Nintendo Entertainment System
Created | Updated Jan 28, 2002
The year is 1983, the eve of the Video Game market crash. A small and largly unknowen Japanese company, Nintendo, creates the Famicom (Family Computer) in Japan. It's released more as a home computer system that a video game, even though it's released with ports of Nintendo's popular arcade games Mario Bros. and Donkey Kong.
Atari, now failing as a company with their new "quantity over quality" technique, is offered to market the Famicom in the US by Nintendo. Atari declines, instead deciding to stake their fortune in the soon-to-be-doomed Atari 7800. Big mistake. Nintendo then decides to market the console themselves.
As part of the Famicom-to-NES conversion, Nintendo creates the first lockout device, 10NES, which was stored in each NES cartridge to prevent illegal and unlicenced cartridges from working on the NES.
In 1985, the NES is released in America. People are reluctant to buy it, still recovering from "the great crash." Soon enough, buyers decide to trust this new company and buy it, among some new and popular games, such as the original Super Mario Bros. It quickly establishes itself as the dominant console, beating all others in sales 10:1.
The NES was an 8-bit cartridge-based console. It's popularity rose not because of superior power (the Sega Master System, released around the same time was more powerful but less popular), but because of Nintendo's successful first-party games and special long term agreements with popular third-party developers such as Capcom.
The NES was officially discontinued in 1995, making it's OLS (Official Life Span, my own term) 11 years. It's SLS (Supported Life Span, also my term) was 6 years, lasting from it's rise in popularity in 1986, to it's inevitable decline in 1992. The decline was caused by the advent of newer 16-bit systems, such as the Sega Genesis and Nintendo's own Super NES.
Atari, now failing as a company with their new "quantity over quality" technique, is offered to market the Famicom in the US by Nintendo. Atari declines, instead deciding to stake their fortune in the soon-to-be-doomed Atari 7800. Big mistake. Nintendo then decides to market the console themselves.
As part of the Famicom-to-NES conversion, Nintendo creates the first lockout device, 10NES, which was stored in each NES cartridge to prevent illegal and unlicenced cartridges from working on the NES.
In 1985, the NES is released in America. People are reluctant to buy it, still recovering from "the great crash." Soon enough, buyers decide to trust this new company and buy it, among some new and popular games, such as the original Super Mario Bros. It quickly establishes itself as the dominant console, beating all others in sales 10:1.
The NES was an 8-bit cartridge-based console. It's popularity rose not because of superior power (the Sega Master System, released around the same time was more powerful but less popular), but because of Nintendo's successful first-party games and special long term agreements with popular third-party developers such as Capcom.
The NES was officially discontinued in 1995, making it's OLS (Official Life Span, my own term) 11 years. It's SLS (Supported Life Span, also my term) was 6 years, lasting from it's rise in popularity in 1986, to it's inevitable decline in 1992. The decline was caused by the advent of newer 16-bit systems, such as the Sega Genesis and Nintendo's own Super NES.
