Nintendo Entertainment System (NES)
The Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) is a classic home video game console launched in the United States in 1985 by Nintendo Co., Ltd., following its initial release in Japan as the Family Computer (Famicom) in 1983. The NES played a crucial role in revitalizing the video game industry in the U.S., which had suffered from a market crash in the early 1980s. With over 60 million units sold globally, it became a cornerstone of gaming history, introducing iconic titles such as Super Mario Bros. and The Legend of Zelda, which remain influential to this day.
The NES featured an innovative cartridge system and implemented a licensing agreement to ensure game quality, allowing only authorized developers to create titles for the system. Its launch included bundled games that contributed to its immediate success, especially during the holiday season. The NES continued to thrive until its eventual replacement by the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES) in 1991, with sales in the U.S. continuing until 1995.
In 2016, Nintendo celebrated the legacy of the NES with the release of the NES Classic Edition, a miniature version that included 30 preloaded games, demonstrating the enduring appeal and impact of the NES in gaming culture.
Nintendo Entertainment System (NES)
The Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) is a video game system released in the United States in 1985 by the Nintendo Co., Ltd. of Japan. The console was first marketed in Japan in 1983 as the Family Computer. Its release in the United States was highly successful and helped revitalize a lagging video game industry damaged by a business collapse in the early 1980s. Nintendo went on to sell more than sixty million NES consoles worldwide and introduced such classic games as Super Mario Bros. and The Legend of Zelda.
Company History
In 1889, a Japanese businessman named Fusajiro Yamauchi launched a company that produced hand-painted playing cards known as hanafuda, or "flower cards." Yamauchi called this company Nintendo, which translated into English roughly means "leave luck to heaven." The cards were a hit among the public, and the company became very successful. As the twentieth century progressed, the company underwent several name changes before settling on Nintendo Co., Ltd. in 1963. It also began branching out into other endeavors, such as an instant-rice company and a hotel chain. None of these, however, proved very lucrative.
The playing card market began to falter in the 1960s and 1970s, prompting Nintendo to shift its focus into making games and toys. Company executives also began to notice the success the fledgling video game industry was having in the United States, and decided they wanted a piece of that market. In the mid-1970s, Nintendo introduced several coin-operated arcade games in Japan to moderate success. It also ventured into the home video console business with the Color TV-Game 6 and Color TV-Game 15—the 6 and 15 corresponding to the number of games the systems played. Nintendo's arcade and console products sold well, despite a lukewarm reaction from the public. While the company remained committed to finding success in the video game business in Japan, it began to set its sights on entering the US market.
Nintendo's first attempt at reaching US audiences was in the arcade market, but its initial games were met with a lackluster reception. Desperate for a hit, Nintendo turned to a Japanese designer named Shigeru Miyamoto, who felt that video games should be treated as works of art. Miyamoto designed a game featuring a giant ape tossing barrels at a leaping little man called Jumpman. Donkey Kong was a hit in video arcades across the United States and made Nintendo millions of dollars.
The Famicom and the NES
Nintendo sold the rights to Donkey Kong to several American home console companies, such as Atari, Intellivision, and ColecoVision, but soon realized it would be more profitable to create its own console system for its games. In July 1983, Nintendo unveiled the Family Computer in Japan. The Famicom, as it was called, featured eight bits of computer memory and used a cartridge system where individual games were inserted and removed from the console. The original Famicom came with three games: Donkey Kong, Donkey Kong Jr., and Popeye. While it got off to a slow start, sales began to pick up a few months later with the release of Super Mario Bros. Super Mario Bros. was another Miyamoto-designed game that took Jumpman from the original Donkey Kong, renamed him Mario, and set him in a strange world of pipes, floating blocks, and flying turtles. Mario helped the Famicom overcome some early technical difficulties and became a big seller in Japan.
Nintendo wanted to take the next logical business step and introduce the Famicom in the United States, but the video game market across the Pacific had fallen on hard times. Years of poor-quality games and an oversaturated market had caused the US video game industry to collapse, pushing once-thriving companies such as Atari to the verge of bankruptcy. Nintendo's first attempt at a new system was the Nintendo Advanced Video System in 1984, but the prototype was not received well because of its high price and the still unfavorable market in the United States.
Nintendo decided to redesign the console and rework its marketing strategy, rebranding it as the Nintendo Entertainment System. Video games were referred to as "game paks" and the console was a "control deck." Using lessons learned from the video game collapse of the early 1980s, Nintendo implemented a strict licensing agreement for its games. While Nintendo developed some of the games for its console, outside developers were held to high-quality standards. They were required to be licensed by Nintendo to develop games and were restricted to producing a limited number of titles per year. The NES also came with a special computer chip that "locked out" unauthorized titles from working on its system.
The NES was released in a few stores in New York City in October 1985 and came prepackaged with two games—Super Mario Bros. and a target-shooting game called Duck Hunt. After solid sales the first Christmas shopping season, the NES had sold well enough for Nintendo officials to order a full North American launch. Buoyed in part by the release of the 1986 role-playing game The Legend of Zelda, the NES sold 2.3 million units in 1987 and followed that up with 6.1 million units sold in 1988. The console was eventually replaced by the more advanced Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES) in 1991, but the NES continued to be sold in the United States until 1995. In Japan, the last NES was produced in 2003.
Over its lifetime, NES had sold 61.91 million units worldwide. The best-selling NES game of all time was Super Mario Bros. with 40.24 million copies sold, although many of those sales came as part of being bundled with the NES upon its launch. The best-selling standalone NES game was Super Mario Bros. 3, which was released in 1990 and sold 18 million copies. The continued popularity of the NES prompted Nintendo to issue a planned rerelease of the system, labeled the Nintendo Entertainment System: NES Classic Edition. Launched in November 2016, the NES Classic Edition was a miniature version of the original and came preloaded with thirty original NES games. It sold an estimated 2.3 million units before being discontinued in April 2017. The NES Classic Edition was rereleased for a limited time between June 2018 and December 2018.
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