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Super Famicom (Japanese:スーパーファミコン)
was a videogame console released by
Nintendo in
Japan.
For information about the
North American and
European versions of this console, see:
Super Nintendo Entertainment System.
The Super Famicom is the first console worldwide capable of applied
acoustics in video game audio.
Market History
Nintendo executives at first were not interested in making a new system
when rival
Sega announced that they would release their 16-Bit video game system
Sega Megadrive in 1988. However, the executives were quick to see the
Megadrive eating up the market in Japan due to the technological
advantages of the Megadrive.
Hiroshi Yamauchi, the Nintendo CEO at the time, had put
Masayuki Uemura in charge of designing the console. They had
originally planned for the
Famicom and the
NES to be 16-bit systems, but those components were too expensive at
the time, and so they were 8-bit systems. With the components much
cheaper, Nintendo did not hesitate to build a more powerful system.
The Super Famicom was released on
November 21,
1990 for ¥32,000, and it came with two controllers and
Super Mario World. The release came right when the
Sega Megadrive was starting to take over the market from the
Nintendo Family Computer. The Super Famicom was enourmosly successful
with such a high demand, having the initial 300,000 units get sold out.
Nintendo shipped the units by night, as there were rumors that
Yakuza gangs might try to steal the consoles. The Super Famicom had no
problem dominating over the Sega Megadrive. Nintendo had gotten 80% of the
market share in Japan.
The
U.S. version may have been redesigned so that a drink could not be
rested on the top of the console. The Japanese rested drinks on their
Super Famicoms and many of those drinks were spilled. Americans had also
spilled drinks on their
NESs when they put drinks on their consoles.
Certainly the climate of litigation in the U.S. would have meant that
lawsuits would have been brought against Nintendo for ruined consoles, and
this may have prompted a redesign due to fears of this litigation. It
would also explain why the European SNES was the same on the outside as
the Japanese one, as Europe is not (or at least, was not back then) as
litigation-obsessed. Another possible reason for the reversion back to the
Japanese design for the European market is that the U.S. console was to
some not very aesthetically pleasing, and definitely inferior
aesthetically to the Japanese console.
Like its SNES counterpart, the Super Famicom was replaced by the
Nintendo 64. The SNES went out of out production in
1997, but the Super Famicom continued production until
2003.
Another interesting note is that the Super Famicom logo appeared in the
"Special Zone" of
Super Mario World worldwide, despite the fact that the logo was not
used for the SNES releases in
North America and
Europe. The
ZSNES emulator also uses the Super Famicom logo as part of its logo.
Many videogames only released in Japan can be played in North America
using
emulation, since most play
rom images from both the Super Famicom and the SNES. Emulation also
enables the Japan-exclusive video games to be
unofficially translated into English and other languages by means of
ROM hacking using a hexadecimal editor.
Specifications
Game cartridges, depending on which market they were released in, were
of different shapes to restrict the playing of games intended for a single
market and to control pricing in those markets. The North American model
had a rectangular bottom has inset grooves which when inserted
complemented the console's shape whereas the Japanese/European cartridges
had a smoothed curve on the front of the cartridges with no inset grooves.
Since the North American console has protuding grooves, the
Japanese/European cartridges could not be inserted without the removal of
these grooves and North American cartridges being completely rectangular
could not fit into the slightly curved opening of the Japanese console
unit.
Additionally, a region chip within the console and in each cartridge
prevented European games being played on Japanese/North American consoles
and vice versa (despite the fact that European and Japanese Cartridges fit
in each other's consoles). The Japanese and North American machines had
the same region chip, so once the difference in the shape of the
cartridges was overcome, cartridges were interchangeable.
Physical
modification of the consoles and adaptors helped individuals overcome
these barriers.
See also:
Super Nintendo Entertainment System
Accessories
- The
Bandai Satellaview attachment, was an add-on similar to the Sega
Channel. It allowed owners to play games for a limited amount of time.
- A never-released Nintendo CD attachment by Sony. At one point Sony
discovered that Nintendo was also asking Phillips to design the same
device. Sony withdrew and designed the
PlayStation using the resources it gained while designing the
Nintendo accessory. The Playstation quickly overtook Nintendo in the
console market.
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