I am wondering if the releases with telescoping tray boxes or the releases with the strangely shaped gatefold boxes were the initial Parker PAL releases? Couldn't find any hint so far …

Both have multilingual text on the back side of the boxes, both have the same manuals and both have the same labels on the carts.

But: The gatefold boxes have additional text only in German. I would guess that this was the initial release in the German speaking countries. Maybe later Parker had to cut down costs and continued only with the telescoping tray boxes.

Were the gatefold boxes only sold in the German speaking countries?

And which were first? Telescoping tray or gatefold?

Btw: It seems that the telescoping tray boxes are easier to find, I have 13 of them so far, but only five of the gatefold boxes (Amidar, Frogger, Spider-Man, Star Wars Jedi Arena and Action Force).

Yes, those were my thoughts too.

Still strange. Parker sold their games in the telescoping tray boxes world wide, for each and any system (2600, 5200, XL, Coleco*, Intellivision, Videopac, …) – only for their first German Atari 2600 releases they made special gatefold boxes. Why??

And: With the gatefold boxes they used the same carts and manuals as they did for the telescoping tray boxes. The manuals don't even fit in those weird boxes so they had to fold them. Just weird …

* To be precise: I have a Star Wars Arcade Game and a Frogger II for Coleco with a third type of Parker boxes. With top flap opening.