nintendo entertainment system nes redirects here for other uses see nes disambiguation family computer redirects here for the 1977 videobrain product see videobrain family computer famicom redirects here it is not to be confused with family computer disk system nintendo entertainment systemtop nintendo entertainment system with controller bottom nintendo family computer famicom with controlleralso known asfamily computerfamicom japanhyundai comboy koreadevelopernintendomanufacturernintendotypehome video game consolegenerationthird generationrelease datejp july15198319830715na october18198519851018 1 expansion slotbestselling game super mario bros packin 4024 million as of september 13 2010 super mario bros 3 packin 18 million as of july 27 2008 super mario bros 2 10 million predecessorcolor tvgamesuccessorsuper nintendo entertainment systemrelated articlesfamicom disk system famicom 3d system the nintendo entertainment system commonly abbreviated as nes is an 8bit home video game console developed and manufactured by nintendo it was conceived in japan as the family computer japanese hepburn famir konpyta commonly known by the portmanteau abbreviation famicom famikon or fc launched there on july 15 1983 and rebranded as the nes for release outside of japan the nes was launched in the new york city and los angeles test markets in 1985 and fully throughout the us in 1986 the nes was launched in europe during 1986 and 1987 and australia in 1987 brazil saw only unlicensed clones until the official local release in 1993 in south korea it was packaged as the hyundai comboy hyeondae keomboi and distributed by sk hynix which then was known as hyundai electronics the bestselling gaming console of its time it had been preceded by nintendos first home video game console the color tvgame and was succeeded by the super nintendo entertainment system history development history of the nintendo entertainment system following a series of arcade game successes in the early 1980s nintendo made plans to create a cartridgebased console called the famicom which is short for family computer masayuki uemura designed the system the code name for the project was gamecom but masayuki uemuras wife proposed the name famicom arguing that in japan pasokon is used to mean a personal computer but it is neither a home or 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 billboard for dx antenna which used those colors during the creation of the famicom the colecovision a video game console made by coleco to compete against ataris atari 2600 game system in the united states was a huge influence takao sawano chief manager of the project brought a colecovision home to his family who were impressed by the systems capability to produce smooth graphics at the time which contrasted with the flickering and slowdown commonly seen on atari 2600 games uemura head of famicom development stated that the colecovision set the bar that influenced how he would approach the creation of the famicom original plans called for the famicoms cartridges to be the size of a cassette tape but ultimately they ended up being twice as big careful design attention was paid to the cartridge connectors since loose and faulty connections often plagued arcade machines as it necessitated taking 60 connection lines for the memory and expansion nintendo decided to produce their own connectors inhouse rather than use ones from an outside supplier the controllers were hardwired to the console with no connectors for cost reasons the game pad controllers were moreorless copied directly from the game watch machines although the famicom design team originally wanted to use arcadestyle joysticks even taking apart ones from american game consoles to see how they worked there were concerns regarding the durability of the joystick design and that children might step on joysticks left on the floor katsuyah nakawaka attached a game watch dpad to the famicom prototype and found that it was easy to use and caused no discomfort ultimately though they installed a 15pin expansion port on the front of the console so that an optional arcadestyle joystick could be used uemura added an eject lever to the cartridge slot which was not really necessary but he believed that children could be entertained by pressing it he also added a microphone to the second controller with the idea that it could be used to make players voices sound through the tv speaker release the console was released on july 15 1983 as the family computer or famicom for short for 14800 equivalent to 17500 in 2013 alongside three ports of nintendos successful arcade games donkey kong donkey kong jr and popeye the famicom was slow to gather momentum a bad chip set caused the initial release of the system to crash following a product recall and a reissue with a new motherboard the famicoms popularity soared becoming the bestselling game console in japan by the end of 1984 encouraged by this success nintendo turned its attention to the north american market entering into negotiations with atari to release the famicom under ataris name as the nintendo advanced video gaming system the deal was set to be finalized and signed at the summer consumer electronics show in june 1983 however atari discovered at that show that its competitor coleco was illegally demonstrating its coleco adam computer with nintendos