What is "multicart"

n. (context video games English) A cartridge containing several separate games.

In video game parlance, a multicart is a cartridge that contains more than one game. Typically, the separate games are available individually for purchase (such as Sega Smash Pack) or were previously available individually (such as Final Fantasy: Dawn of Souls). For this reason, collections, anthologies, and compilations are considered multicarts. The desirability of the multicart to consumers is that it provides better value, greater convenience, and (in the case of portable games) more portability than the separate games would provide. The advantage to developers is that it allows two or more smaller games to be sold together for the price of one larger game, and provides an opportunity to repackage and sell older games one more time, often with little or no changes.

Multicarts are distinct from minigame series such as Mario Party, Game & Watch Gallery, or WarioWare. These games are made up of several minigames specifically created for the overall game experience. In contrast to this, the NES multicart Super Mario Bros./Duck Hunt contains two full-version games, each of which were available for purchase individually.

Although most commonly associated with NES and SNES, multicarts, both authorized and unauthorized, have appeared for many cartridge-based systems, including the Atari 2600, Intellivision, Odyssey 2, Sega Master System, Sega Genesis and Game Boy. As storage capacity on cartridges continues to grow and become less expensive, the popularity of multicarts has seen a resurgence on the only remaining cartridge-based systems, those of Nintendo’s Game Boy Advance and DS. Since launch, these systems have seen an increase in the number of “2-in-1” and 3-in-1” games, with some re-releasing popular titles previously seen on the same platform such as Konami's Castlevania.