 1992 in North America by the Canadian company Camerica . It was planned to release 24 Codemasters games using the Aladdin Deck Enhancer format, but due to the low demand for the system due to the reduction in the market for the aging 8-bit set-top box, only seven were released.

Content

Principle of Operation

Cartridge boards for NES had a certain form factor: each of them had such mandatory components as a 10NES blocking chip , additional RAM blocks, additional multimedia circuits and a ROM containing the game code. The co-founder of the British company Codemasters, Richard Darling, came up with the idea of creating a unified cartridge platform, which would sell detachable ROMs with the game code. Thanks to this scheme, production costs were greatly reduced, and the games themselves became much cheaper. It was enough for the user to purchase a modular system, and then buy supported games for it.

The finished Aladdin Deck Enhancer system had the form of a cartridge that could be inserted into the North American and European versions of NES, contained RAM, a regional protection bypass chip, a slot for installing separately sold games, and a switch for launching on consoles from different regions.

Sales

The Aladdin Deck Enhancer became available for purchase in November 1992 at a price of $ 40. The Aladdin Deck Enhancer starter kit contained the modular system itself and the Dizzy the Adventurer game cartridge. In addition, an additional six games could be purchased for about $ 15–20 each ^[1] . For comparison, games for NES in those years usually cost about 50-60 dollars ^[2] .

The system startup time was unsuccessful - the NES console has already lost its popularity and was inferior to the next generation consoles - 16-bit Super NES and Sega Mega Drive . The project turned out to be a financial failure for Camerica , from which the company could not recover and soon went bankrupt ^[1] . Aladdin Deck Enhancer is currently a collector's rarity.

Supported Games

At the start of sales seven games were available, another eleven were announced by 1993 ^[3] . Most of the games released are improved re-releases of past Codemaster games for NES, except for Dizzy the Adventurer , which was a Dizzy Prince of the Yolkfolk game ported from home computers and was never published on a full-fledged NES cartridge ^[1] .

Big Nose Freaks Out
Dizzy the adventurer
The Fantastic Adventures of Dizzy
Linus Spacehead's Cosmic Crusade
Micro machines
Quattro Adventure (a collection of four games: Boomerang Kid , Super Robin Hood , Treasure Island Dizzy , Linus Spacehead )
Quattro Sports (a collection of four games: Baseball Pro’s , Soccer Simulator , Pro Tennis , BMX Simulator )

Announced games:

Bee 52
Big nose the caveman
CJ's Elephant Antics
DreamWorld Pogie
F16 Renegade
Go! Dizzy Go!
Metal man
Mig 29 Soviet Fighter
Stunt kids
Team Sports Basketball
The ultimate stuntman

Notes

↑ ¹ ² ³ Camerica's Aladdin Deck Enhancer (neopr.) . Date of appeal April 14, 2018.
↑ Jake Young. You Might Not Believe How Much Games Cost Back in the '90s (Neopr.) (November 16, 2017). Date of appeal April 14, 2018.
↑ Dizzy the Adventurer (w / Aladdin Deck Enhancer) (US, 1993) (neopr.) . GameFAQs . Date of appeal April 14, 2018.

[atarihq-1] ¹ ² ³ Camerica's Aladdin Deck Enhancer (neopr.) . Date of appeal April 14, 2018.

[2] Jake Young. You Might Not Believe How Much Games Cost Back in the '90s (Neopr.) (November 16, 2017). Date of appeal April 14, 2018.

[3] Dizzy the Adventurer (w / Aladdin Deck Enhancer) (US, 1993) (neopr.) . GameFAQs . Date of appeal April 14, 2018.