donkey kong game this violation of ataris exclusive license with nintendo to publish the game for its own computer systems delayed the implementation of nintendos game console marketing contract with atari ataris ceo ray kassar was fired the next month so the deal went nowhere and nintendo decided to market its system on its own the proposed advanced video system bundle including cassette drive and wireless accessories subsequent plans to market a famicom console in north america featuring a keyboard cassette data recorder wireless joystick controller and a special basic cartridge under the name nintendo advanced video system likewise never materialized at june 1985s consumer electronics show ces nintendo unveiled the american version of its famicom with a new case redesigned by lance barr and featuring a zero insertion force cartridge slot further information history of the nintendo entertainment system north america rob robotic operating buddy an accessory for the ness 1985 launch although it ended up having a short product lifespan rob was initially used to market the nes as novel and sophisticated compared to previous game consoles the systems launch represented not only a new product but also a reframing of the severely damaged home video game market the 1983 video game crash had occurred in large part due to a lack of consumer and retailer confidence in video games which had been partially due to confusion and misrepresentation in video game marketing prior to the nes the packaging of many video games presented bombastic artwork which exaggerated the graphics of the actual game in terms of product identity a single game such as pacman would appear in many versions on many different game consoles and computers with large variations in graphics sound and general quality between the versions in stark contrast nintendos marketing strategy aimed to regain consumer and retailer confidence by delivering a singular platform whose technology was not in need of exaggeration and whose qualities were clearly defined to differentiate nintendos new home platform from the perception of a troubled and shallow video game market the company freshened its product nomenclature and established a strict product approval and licensing policy the overall system was referred to as an entertainment system instead of a video game system which was centered upon a machine called a control deck instead of a console and which featured software cartridges called game paks instead of video games this allowed nintendo to gain more traction in selling the system in toy stores further information nintendo entertainment system thirdparty licensing unlike with the famicom nintendo of america marketed the console primarily to children instituting a strict policy of censoring profanity sexual religious or political content the most famous example was lucasfilms attempts to port the comedyhorror game maniac mansion to the nes which nintendo insisted be considerably watered down nintendo of america continued their censorship policy until 1994 with the advent of the entertainment software rating board system coinciding with criticism stemming from the cuts made to the super nes port of mortal kombat compared to the sega genesis the optional robotic operating buddy or rob was part of a marketing plan to portray the ness technology as being novel and sophisticated when compared to previous game consoles and to portray its position as being within reach of the better established toy market while at first the american public exhibited limited excitement for the console itself peripherals such as the light gun and rob attracted extensive attention in europe oceania and canada the system was released to two separate marketing regions the first consisted of mainland europe excluding italy where distribution was handled by a number of different companies with nintendo responsible for most cartridge releases most of this region saw a 1986 release the release in the netherlands was in q4 of 1987 where it was distributed by bandai bv in brazil the console was released late in 1993 by playtronic even after the snes but the brazilian market had been dominated by unlicensed nes clones both locally made and smuggled from china and taiwan the nintendo entertainment systems control deck for its complete north american release the nintendo entertainment system was progressively released over the ensuing years in four different bundles the deluxe set the control deck the action set and the power set the deluxe set retailing at us17999 equivalent to 442 in 2017 in 1989 the power set included the console two game controllers an nes zapper a power pad and a triple game pak containing super mario bros duck hunt and world class track meet in 1990 a sports set bundle was released including the console an nes satellite infrared wireless multitap adapter four game controllers and a dual game pak containing super spike vball and nintendo world cup two more bundle packages were later released using the original model nes console the challenge set of 1992 included the console two controllers and a super mario bros 3 game pak for a retail price of us8999 the basic set first released in 1987 was repackaged for a retail us8999 it included only the console and two controllers and no longer was bundled with a cartridge instead it contained a book called the