Understanding the different Mega Drive boxes

[morgon]

Hi. I am kinda new to owning a couple of old consoles but me and mrs both enjoy a session gaming when we get time. I have bought a very good condition and complete snes fully complete and a box like new, it wasnt cheap but it was fair compared to what i have seen sell so far. As for the megadrive 1 we bought, the console is clean as hell and has the box and cardboard inners and manual, poster,warranty card but it has no bags and the box doesnt do justice for the rest of it. So i have figured il be needing to now buy other megadrives to then steal bits from ie better box and bags for inside box then sell on and repeat until i get a complete vgc boxed megadrive. My main question is how come some have poly insides or cardboard or plastic and what is best to have? is there a order different insides were released? The megadrive is the va4 revision btw so would like to get correct box.

[TrekMD]

Good questions.  I recently got a Genesis (the US version of the MD) but it did not come with a box, so I had no idea the packaging was so different for the system itself.  I am aware of the game boxes being different depending on who made them, with plastic being the original boxes and cardboard being the remade games by another vendor (the name escapes me right now).  I wonder if something similar happened with the game consoles themselves. 

[TL]

Until recently I had a boxed Mega Drive 1 Sonic The Hedgehog pack, this had poly inserts. The actual box though was the same as the original Altered Best PAL set, just with a sticker applied to it saying that it included Sonic. So that is the original packaging for the console. I also used to have a Mega Drive 2 which I sold and that had cardboard inserts in the box, so they definitely came after.

[onthinice]

Out of several boxes I have, it stared with foam insert for the insert, plastic for the later model I and like Laird mentioned cardboard for the model II.

Ballistic made some games in cardboard in 1991. I remember purchasing Mike Dikta Football and the box was cardboard. Electronic Arts used cardboard for some of there early titles. These are all Genesis releases, so not sure if the Mega Drive versions would be the same?