For my first reportage on gaming's lost artifacts, I will show you about the Famicom. or the Nintendo Entertainment System.
The Nintendo Entertainment System (also known as NES) is a Nintendo manufactured video game console known as the Famicom (Family Computer) in Japan and Tata Famicom in Souther Asian countries. It is considered the successor to Nintendo's Color TV Game series, and is Nintendo's first home console with interchangeable cartridges. It is an 8-bit console that introduced various franchises to the world from The Legend of Zelda to Final Fantasy. Nearly 62 million units were sold worldwide, making it the best selling Nintendo console of all time (excluding the Wii). The best selling game on the console is Super Mario Bros., though the total number of units sold includes those bundled with the console (which consists of a majority of the units). The best selling stand alone title on the system is Super Mario Bros. 3 at 18 million copies sold worldwide. The Nintendo Entertainment System has been sold to retailers in a majority of Asia, North America, Europe, and Australia.
**********History and Development***********
The NES is an iconic system that consisted of vast advancements, impressive video games and the industry's most lucrative franchises. It's importance to video games is arguably unparalleled having saved the US industry from collapsing following Atari's infamous crash in the early eighties. The NES propelled video games to new heights when it came to game design, save functions, story involvement, and character control. With the NES came the modern model for third party developers on video game consoles and licensing of video games.
Nintendo had made a name for itself by releasing games such as Donkey Kong, the Game & Watch series and the Color TV Game series. Mario had become one of the best known video game characters and Nintendo was well on their way to becoming the industry leader. After the arcade boom companies went onto creating home consoles that would let consumers play their favorite games at home, among other games made exclusively for the consoles. Nintendo had licensed their popular video games to other systems, and Donkey Kong rose to become one of the most popularly ported video game of the early eighties, appearing on ColecoVision and Atari systems, among others, in the North American market. Nintendo soon announced plans to release a console of their own in Japan titled the Famicom, or Family Computer. The project was headed by Masayuki Uemura of Nintendo R&D2 who had wanted to initially give the console a 16-bit CPU with a floppy disk drive, though because of the complicated technology they settled for an 8-bit CPU. According to Uemura, Hiroshi Yamauchi, who was then president of Nintendo, called him and told him that the sales of the Game & Watch would not last, and that they needed to start work on a new product. Yamauchi made several requirements for the new product including the need for it to be a console that connects to the television and the need for it to have interchangeable cartridges.
Nintendo would eventually launch the system in 1983 in Japan. It was Nintendo's first console with the capability of playing different games. They released it on July 15 of that year, and it ran for ¥14,800. In order to generate early sales, Nintendo recreated their popular arcade hits Donkey Kong and Donkey Kong Jr. on the platform. They also created a game that sported the Popeye license that was titled Popeye. Interestingly, Shigeru Miyamoto had originally wanted Donkey Kong to have Popeye characters but couldn't obtain the rights to it. After Nintendo gained popularity it was no wonder that they managed to get the license, though Miyamoto was ultimately not involved in the project.
A mockup of the NES.
The first batch of Famicom consoles were glitchy and caused the consoles to crash. Nintendo immediately issued a recall on all of the Famicoms they sold, and replaced them with new hardware. Following this, the Famicom became a best selling console and launched to the top of people's most wanted lists. Countless successes spurred Nintendo to eye a new region across the pacific. Nintendo had already opened the doors to success in America with games such as Donkey Kong becoming the second best selling arcade game of all time. Game & Watch units brought on moderate success but come 1983, the year the Famicom was released, the industry wasn't in its best shape. Atari, the most well known name in video games, crashed this year when they lost all of their reliability. The games that were being released on the console were no longer generating interest among consumers, and most of them, such as the Pac-Man port and the game based on the E.T. property, were downright terrible. Atari soon enough had to dump their inventory, and soon thereafter brought the entire video game industry down when it inevitably collapsed. All good things come to an end, and this was especially true for Atari. Bad business choices and too many third party publishers wanting to get a piece of the pie would lead to the downfall, and there seemed no way out when the consumer lost interest.
Early concept art for the Advanced Video System.
While the Famicom and Nintendo was doing great in Japan, the same couldn't be said about Nintendo of America. Nintendo wasn't making many arcade hits and the Game & Watch sales were dwindling. NoA president Minoru Arakawa had to make a bold move, and decided to try and release the console in America. They attempted to get a deal with Atari, where they would release it under the name Nintendo Advanced Video Game System, though this fell through. Looking back on this Arakawa remarks that "it was the best thing to happen to Nintendo", and that "if Atari had taken the product, it's doubtful that Nintendo of America would exist today." Various attempts of releasing the system to the market always failed, and Nintendo would eventually start to release Famicom games as arcade titles under the Nintendo Vs. series, which contained similar hardware to that of the Famicom. At CES in June of 1985, however, Nintendo would unveil that they would release the Famicom in America under the name of the Nintendo Entertainment System. Nintendo tried to differentiate their console from Atari's as much as they could, knowing full well that retailers would be weary. And they were: very few agreed to purchase them, so Nintendo made a risk free deal where they would purchase back all unsold units. They released the first batch at a sole retailer in New York who reluctantly agreed to purchase it. Nintendo managed to convince some retailers by saying it was more of a toy than a video game system. The inclusion of R.O.B. the robot supported this. On October 18 of 1985, Nintendo would release the system to a few retailers and would bundle the video game Super Mario Bros. with it, which would heavily bolster sales. An estimated 9/10th of the 100,000 shipment were sold. By February in 1986, after the incredible success, Nintendo would release it to various other retailers in America and would expand their reaches to Canada. Nintendo had a much larger launch lineup than for America than they did with Japan - eighteen games compared to a measly three.
The final design of the NES.
The Nintendo Entertainment System did fantastic in America. Hits were being regularly released and after making their mark on two prominent regions, Nintendo set their sights on Europe and Australia. Nintendo would not actually distribute the consoles in these regions, and would enlist the help of Mattel to distribute it in various countries. The NES didn't do phenomenally well, and underperformed compared to the more advanced Sega Master System (excluding in Australia). Hyundai Electronics distributed the system in South Korea, who marketed it as the Comboy instead of the Famicom or Nintendo Entertainment System. By 1987, Nintendo would open a European branch and would distribute the system themselves in that region.
Upon the arrival of the nineties, the consumer's interest in the system started to diminish. Nintendo had released the Game Boy by now, and was planning to release the NES's successor, the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. Nintendo had plans beyond the NES, and expected for this to occur. They would continue to distribute the NES as it was still profitable, though they had newer and bolder plans for the SNES, or Super Famicom in Japan. In the nineties Nintendo released an updated NES called the NES 2, which corrected some of the problems with the first one. Come the mid nineties, Nintendo would discontinue support of the console in America, with Wario's Woods being their last game for the system in that region (it should also be noted that Wario's Woods was the only NES game that sported an ESRB rating). By 1995, Nintendo stopped distribution of the NES, and a year later they were set on releasing the SNES's successor, the Nintendo 64. In Japan, however, Nintendo continued to sell the Famicom until September of 2003, when they stopped production of both the Famicom and Super Famicom. Due to the shortage of parts necessary for repair, Nintendo of Japan stopped repairing Famicom systems in October of 2007. They had stopped doing so years prior elsewhere. With the release of the Wii in 2006, Nintendo started to redistribute NES games online through the system's Virtual Console. The prices of the games varied, though were typically 500 Nintendo Points, or $5.