Super Nintendo Entertainment System
The Super Nintendo Entertainment System, commonly shortened to Super Nintendo, Super NES or SNES, is a 16-bit home video game console developed by Nintendo released in 1990 in Japan, 1991 in North America, 1992 in Europe and Oceania and 1993 in South America. In Japan, it is called the In South Korea, it is called the Super Comboy and was distributed by Hyundai Electronics. The system was released in Brazil on August 30, 1993, by Playtronic. In Russia and CIS, the system was distributed by Steepler from 1994. Although each version is essentially the same, several forms of regional lockout prevent cartridges for one version from being used in other versions.
The Super NES is Nintendo's second programmable home console, following the Nintendo Entertainment System. The console introduced advanced graphics and sound capabilities compared with other systems at the time. It was designed to accommodate the ongoing development of a variety of enhancement chips integrated into game cartridges to be more competitive into the next generation.
The Super NES received largely positive reviews and was a global success, becoming the best-selling console of the 16-bit era after launching relatively late and facing intense competition from Sega's Genesis/Mega Drive console in North America and Europe. Overlapping the NES's 61.9 million unit sales, the Super NES remained popular well into the 32-bit era, with 49.1 million units sold worldwide by the time it was discontinued in 2003. It continues to be popular among collectors and retro gamers, with new homebrew games and Nintendo's emulated rereleases, such as on the Virtual Console, the Super NES Classic Edition, Nintendo Classics; as well as several non-console emulators which operate on a desktop computer or mobile device, such as Snes9x.
History
Background
In order to compete with the popular Family Computer in Japan, NEC Home Electronics launched the PC Engine in 1987, and Sega followed suit with the Mega Drive in 1988. The two platforms were later launched in North America in 1989 as the TurboGrafx-16 and the Sega Genesis respectively. Both systems were built on 16-bit architectures and offered improved graphics and sound over the 8-bit NES. It took several years for Sega's system to become successful.Bill Mensch, the co-creator of the 8-bit MOS Technology 6502 microprocessor and founder of the Western Design Center, gave Ricoh the exclusive right to supply 8-bit and 16-bit WDC microprocessors for Nintendo's new system. Meanwhile, Sony engineer Ken Kutaragi reached an agreement with Nintendo to design the console's sound chip without notifying his supervisors, who were enraged when they discovered the project; although Kutaragi was nearly fired, then-CEO Norio Ohga intervened in support of the project and gave him permission to complete it.
Development
On September 9, 1987, then-Nintendo president Hiroshi Yamauchi revealed the development of the Super Famicom in the newspaper Kyoto Shimbun. On August 30, 1988, in an interview with TOUCH Magazine, Yamauchi announced the development of Super Mario Bros. 4, Dragon Quest V, three original games, and he projected sales of 3 million units of the upcoming console. In that same interview, Yamauchi pointed out that sales of the Famicom were slowing dropping ever since it hit its peak about two years earlier, and that if they continued supporting it, players would eventually "get bored" and move on in favor of better-quality games, which would be "a dangerous situation" for them. Famicom Hissyoubon magazine speculated that Yamauchi's early announcement was probably made to forestall Christmas shopping for the PC Engine, and relayed Enix's clarification that it was waiting on sales figures to select either PC Engine or Super Famicom for its next Dragon Quest game. The magazine and Enix both expressed a strong interest in networking as a standard platform feature. The console was demonstrated to the Japanese press on November 21, 1988, and again on July 28, 1989. During the second demonstration, Nintendo also announced that they were forced to delay the release of the Super Famicom to the fall of 1990, as a result of problems such as a distinct lack of software for third-party developers and a global chip shortage – due to a new generation of semiconductor and chip technology that forced manufacturers to split production capacity, which also drove prices up considerably.The final design of the Super Famicom unveiled at the second Shoshinkai show, which was held between August 28–29, 1990. This included late prototypes of Super Mario World and F-Zero. The demonstration garnered positive results by the public in terms of gameplay. It gained so much popularity that Nintendo received 1.5 million pre-orders for the Super Famicom from wholesalers, making them worried that launch day would get a little chaotic. To solve this, they encouraged retailers to install a reservation system when selling the console. On November 20, the day before launch, Nintendo loaded 100 trucks with boxes of Super Famicom consoles, alongside cartridges of F-Zero and Super Mario World early in the morning. In that same day, Nintendo executed "Operation: Midnight Shipping" by sending these orders late at night, in the hopes of warding off thieves.
