History of the Nintendo Entertainment System

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The Nintendo Entertainment System (North America, Europe, Australia, Asia, and Brazil)

The Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) is an 8-bit video game console released by Nintendo in North America, Europe, Australia, Asia, and Brazil. In Japan it is known as the Nintendo Family Computer (任天堂ファミリーコンピュータ), or Famicom (ファミコン). The most successful gaming console of its time in Asia and North America, the NES helped revitalize the video game industry following the video game crash of 1983, and set the standard for subsequent consoles in everything from game design (the first modern platform game, Super Mario Bros., was the system's first "killer game") to business practices. The NES was the first console for which the manufacturer openly courted third-party developers.

This article is specifically about the history of the console. For a general overview of the system itself, please see the main Nintendo Entertainment System article.

[edit] Origins (1982–1984)

The Nintendo Family Computer in Japan)

The video game market experienced a period of rapid growth and unprecedented popularity in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Consoles such as the Atari 2600 and the Intellivision proved to be wildly popular, and many third-party developers arose in their wake to exploit the growing industry. Nintendo was one such development studio, and, by 1982 had found success with a number of arcade games, such as Donkey Kong, which was in turn ported to, and packaged with, the Colecovision console in North America. Around this time, Nintendo announced their intentions to produce their own console hardware. Spearheaded by Masayuki Uemura, Nintendo's R&D team had been secretly working on a system which was originally intended to include a 16-bit CPU and a floppy disk drive, and would retail for an average for $75 to $100 USD. These original specifications, however, proved unrealistic, and the final product was substantially scaled back: launched in 1983, the Nintendo Family Computer (Famicom) was an 8-bit machine that was limited to cartridge-based games.^[1]

The Famicom was released in Japan on July 15, 1983 for ¥14,800. The launch titles for the console were Donkey Kong, Donkey Kong Junior, and Popeye. The console itself was intentionally designed to resemble a toy. Its bright red and white color scheme and two hardwired controllers were unusual, though not unprecedented, for consoles of this era. In order to accommodate add-on peripheral devices, the system included a 15-pin expansion port which could be used to attach the NES Zapper (a light gun), Power Pad, keyboard for BASIC programming a Cassette Drive, and other specialized controllers. Many such devices were produced for the console, though many of them, including a karaoke machine, true 3D glasses, and the Famicom Disk System (which incorporated the floppy drive dropped from the original specifications) were never released outside of Japan.

During its first year, many criticized the Famicom as unreliable, citing frequent programming errors and rampant hangs. Nintendo soon recalled all sold Famicom systems, and temporarily suspended production of the system while these concerns were addressed. The Famicom was subsequently reissued with a new motherboard.^[2] Following this, the Famicom's popularity soared, easily outselling its primary competitor, the Sega Master System. By the end of 1984 Nintendo had sold over 2.5 million Famicoms in the Japanese market.^[3]

[edit] Going international (1984–1987)

The title screen of Super Mario Bros. has gone down in video game history.

Bolstered by its success in Japan, Nintendo soon turned its attention to the larger North American market. In the wake of the video game crash of 1983-1984, however, many American pundits considered video games a fad that had already run its course. As a new console manufacturer, Nintendo had to convince a skeptical public to embrace its system. To this end, Nintendo entered into negotiations with Atari to release the Famicom as the "Nintendo Enhanced Video System."^[4] Despite the initial promise of these talks, Atari ultimately broke off negotiations with Nintendo in response to Coleco's unveiling of a unlicensed port of Donkey Kong for their Coleco Adam computer system at the 1983 Consumer Electronics Show (CES). Although the game had been produced without Nintendo's permission or support, Atari took its release as a sign that Nintendo was dealing with one of their major competitors in the market.^[3]

After the deal with Atari fell through, Nintendo designed a Famicom console for release in North America under the name "Nintendo Advanced Video System" (NAVS). This console was to feature a keyboard, cassette data recorder, wireless joystick controller and a special cartridge allowing users to compose programs in BASIC. Analysts responded negatively to the system, which was displayed at the Winter 1984 CES, and Nintendo was unable to procure a distributor for the system.^[3]

Later that year, Nintendo returned with a substantially scaled down version of the NAVS, now renamed the "Nintendo Entertainment System." As part of its strategy to win over their potential critics, Nintendo sought to distance its product from the traditional American video game system; the new name emphasized the broader entertainment potential of the system, one which used "packs" as opposed to the traditional "cartridge" (a technically meaningless distinction). The unit was completely redesigned, featuring a new grey color scheme, losing the hard-wired controllers, and opting for a front-loading cartridge slot that would hide the inserted cartridge from view.^[5] In addition, the company promised to buy back any unsold consoles from retailers, meaning that Nintendo would bear all financial risk associated with the system's launch.

