Nintendo Entertainment System

The Nintendo Entertainment System, or NES, is an 8-bit video game console released by Nintendo in North America, Brazil, Europe, Asia, and Australia. Its Japanese equivalent is known as the Nintendo Family Computer, or Famicom. The most successful gaming console of its time in Asia and North America (Nintendo claims to have sold over 60 million NES units worldwide), it 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.

Following a series of arcade game successes in the early 1980s, Nintendo made plans to produce its own console hardware that had removable cartridges, a feature not included with the company’s earlier Color TV Games product. Designed by Masayuki Uemura and released in Japan on July 15, 1983 for ¥14,800, the Nintendo Family Computer (Famicom) was slow to gather momentum: during its first year, many criticized the system as unreliable, prone to programming errors and rampant freezing. Following a product recall and a reissue with a new motherboard, the Famicom’s popularity soared, becoming the best-selling game console in Japan by the end of 1984. Encouraged by their successes, Nintendo soon turned their attentions to the North American markets.

Nintendo entered into negotiations with Atari to release the Famicom under Atari’s name as the name "Nintendo Enhanced Video System." This deal eventually fell through, and Atari decided to concentrate on its own next-generation 8-bit console, the Atari 7800. Subsequent plans to market a Famicom console in North America featuring a keyboard, cassette data recorder, wireless joystick controller, and a special BASIC cartridge under the name "Nintendo Advanced Video System" likewise fell through. Finally, in June 1985 Nintendo unveiled its American version of the Famicom at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES). With a completely redesigned case and a new name, the Nintendo Entertainment System proved to be just as popular in America as the Famicom was in Japan, and played a major role in revitalizing interest in the video game industry. Originally Nintendo only released 50,000 units in New York City, and because of its great success it was released nationwide. Nintendo rolled out its first systems to limited American markets on October 18, 1985, following up with a nationwide release of the console in February of the following year. The console was released in two different packages: a full-featured $249 USD "Deluxe Set" which came packaged with the R.O.B., the NES 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 Gyromite and included a Super Mario Bros./Duck Hunt multicart.

For the rest of the decade, Nintendo was the undisputed master of the American and Japanese gaming markets, and its game titles were breaking sales records. However, the console did not attain the same level of success in the rest of the western world. In Europe and Australia, the system was released to two separate marketing regions (A and B). Mattel handled distribution for region A, which consisted of the United Kingdom, Australia, and Italy. Distribution in region B, consisting of the rest of mainland Europe, was handled by a number of different companies, with Nintendo responsible for most cartridge releases. Not until 1990 did Nintendo's newly created European branch take over distribution throughout Europe. This enabled competitor Sega to outperform the NES with its Sega Master System in many countries. Despite this, by 1990 the NES had become the best-selling console in video game history.

As the 1990s dawned, however, renewed competition from technologically superior systems such as the 16-bit Sega Genesis (known as the Sega Mega Drive outside of North America) marked the end of the NES’s dominance. Eclipsed by Nintendo’s own Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES), the NES’s user base gradually waned. Nintendo continued to support the system in America through the first half of the decade, even releasing a new version of the console, the NES 2, to address many of the design flaws in the original NES hardware. By 1995, though, in the wake of ever decreasing sales and the lack of new software titles, Nintendo of America officially discontinued the NES. Despite this, Nintendo of Japan kept producing new Nintendo Famicoms for a niche market up until October 2003, when Nintendo of Japan officially discontinued the line.

In the years following the official "death" of the NES in the west, a collector’s market based around video rental shops, garage sales and flea markets led some gamers to rediscover the NES. Coupled with the growth of console emulation, the late 1990s saw something of a second golden age for the NES. The secondhand market began to dry up after 2000, and finding ROMs no longer represented the challenge it had in the past. Parallel to the rise of interest in emulation was the emergence of a dedicated NES hardware "modding" scene. Such hobbyists perform tasks such as moving the NES to a completely new case, or just dissecting it for parts or fun. The controllers are particular targets for modding, often being adapted to connect with personal computers by way of a parallel or USB port. Some NES modders have transformed the console into a portable system by adding AA batteries and an LED or LCD screen.

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