Launch
Designed by Masayuki Uemura, the designer of the original Famicom, the Super Famicom was released in Japan on Wednesday, November 21, 1990, for. It was an instant success. Nintendo's initial shipment of 300,000 units sold out within hours. This gained the attention of the yakuza criminal organizations, so the devices were shipped at night to avoid robbery.With the Super Famicom quickly outselling its rivals, Nintendo reasserted itself as the leader of the Japanese console market. Nintendo's success was partially due to the retention of most of its key third-party developers, including Capcom, Konami, Tecmo, Square, Koei, and Enix.
Nintendo released the Super Nintendo Entertainment System, a redesigned version of the Super Famicom, in North America for. It began shipping in limited quantities on August 23, 1991, with an official nationwide release date of September 9, 1991. The Super NES was released in the United Kingdom and Ireland in April 1992 for.
Most of the PAL region versions of the console use the Japanese Super Famicom design, except for labeling and the length of the joypad leads. The Playtronic Super NES in Brazil, although PAL-M, uses the North American design. Both the NES and Super NES were released in Brazil in 1993 by Playtronic, a joint venture between the toy company Estrela and consumer electronics company Gradiente.
The Super NES and Super Famicom launched with few games, but these games were well received. In Japan, only two games were initially available: Super Mario World and F-Zero. Bombuzal was released during the launch week. In North America, Super Mario World was launched as a bundle with the console; other launch games include F-Zero, Pilotwings, SimCity, and Gradius III.
Console wars
The rivalry between Nintendo and Sega was described as one of the most notable console wars in video game history, in which Sega positioned the Genesis as the "cool" console, with games aimed at older audiences, and aggressive advertisements that occasionally attacked the competition. Nintendo scored an early public-relations advantage by securing the first console conversion of Capcom's arcade hit Street Fighter II for Super NES, which took more than a year to make the transition to the Genesis. Though the Genesis had a two-year lead to launch time, a much larger library of games, and a lower price point, it only represented an estimated 60% of the American 16-bit console market in June 1992, and neither console could maintain a definitive lead for several years. Donkey Kong Country is said to have helped establish the Super NES's market prominence in the latter years of the 16-bit generation, and for a time, maintain against the PlayStation and Saturn. According to Nintendo, the company had sold more than 20 million Super NES units in the U.S. According to a 2014 Wedbush Securities report based on NPD sales data, the Super NES outsold the Genesis in the U.S. market by units and gained its lead in the US/North American 16 bit market.Changes in policy
During the NES era, Nintendo maintained exclusive control over games released for the system – the company had to approve every game, each third-party developer could only release up to five games per year, those games could not be released on another console within two years, and Nintendo was the exclusive manufacturer and supplier of NES cartridges. Competition from Sega's console brought an end to this practice; in 1991, Acclaim Entertainment began releasing games for both platforms, with most of Nintendo's other licensees following suit over the next several years; Capcom and Square were the most notable holdouts.Nintendo continued to carefully review submitted games, scoring them on a 40-point scale and allocating marketing resources accordingly. Each region performed separate evaluations. Nintendo of America also maintained a policy that, among other things, limited the amount of violence in the games on its systems. The surprise arcade hit Mortal Kombat, a gory fighting game with huge splashes of blood and graphically violent fatality moves, was heavily censored by Nintendo. Because the Genesis version allowed for an uncensored version via cheat code, it outsold the censored Super NES version by a ratio of nearly three to one.
U.S. Senators Herb Kohl and Joe Lieberman convened a Congressional hearing on December 9, 1993, to investigate the marketing of violent video games to children. Though Nintendo took the high ground with moderate success, the hearings led to the creation of the Interactive Digital Software Association and the Entertainment Software Rating Board and the inclusion of ratings on all video games. With these ratings in place, Nintendo decided its censorship policies were no longer needed.