official nintendo players guide which contained detailed information for every nes game made up to that point finally the console was redesigned for both the north american and japanese markets as part of the final nintendoreleased bundle package the package included the new style nes101 console and one redesigned dogbone game controller released in october 1993 in north america this final bundle retailed for us4999 and remained in production until the discontinuation of the nes in 1995 reception by 1988 industry observers stated that the ness popularity had grown so quickly that the market for nintendo cartridges was larger than that for all home computer software comparison of nes from different regions from top japanese famicom european nes and american nes in june 1989 nintendo of americas vice president of marketing peter main said that the famicom was present in 37 of japans households while the nintendo entertainment system was not available in the soviet union as the 1990s dawned gamers predicted that competition from technologically superior systems such as the 16bit sega mega drivegenesis would mean the immediate end of the ness dominance instead during the first year of nintendos successor console the super famicom named super nintendo entertainment system outside japan the famicom remained the second highestselling video game console in japan outselling the newer and more powerful nec pc engine and sega mega drive by a wide margin legacy the nes was released after the video game crash of the early 1980s when many retailers and adults regarded electronic games as a passing fad the nes hardware was also very influential nintendo chose the name nintendo entertainment system for the us market and redesigned the system so it would not give the appearance of a childs toy the frontloading cartridge input allowed it to be used more easily in a tv stand with other entertainment devices such as a videocassette recorder the systems hardware limitations led to design principles that still influence the development of modern video games many prominent game franchises originated on the nes including nintendos own super mario bros franchises nes imagery especially its controller has become a popular motif for a variety of products clothing accessories and food items adorned with nesthemed imagery are still produced and sold in stores on july 14 2016 nintendo announced the november 2016 launch of a miniature replica of the nes titled nintendo entertainment system nes classic edition in the united states and nintendo classic mini nintendo entertainment system in europe and australia discontinuation on august 14 1995 nintendo discontinued the nintendo entertainment system in both north america and europe the famicom was officially discontinued in september 2003 nintendo offered repair service for the famicom in japan until 2007 games see also list of nintendo entertainment system games list of family computer games and list of family computer disk system games the nintendo entertainment system offered a number of groundbreaking titles super mario bros pioneered sidescrollers while the legend of zelda helped popularize batterybacked save functionality game pak nintendo entertainment system game pak north american and pal nes cartridges or game paks are significantly larger than japanese famicom cartridges the nes uses a 72pin design as compared with 60 pins on the famicom to reduce costs and inventory some early games released in north america were simply famicom cartridges attached to an adapter to fit inside the nes hardware the back of the cartridge bears a label with handling instructions production and software revision codes were imprinted as stamps on the back label to correspond with the software version and producer all licensed ntsc and pal cartridges are a standard shade of gray plastic with the exception of the legend of zelda and zelda ii the adventure of link which were manufactured in goldplastic carts unlicensed carts were produced in black robin egg blue and gold and are all slightly different shapes than standard nes cartridges nintendo also produced yellowplastic carts for internal use at nintendo service centers although these test carts were never made available for purchase all licensed us cartridges were made by nintendo konami and acclaim for promotion of ducktales remastered capcom sent 150 limitededition gold nes cartridges with the original game featuring the remastered art as the sticker to different gaming news agencies the instruction label on the back included the opening lyric from the shows theme song life is like a hurricane japanese famicom cartridges are shaped slightly differently unlike nes games official famicom cartridges were produced in many colors of plastic adapters similar in design to the popular accessory game genie are available that allow famicom games to be played on an nes in japan several companies manufactured the cartridges for the famicom this allowed these companies to develop their own customized chips designed for specific purposes such as chips that increased the quality of sound in their games thirdparty licensing the famicom family mark started appearing in games and peripherals released from 1988 and onward that were approved by nintendo for compatibility with official famicom consoles and derivatives nintendos near monopoly on