Super Nintendo Entertainment System

History

Masayuki Uemura, the man responsible for designing the Famicom several years earlier, was put in charge of the design of the console, called the Super Famicom, which was released in Japan on November 21, 1990 for ¥25,000. An instant success, Nintendo quickly sold out its initial shipment of 300,000 units. The system was so popular that it was said to have attracted the attention of the Yakuza, leading to the decision to ship the devices at night in order to avoid robbery. In Japan, the Super Famicom easily outsold its chief rival, the Mega Drive, and Nintendo retained control over approximately 80% of the Japanese console market, thanks, in part, to Nintendo's retention of most of its key third party developers from the Famicom, including Capcom, Konami, Tecmo, Square Co., Ltd, Koei and Enix.

Ten months later, in August 1991, Nintendo released the Super Famicom, given a new external shell and renamed the Super Nintendo Entertainment System, in North America. Initially sold for a price of $200 USD, the North American package included the game Super Mario World (the Japanese release was sold without a pack-in game). The SNES was released in the United Kingdom and Ireland in April 1992 for £150, with a German release following a few weeks later. The PAL versions of the console looked identical to the Japanese Super Famicom, except for labelling.

However, a number of factors worked against the American and European launch of the system. Firstly, many US gamers had come to expect backwards compatibility from console developers (as was the case with the Atari 2600 and 7800), but the SNES was not designed to play NES cartridges. Secondly, by late 1991 the Sega Mega Drive/Genesis had already became firmly entrenched in the US and European marketplace, and Nintendo was already lagging well behind its main competitor from the start, a fact which was not helped by the fact that the Mega Drive/Genesis console and games sold for less than the SNES.

Although the SNES was comparatively slow to surpass the Genesis in North America, the SNES's marginally superior technical capabilities, coupled with Nintendo's family-friendly image, iconic game characters like Mario, and a larger pool of third-party developers eventually propelled it past its competition. By the end of the 16-bit era, the SNES had sold twice as many units as the Sega Genesis.

By 1996, the 16-bit era of gaming had ended, and a new generation of consoles, including Nintendo's own Nintendo 64, caused the popularity of the SNES to wane. In October 1997, Nintendo released a redesigned SNES deck in North America for $99 USD (which included the pack-in game Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island). Like the earlier NES 2, the new model was designed to be slimmer and lighter than its predecessor, and would prove to be among the last major SNES-related releases in America. A similar redesigned Super Famicom Jr. was released in Japan around the same time.

Nintendo of America ceased production of the SNES in 1999. In Japan, the Super Famicom continued to be produced until September 2003. In recent years, many SNES titles have been ported to the handheld Game Boy Advance, which has similar technical capabilities. Some video game critics consider the SNES era "the golden age of video games," citing the many groundbreaking games and classics made for the system. [1] whereas others question this romanticism [1]. See also video game player.

Regional lockout

Additionally, a regional lockout 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. The simplest way to allow the Japanese and European cartridges to play in the North American system is to use a Game Genie cheat device to pull out the small rectangular piece of plastic out of the top of it. Thus, the device can be used as a filter and allow the plugging of the European and Japanese cartridges into it. The user can then play the games through his or her North American system. The reason the European version still works, even though it has a different regional chip, is simply because when the owner uses the Game Genie to filter, the chip doesn't function.

Physical modification of the consoles and adaptors helped individuals overcome these barriers.

Peripherals

One of the most interesting and successful first-party peripherals released for the SNES was the Super Game Boy. The Super Game Boy was an adaptor cartridge that allowed games designed for Nintendo's portable Game Boy system to be played on the SNES. The Super Game Boy touted a number of feature enhancements over the Game Boy, including color support (in reality, merely the ability to substitute a different color palette: the games themselves were still limited to four colors), and custom screen borders.

Like the NES before it, the SNES saw its fair share of unlicensed third-party peripherals, including a new version of Galoob's Game Genie cheat cartridge designed for use with SNES games, and a variety of game copier devices. In general, Nintendo proved to be somewhat more tolerant of unlicensed SNES peripherals than they had been with NES peripherals.

Japan saw the release of the Satellaview, a modem which attached the Super Famicom's expansion port and connected to the St. Giga satellite radio station. Users of the Satellaview could download gaming news and specially designed games, which were frequently either remakes of or sequels to older Famicom titles, released in installments. The Satellaview was broadcast from April 23, 1995 through June 30, 2000.

Towards the end of the SNES's life, Nintendo was in talks with two different companies to develop a CD-ROM-based peripheral for the console. Ultimately, negotiations with both Sony and Philips fell through, and the two companies went on to develop their own consoles based on their initial dealings with Nintendo (the PlayStation and the CD-i, respectively).

Emulation

Emulation projects began in 1996 with projects such as "VSMC" and "Super Pasofami," which, despite some important initial gains, did not last long past 1998. During that time, two competing emulation projects, Snes96 and Snes97 emerged, forming a new initiative entitled Snes9x. In early 1998, SNES enthusiasts began programming a console emulator named ZSNES. From then on, these two emulators have continued to offer the most complete emulation of the system and its various add-on chips like the Super FX Chip.

Nintendo took the same stance against the distribution of SNES ROM image files and emulation as it did with the NES, insisting that they represented flagrant software piracy. Proponents of SNES emulation cite as arguments for their continued distribution: the discontinued production of the SNES, the right of the owner of the respective game to make a personal backup, the frailty of SNES cartridgess (even though cartridges are far more durable than optical discs), and the lack of certain foreign imports. Starting in the 128-bit era, both Nintendo and emulation proponents began to have a less active stance on this issue.

Despite Nintendo's attempts to stop the proliferation of such projects, ROM files continue to be available on the Internet. Since the console's discontinuation, second-hand market decline, and rapid growth of the Internet, finding the files has become less of a challenge than it had been with the NES. Most general ROM sites offer files for the SNES.

Additionally, the SNES was one of the first systems to attract the attention of amateur fan translators: Final Fantasy V was the first major work of fan translation to be completed, in 1997.

Screenshots

More screenshots can be found in the gallery of Super Nintendo Entertainment System screenshots.

Technical specifications

• Core
• CPU: Nintendo custom '5A22', believed to be produced by Ricoh; based around a 16-bit CMD/GTE 65c816 (a predecessor of the WDC 65C816). The CPU runs the 65c816-alike core with a variable-speed bus, with bus access times determined by addresses accessed, with a maximum theoretical effective clock rate around 3.58 MHz. The SNES/SFC provided the CPU with 128 KB of Work RAM.