History of the Super Nintendo Entertainment System
By the fall of 1990, Nintendo was in danger of losing their place at the top of the home gaming console food chain. It had been six years since the launch of the once-dominant Nintendo Entertainment System, and it was definitely starting to show its age. With its squared-off box design and simplistic graphics, it became very difficult to compete once Sega released the Sega Genesis, which looked as though it could wrestle the top spot away from Nintendo for good. Sega recognized this vulnerability, and launched an all-out advertising campaign which loudly and aggressively painted the Nintendo as old and slow, while showing the Sega Genesis as the “it” new thing that all the “cool kids” were playing. This, along with a price-slashing campaign to sweeten the deal, went a long way to position the Nintendo Entertainment System as a “second-tier” console to the hip new Sega Genesis.
Japanese Launch
While it became obvious that something needed to be done in order to keep their place in the gaming market, developers were NOT in a rush to simply push out their version of the Sega Genesis. Nintendo had spent years building up a history, fan base, and even a certain lore with their characters. These characters were known and beloved, and there were more stories to tell with them. As a result, Nintendo decided they would build upon their existing brand image, and “update” it for the new generation of home gaming. Since the NES was “old and dated”, they did not need to concern themselves with backwards compatibility, and could market the SNES as a newer and better version of something gamers already knew and loved.
The SNES was launched in Japan as the “Super Famicom” on Wednesday, November 21, 1990. Fans were already lining up by Tuesday the 20th, and it only took a few hours for the initial shipment of 300,000 consoles to sell out completely. Interestingly enough, this initial shortage of units caused disturbances at retail outlets throughout Japan, causing the Japanese government to request that future video game launches occur on the weekend.
North American Launch
With the hugely successful Japanese launch solidifying Nintendo’s place back on top of the Japanese gaming market, it was now time to set their sights on the North American market. Knowing that familiarity with the Nintendo brand ethos was going to drive sales in North America, Nintendo made it a priority to secure many of the third-party developers they had worked with on the original Nintendo. By retaining developers such as Capcom, Tecmo, Konami, and more, Nintendo was ready to take its brand into the 1990’s and beyond.
Nintendo released a redesigned Super Famicom as the “Super Nintendo Entertainment System” in North America on August 23, 1991. In a very savvy move, initial units were shipped with a copy of “Super Mario World”, which was the perfect game to illustrate the idea that gamers were getting all the familiar faces they loved, but with all new adventures on a much more powerful console. It really felt like the same Mario Brothers we had grown to love, but expanded and bigger, with different environments and cool new things to do. It was so new and different, yet still the same with very little learning curve.
Technical Specifications and Competing in the 32-Bit Era
The Super Nintendo Entertainment System was leaps and bounds better than the original NES in terms of specifications. The 16-bit console boasted a pallet of 32,768 unique colors, 8-channel ADPCM audio, and new graphics and sound processors to bring them all to your TV. The true genius of the design of the SNES, however, lied in the use of chip upgrades, or “enhancement chips” as they are sometimes called. These “enhancement chips” were placed in the cartridges themselves by the game developers, and allowed them to greatly extend the capabilities of the machine even further. As a result, instead of becoming an obsolete computer as games became more advanced, developers were able to effectively “update” the SNES as needed on a per-game basis.
With other game companies like Sega and Sony moving on to create 32-bit consoles in the mid 90’s, Nintendo was still going strong with the SNES. What the SNES gave up in graphics, it easily made up for in processing power and stability. These other consoles may have boasted “more bits”, but they were brand new concepts, and developers had to learn how to best utilize the new resources. Conversely, the SNES was an updated version of the same platform developers had been working with for years; after squeezing out every bit of usefulness on the original Nintendo for years, working with the SNES was like a breath of fresh air. They had already learned what works and what doesn’t, and were able to hit the ground running.
Legacy
Even though Nintendo entered the 16-bit arena a bit late and stayed there longer than most other companies, the SNES still went on to become the best-selling console of its era. 41.1 million SNES units were sold worldwide, with 23.4 million sold in North America and another 17.2 million sold in Japan. It would go on to bridge the gap between early home gaming consoles of the 80s, and the 64-bit consoles of the early 2000’s and beyond. Through its perfect blend of familiarity, stability, and adaptability, the SNES captured the hearts of millions of gamers, and continues to be a favorite of many old-school gamers today.