the home video game market left it with a degree of influence over the industry unlike atari which never actively courted thirdparty developers and even went to court in an attempt to force activision to cease production of atari 2600 games nintendo had anticipated and encouraged the involvement of thirdparty software developers strictly on nintendos terms some of the nintendo platformcontrol measures were adopted by later console manufacturers such as sega sony and microsoft although not as stringent to this end a 10nes authentication chip was placed in every console and another was placed in every officially licensed cartridge if the consoles chip could not detect a counterpart chip inside the cartridge the game would not load and placed a golden seal of approval on all licensed games released for the system nintendo was not as restrictive as sega which did not permit thirdparty publishing until mediagenic in late summer 1988 further information unlicensed games nintendo was accused of antitrust behavior because of the strict licensing requirements with the nes near its end of its life many thirdparty publishers such as electronic arts supported upstart competing consoles with less strict licensing terms such as the sega genesis and then the playstation which eroded and then took over nintendos dominance in the home console market respectively consoles from nintendos rivals in the postsnes era had always enjoyed much stronger thirdparty support than nintendo which relied more heavily on firstparty games unlicensed games companies that refused to pay the licensing fee or were rejected by nintendo found ways to circumvent the consoles authentication system most of these companies created circuits that used a voltage spike to temporarily disable the 10nes chip a few unlicensed games released in europe and australia came in the form of a dongle to connect to a licensed game in order to use the licensed games 10nes chip for authentication to combat unlicensed games nintendo of america threatened retailers who sold them with losing their supply of licensed titles and multiple revisions were made to the nes pcbs to prevent unlicensed games from working atari games took a different approach with its line of nes products tengen the company attempted to reverse engineer the lockout chip to develop its own rabbit chip tengen also obtained a description of the lockout chip from the united states patent and trademark office by falsely claiming that it was required to defend against present infringement claims nintendo successfully sued tengen for copyright infringement tengens antitrust claims against nintendo were never decided color dreams produced christian video games under the subsidiary name wisdom tree it was never sued by nintendo as the company probably feared a public relations backlash emulation further information list of video game emulators nintendo entertainment system the nes can be emulated on many other systems most notably the pc the first emulator was the japaneseonly pasofami it was soon followed by ines which was available in english and was crossplatform in 1996 it was described as being the first nes emulation software that could be used by a nonexpert nesticle a popular msdos emulator was released on april 3 1997 there have since been many other emulators the virtual console for the wii nintendo 3ds and wii u also offers emulation of many nes games game rentals as the nintendo entertainment system grew in popularity and entered millions of american homes some small video rental shops began buying their own copies of nes games and renting them out to customers for around the same price as a video cassette rental for a few days nintendo received no profit from the practice beyond the initial cost of their game and unlike movie rentals a newly released game could hit store shelves and be available for rent on the same day nintendo took steps to stop game rentals but didnt take any formal legal action until blockbuster video began to make game rentals a largescale service nintendo claimed that allowing customers to rent games would significantly hurt sales and drive up the cost of games blockbuster was banned from including original copyrighted instruction booklets with their rented games in compliance with the ruling blockbuster produced their own short instructionsusually in the form of a small booklet card or label stuck on the back of the rental boxthat explained the games basic premise and controls video rental shops continued the practice of renting video games and still do today there were some risks with renting cartridgebased games most rental shops did not clean the connectors and they would become dirty over time renting and using a cartridge with dirty connectors posed a problem for consoles especially the nintendo entertainment system which was particularly susceptible to operation problems and failures when its internal connectors became dirty see the design flaws section below hardware configurations although the japanese famicom north american and european nes versions included essentially the same hardware there were certain key differences among the systems the original japanese famicom was predominantly white plastic with dark red trim it featured a toploading cartridge slot grooves on both sides of the deck in which the hardwired game controllers could