Nintendo's launch strategy required that the NES not be seen exclusively as a gaming system. Many major American retailers had seriously cut back, or stopped entirely, their sales of such devices in the wake of the recent crash. To set the NES apart from other consoles, Nintendo's presentation at CES prominently featured R.O.B. (Robotic Operating Buddy), a plastic robot that connected to the NES and moved as part of an on-screen game. R.O.B. convinced retailers that the NES's possibilities went far beyond traditional video game systems, and helped to gain support among toy stores willing to take a chance on Nintendo's product.^[3][6] The company also hired Worlds of Wonder, makers of Laser Tag and Teddy Ruxpin, to handle the NES's marketing and distribution.^[2]

Nintendo released its system in the United States on October 18, 1985 to test markets in New York City,^[7] where approximately 90,000 of the initial shipment of 100,000 were sold.^[3] A nationwide and Canadian release soon followed in February 1986, available in two different packages: a full-featured $249 USD "Deluxe Set" which came packaged with the R.O.B., the Zapper, two game controllers, and two games (Duck Hunt, and Gyromite), and a scaled-down $199 "Action Set," which omitted the R.O.B. and included a Super Mario Bros./Duck Hunt multicart.^[1] To accompany this wide release, Nintendo marketed eighteen launch titles: 10-Yard Fight, Baseball, Clu Clu Land, Donkey Kong Jr. Math, Duck Hunt, Excitebike, Golf, Gyromite, Hogan's Alley, Ice Climber, Kung Fu, Mach Rider, Pinball, Stack-Up, Super Mario Bros., Tennis, Wild Gunman, and Wrecking Crew.^{[citation needed]}

The NES was also released in Europe, albeit in stages and in a rather haphazard manner. Most of mainland Europe (excluding Italy) received the system in 1986, where it was distributed by various companies. The United Kingdom, Ireland, Italy, Australia and New Zealand received the system in 1987, where it was distributed by Mattel^[8]. In Europe, the NES received a less enthusiastic response than it had elsewhere. Many European third-party publishers went with the technically-superior Sega Master System over the latecomer NES, and Nintendo lagged in market and retail penetration. The NES did outsell the Master System in Australia, though by a much-smaller margin than in North America.^[9]

While the NES was never officially released in Russia, an unlicensed third-party hardware clone named the Dendy was produced in the former Soviet Union in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Aesthetically, it was an exact duplicate of the original Famicom, with the color scheme and labels altered. In addition, the hardwired controllers of the original console were omitted in favor of removable controllers which connected to the front of the unit using DB-9 serial connectors, identical to those used in the Atari 2600 and the Atari 8-bit family of computers.^[10]

[edit] Leading the industry (1987–1995)

The redesigned AV Famicom/NES 2 was more compact than its predecessors, and was modeled after the Super Nintendo Entertainment System

The successful launch of the NES catapulted Nintendo to the forefront of the video game industry. For the remainder of the 1980s, Nintendo was the undisputed king of the home video game market. Buoyed by the success of the system, NES game packs were similarly smashing sales records: Super Mario Bros. 3, released in 1989, would gross well over $500 million USD, selling over 7 million copies in America and 4 million copies in Japan, making it the most successful standalone home video game in history.^[11] By 1990 the NES had reached a larger user base in the United States than any previous console, easily surpassing the previous record set by the Atari 2600 in 1982.^[12] Reaping the benefits of that success, that year Nintendo surpassed Toyota as Japan's most successful corporation.^[13]

In 1988, Sega released the technologically superior Sega Mega Drive (known in North America as the "Genesis") in Japan. Facing new competition from the Mega Drive, the NES's market share began to erode. Nintendo responded in the form of the Super Family Computer ("Super Famicom," for short; "Super Nintendo Entertainment System" in North America and Europe), the Famicom's 16-bit successor, in 1991. Although Nintendo announced their intention to continue to support the Famicom alongside their newer console, the success of the newer offering began to draw even more gamers and developers from the original NES, and the console's decline accelerated.

