Samurai Electronic TV Game System

The Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) is an 8-bit home video game console developed and marketed by Nintendo. It was first released in Japan on 15 July 1983 as the and was later released as the redesigned NES in several test markets in the United States beginning on 18 October 1985, followed by a nationwide launch on 27 September 1986. The NES was distributed in Europe, Australia, and parts of Asia throughout the 1980s under various names. As a third-generation console, it mainly competed with Sega's Master System.

Nintendo president Hiroshi Yamauchi called for a simple, cheap console that could run arcade games on cartridges. The Famicom was designed by lead architect Masayuki Uemura, with its controller design reused from Nintendo's portable Game & Watch hardware. The western model was redesigned by Nintendo of America designers Lance Barr and Don James to resemble a video cassette recorder. Nintendo released add-ons such as the NES Zapper, a light gun for shooting games, and R.O.B, a toy robot.

The NES is widely regarded as one of the most influential gaming consoles of all time. It helped revitalize the North American gaming industry following the video game crash of 1983, and pioneered a now-standard business model of licensing third-party developers to produce and distribute games. Several games released for the NES, including ''Super Mario Bros.'' (1985), ''The Legend of Zelda'' (1986), ''Metroid'' (1986), and ''Mega Man'' (1987), went on to become landmark franchises.

While the console dominated Japanese and North American markets, it did not perform as well in Europe, where it faced strong competition from the Master System and the ZX Spectrum. With 61.91 million units sold, it remains the 14th best-selling console of all time. Nintendo ceased production of the NES in 1995, and the Japanese Famicom in 2003. It was succeeded in 1990 by the Super Nintendo Entertainment System.

History

Background

The video game industry experienced rapid growth and popularity from the late 1970s to the early 1980s, marked by the golden age of arcade games and the second generation of consoles. Games like ''Space Invaders'' (1978) became a phenomenon across arcades worldwide, while home consoles such as the Atari 2600, the Commodore 64 and the Intellivision gained footholds in the American market. Many companies emerged to capitalize on the growing industry, including the card and toy company Nintendo.

Nintendo president Hiroshi Yamauchi realized that breakthroughs in the electronics industry meant that entertainment products could be produced at lower prices. Companies such as Atari and Magnavox were already selling gaming devices for use with television sets, to moderate success. Yamauchi negotiated a license with Magnavox for the patents on the technology used in the Magnavox Odyssey. Since Nintendo's operation was not yet sophisticated enough to design its own hardware, Yamauchi forged an alliance with Mitsubishi Electric and hired several Sharp Electronics employees to assist in developing the Color TV-Game 6 and the Color TV-Game 15 in Japan. This was followed the handheld Game & Watch series. The successes of these machines gave Yamauchi the confidence to expand Nintendo's influence in the fledgling video game industry.

In 1978, Yamauchi split Nintendo into separate research and development divisions. He appointed Masayuki Uemura as head of Nintendo Research & Development 2. Yamauchi, through extensive discussions with Uemura and other engineers, recognized the potential of the developing console beyond gaming. He envisioned a home-computer system disguised as a toy, which could significantly expand Nintendo's reach if it became popular with children. This popularity would drive demand for games, with Nintendo as the sole provider. Indeed, by 1980 several systems had already been released in Japan by both American and Japanese companies. Yamauchi tasked Uemura with developing a system that would be superior to its competitors and difficult to replicate for at least a year. Uemura's main challenge was economic rather than technological; Yamauchi wanted the system to be affordable enough for widespread household adoption, aiming for a price of ¥9,800 (less than $75) compared to existing machines priced at ¥30,000 to ¥50,000 ($200 to $350). The new system had to outperform other systems, both Japanese and American, while being significantly more affordable.

Inception

As development progressed on the new video game system, engineers sought Yamauchi's guidance on its features. They questioned whether to include a disk drive, keyboard, data port, as well as the potential for a modem, expanded memory, and other computer-like capabilities. Yamauchi ultimately instructed Uemura to prioritize simplicity and affordability, omitting these peripherals entirely. Game cartridges, which Uemura saw as "less intimidating" to consumers, were chosen as the format. The team designed the system with 2,000 bytes of random-access memory (RAM).

