SNES

The launch of the Nintendo Entertainment System in 1983 (JP) marked Nintendo’s place on the pedestal of the gaming world. With around 62 million units sold, Nintendo had their feet firmly placed as the dominant company in the video game market. Nintendo believed themselves to be untouchable, even when Sega released their 16-bit system, the Mega Drive (Sega Genesis in the USA) in 1988, Nintendo did not bat an eyelid. Although Sega’s MegaDrive offered improved graphics and sound, the NES was still the top selling system worldwide. However, once the Mega Drive’s sales began to rise due to their release of sports games and arcade ports, not to mention the popularity of their iconic character, Sonic the Hedgehog, Nintendo had no choice but to start thinking about a 16-bit system of their own in order to stay on top of the competition. The CEO of Nintendo at the time was Hiroshi Yamauchi, who put Masayuki Uemura, the original designer of the NES, in charge of Nintendo’s new 16-bit system. Dubbed the Super Nintendo Entertainment System, the system was released on November 21, 1990 for around ¥25,000 (US$210). The initial release of 300,000 units was an instant success, with units selling out within hours of launch. Author Steven Kent wrote in his book, “The Ultimate History of Video Games: The Story Behind the Craze that Touched our Lives and Changed the World”, that the masses of fans vying to own a SNES on the release date caused such a disturbance that the Japanese government had to ask video game manufacturers to schedule releases only on the weekends. Author David Sheff wrote in his book “Game Over: How Nintendo Zapped an American Industry, Captured Your Dollars, and Enslaved Your Children” that the SNES caused the attentions of even the Yakuza, and devices were to be shipped only at night in order to avoid theft of goods.

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he SNES was released in the United States in 1991, with a retail price of $199. The SNES in the US was shipped with Super Mario World; one of the SNES’s best selling games to date. Other initial titles include F-Zero, SimCity, Gradius III and Pilotwings (using the “Mode 7” hardware to stimulate simple 3D graphics). With the release of the SNES came the fabled “Console War” between Nintendo and Sega, in which Sega tried to advertise the Mega Drive system as being more “cool” and “mature”. Sonic the Hedgehog played an important factor in Sega’s success, as he was deemed more attractive to the young players compared to Mario, Nintendo’s mascot. Also, with the popularity of the NES still looming overhead, individuals were not partial to spending more money on a system that had no backwards compatibility available. In addition, Sega’s Genesis system was about $50 less then the SNES. However, the SNES did have its own advantages, some of which includes Nintendo’s strong connections with third party game developers such as Capcom, Square, Konami, etc. When Nintendo released the NES, the company was so dominant in the field that they could maintain exclusive control over what titles would be released for their systems. Nintendo would have to approve every game produced for them, third party developers had to release up to 5 games per year, and these games could not be released onto another console for 2 years. Game developers also had to buy the SNES cartridges from Nintendo in order to produce their games. With the rivalry between Sega, Nintendo could no longer afford to be particular. Many third party developers began to produce games for both platforms, which was partially to Nintendo’s advantage as many games produced for Sega eventually went to Nintendo as well. Other games were still made exclusively for Nintendo; such as the arcade hit Street Fighter II. Squaresoft continued to stay exclusive to Nintendo for many years, a great advantage to Nintendo as they released the Final Fantasy series, as well as having Enix to produce the DragonQuest series. The SNES probably has the largest RPG collection next to the Playstation 1 and 2.

While Nintendo’s CPU was slower than its competitors, the SNES had more powerful graphics, sound, and add on processors. The video Picture Processing Unit used Mode-7 effects that produced effective 3D visual impressions, as well as successful scaling, rotation and transparency effects; it produced 32K colors, 256 of which could be displayed on screen. Rather than having customers purchase add on modules to their systems, Nintendo thought of the ingenuous idea of releasing games with built in chips that added processing powers and features to their games. One of the most well known would be the Super FX, a chip that allowed for 3D graphics to be rendered in games, increased the SNES’s speed to 10.5 MHz and the Super FX2 increased it to 21 MHz. Most feel that it is in thanks to these chips, that the SNES was able to effectively compete with the newer 32-bit consoles.