The original Japanese Famicom hardware featured an RF modulator audio/video output connector, but more and more Japanese television sets had dropped RF connectors in favor of higher-quality RCA composite video output by the early 1990s. A redesigned Famicom, called the AV Family Computer ("AV Famicom"), was released in Japan in 1993, largely to address this problem. The AV Famicom replaced the original model's RF modulator with RCA composite cables, eliminated the hardwired controllers, and featured a new, more compact case design. Retailing for ¥4,800 to ¥7,200 (equivalent to approximately $42 to $60 USD), the AV Famicom remained in production for almost a decade before being finally discontinued in 2003.^[14] The case design of the AV Famicom was adopted for a subsequent North American rerelease of the NES. The NES 2 differed from the AV Famicom in that it omitted the RCA composite output connectors that had been included in the NES since its initial American release, and sported only RF output capabilities.^[15] After a full decade of production, the NES was formally discontinued in the U.S. in 1995.^[9]

By the end of its production run, over 60 million NES units had been sold throughout the world.^[16] In North America, the NES outsold its primary competitors, the Atari 7800 and the Sega Master System, by a wide margin.

[edit] The twilight years (1995–present)

The NES was in popular decline from 1991-1995, with the Sega Genesis and Nintendo's own Super Nintendo Entertainment System chipping away at its market share, and next-generation CD-ROM-based systems on the horizon. Even though the NES was discontinued in North America in 1995, however, the system had left a mark of many millions of game cartridges. The secondhand market – video rental stores, Goodwill, yard sales, flea markets, games repackaged by Game Time Inc. / Game Trader Inc. and sold at retail stores such as K-Mart – was burgeoning. Parallel to, or perhaps because of this, many people began to rediscover the NES around this time, and by 1997, many older NES games were becoming popular with collectors.

At the same time, computer programmers who were also NES enthusiasts began to develop emulators capable of reproducing the internal workings of the NES on modern personal computers. When paired with a ROM image (a bit-for-bit copy of a NES cartridge's program code), the games could be played on a computer. The illegal trade of ROM images was carried out on various bulletin board systems around the country and, as it became more popular and accessible, on the Internet. Despite this, ROM images were frequently hard to come by, and early emulators in particular were often plagued by computer bugs and compatibility issues – sometimes they were designed to play one specific game.

Bloodlust Software's NESticle revolutionized the console emulation scene

Despite these inconveniences, emulation provided access to many rare and hard to find games that otherwise might have been forgotten, and provided gamers with a wider selection of titles than ever would have been possible with the original console. Emulators also came with a variety of built-in functions that changed the gaming experience, such as save states which allow the player to save his or her progress at an exact spot in the game and resume later at that exact spot. Some players even went as far as to abuse this feature to retry the harder parts of the game without restarting from the respawn point.

On April 2, 1997, Bloodlust Software released NESticle version 0.2 – an emulator that was remarkably stable, compatible, and easy to use by the standards of its day (the product, according to its creator Sardu, of "two weeks of boredom"). NESticle is frequently credited with revolutionizing the console emulation scene, and its success spawned many imitators and competitors. After this, emulators quickly became more refined and ROM images more easily available, attracting more people to emulation, which in turn served as a catalyst for further development, both for NES and other console emulators.^[17]

Nintendo did not respond positively to these developments and became one of the most vocal opponents of ROM image trading. Nintendo and its supporters claim that such trading represents blatant software piracy.^[18] Proponents of ROM image trading argue that emulation preserves many classic games for future generations, outside of their more-fragile cartridge formats.^[19]

The NES "revival" settled down, to a degree, after 2000, once the secondhand market began to dry up or charge collector's prices, and finding ROM images no longer represented the challenge it had in the past. Nonetheless, developments continue, and the NES appears likely to command throngs of fans for years to come. There is also a strong independent community of developers dedicated to producing demos and games for the NES.

In 2006, Nintendo announced plans to make several classic NES titles available on the Virtual Console download service for the Wii console. Titles include Mario Bros., The Legend of Zelda, Donkey Kong.^[20]

[edit] Notes and references

[edit] See also

• Video game crash of 1983
• History of video games (8-bit era)