The console's hardware was largely based on arcade video games, particularly the hardware for Namco's ''Galaxian'' (1979) and Nintendo's ''Donkey Kong'' (1981), with the goal of matching their powerful sprite and scrolling capabilities in a home system. A test model was constructed in October 1982 to verify the functionality of the hardware, and work began on programming tools. Because 65xx CPUs had not been manufactured or sold in Japan by that time, no cross-development software was available and it had to be developed from scratch. Early Famicom games were written on a NEC PC-8001 computer. LEDs on a grid were used with a digitizer to design graphics as no such software design tools existed at that time.

The codename for the project was ''GameCom'', but Masayuki Uemura's wife proposed the name ''Famicom'', arguing that "In Japan, 'pasokon' is used to mean a personal computer, but it is neither a home nor personal computer. Perhaps we could say it is a family computer". Meanwhile, Hiroshi Yamauchi decided that the console should use a red and white theme after seeing a hoarding for DX Antenna (a Japanese antenna manufacturer) which used those colors.

Development

The Famicom was influenced by the ColecoVision, Coleco's competition against the Atari 2600 in the United States;
* the ColecoVision's top-seller was a port of Nintendo's ''Donkey Kong''. The project's chief manager Takao Sawano brought a ColecoVision home to his family, impressed by its smooth graphics, which contrasts with the flicker and slowdown commonly seen on Atari 2600 games. Uemura said the ColecoVision set the bar for the Famicom. They wanted to surpass it and match the more powerful ''Donkey Kong'' arcade hardware; they took a ''Donkey Kong'' arcade cabinet to chip manufacturer Ricoh for analysis, which led to Ricoh producing the Picture Processing Unit (PPU) chip for the NES.

During development, Yamauchi directed engineers to reduce costs by removing non-essential components. However, he insisted on including a low-cost circuit and connector that allowed the CPU to send or receive unmodified signals, enabling future hardware expansions such as modems or keyboards. This built-in capability led some within Nintendo to refer to the console as "Yamauchi’s Trojan Horse": it entered homes as a simple gaming device with two controllers, yet contained features far beyond its apparent function. A 1989 corporate report later acknowledged, “In the initial stages of he system’sdevelopment, we foresaw these possibilities... we built a data communications function into the system”. Lead engineer Masayuki Uemura credited luck for this foresight, while colleague Genyo Takeda remarked that Uemura's lack of experience allowed him to attempt what others might have deemed unfeasible. Design decisions were also carefully considered. Yamauchi took a hands-on role in determining the controller layout, casing shape, and overall aesthetic. The final design featured a directional pad and two buttons on the right controller, a microphone on the left, rounded edges, and a red-and-white color scheme deliberately styled to appear more like a toy than a computer.

Original plans called for the Famicom's cartridges to be the size of a cassette tape, but ultimately they ended up being twice as large. Careful design attention was paid to the cartridge connectors because loose and faulty connections often plagued arcade machines. As it necessitated 60 connection lines for the memory and expansion, Nintendo decided to produce their own connectors. Each game cartridge typically contained two primary chips: one for the game’s program code (up to 256 kilobytes) and another for graphical data used to render on-screen characters (up to 64 kilobytes). Nintendo's R&D3 team designed the "UNROM" cartridge, which enabled larger memory capacities and the use of bank switching. This technique involved storing additional data in RAM and dynamically accessing it as needed, thereby significantly expanding gameplay possibilities. At Gunpei Yokoi's suggestion, a cartridge eject lever was also added, not for functionality, but to amuse children.

The Famicom design team initially considered arcade-style joysticks and even dismantled existing models from American consoles, but ultimately rejected them due to concerns about durability and the risk of children stepping on them. Instead, they adopted the D-pad and two action button layout developed by R&D1 for their handheld Game & Watch series. As an early prototype, Katsuya Nakagawa attached a Game & Watch D-pad to the Famicom and found it comfortable and easy to use. To reduce costs, the controllers were hardwired to the console and stored in molded pockets on the case. A 15-pin expansion port was added on the front of the console so that an optional arcade-style joystick could be used. The second controller also included a microphone, which Uemura envisioned being used to make players' voices sound through the TV speaker.

Japanese launch

The console was released on 15 July 1983, as the priced at () with three launch games available for purchase, all ports of popular Nintendo arcade games: ''Donkey Kong'' (1981), '' Donkey Kong Jr.'' (1982), and ''Popeye

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