Nintendo didn’t enforce specific box art trade dress for its licensees, or at least nothing beyond the inclusion of a little gold sticker to indicate that, yeah, this company’s publishing license is all paid up. Nevertheless, the system’s early years in particular saw a number of publishers gravitate toward common box designs: the Konami silver stripes, the Ultra black borders, the Capcom grid, etc. But none of these designs are more iconic, more quintessentially NES than Nintendo’s own 1985-86 releases.
Beautiful in their simplicity, Nintendo’s “black box” packages created a sense of unity while playing up the visual iconography of the games within. The black box style was perfect for the console’s early years, presenting a striking visual identity for the console’s key early releases while playing off the effective sprite design of Nintendo’s early game efforts.
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Threaded Mode