be placed when not in use and a 15pin expansion port located on the units front panel for accessories the original nes meanwhile featured a frontloading cartridge covered by a small hinged door that can be opened to insert or remove a cartridge and closed at other times it features a more subdued gray black and red color scheme an expansion port was found on the bottom of the unit and the cartridge connector pinout was changed in the uk italy and australia which share the pala region two versions of the nes were released the mattel version and nes version when the nes was first released in those countries it was distributed by mattel and nintendo decided to use a lockout chip specific to those countries different from the chip used in other european countries when nintendo took over european distribution in 1990 it produced consoles that were then labelled nes version therefore the only differences between the two are the text on the front flap and texture on the topbottom of the casing the nes101 control deck alongside its similarly redesigned nes039 game controller in october 1993 nintendo redesigned the nes to follow many of the same design cues as the newly introduced super nintendo entertainment system and the japanese super famicom like the snes the nes101 model loaded cartridges through a covered slot on top of the unit replacing the complicated mechanism of the earlier design for this reason the nes101 is known informally as the toploader among nintendo fans the hvc101 control deck alongside its similarly redesigned hvc102 game controller in december 1993 the famicom received a similar redesign it also loads cartridges through a covered slot on the top of the unit and uses nonhardwired controllers because hvc101 used composite video output instead of being rf only like the hvc001 nintendo marketed the newer model as the av famicom av eibui shiy famikon since the new controllers dont have microphones on them like the second controller on the original console certain games such as the disk system version of the legend of zelda and raid on bungeling bay will have certain tricks that cannot be replicated when played on an hvc101 famicom without a modded controller in october 1987 nintendo had also released a 3d graphic capable headset called the famicom 3d system hvc031 this peripheral accessory was never released outside japan design flaws the vcrlike loading mechanism of the nes led to problems over time the design wore connector pins out quickly and could easily become dirty resulting in difficulties with the nes reading game cards when nintendo released the nes in the us the design styling was deliberately different from that of other game consoles nintendo wanted to distinguish its product from those of competitors and to avoid the generally poor reputation that game consoles had acquired following the video game crash of 1983 one result of this philosophy was to disguise the cartridge slot design as a frontloading zero insertion force zif cartridge socket designed to resemble the frontloading mechanism of a vcr the newly designed connector worked quite well when both the connector and the cartridges were clean and the pins on the connector were new unfortunately the zif connector was not truly zero insertion force when a user inserted the cartridge into the nes the force of pressing the cartridge down and into place bent the contact pins slightly as well as pressing the cartridges rom board back into the cartridge itself frequent insertion and removal of cartridges caused the pins to wear out from repeated usage over the years and the zif design proved more prone to interference by dirt and dust than an industrystandard card edge connector lockout the 10nes authentication chip contributed to the systems reliability problems the circuit was ultimately removed from the remodeled nes 2 the famicom contained no lockout hardware and as a result unlicensed cartridges both legitimate and bootleg were extremely common throughout japan and the far east the original nes but not the toploading nes101 contained the 10nes lockout chip which significantly increased the challenges faced by unlicensed developers tinkerers at home in later years discovered that disassembling the nes and cutting the fourth pin of the lockout chip would change the chips mode of operation from lock to key removing all effects and greatly improving the consoles ability to play legal games as well as bootlegs and converted imports nes consoles sold in different regions had different lockout chips so games marketed in one region would not work on consoles from another region known regions are usacanada 3193 lockout chip most of europe 3195 asia 3196 and uk italy and australia 3197 since two types of lockout chip were used in europe european nes game boxes often had an a or b letter on the front indicating whether the game is compatible with ukitalianaustralian consoles a or the rest of europe b restofeurope games typically had text on the box stating this game is not compatible with the mattel or nes versions of the nintendo entertainment system similarly uk italy australia games stated this game is only compatible with the mattel or nes versions of the nintendo entertainment system pirate cartridges for the nes were rare but famicom ones were common and widespread in asia most were produced in hong kong or taiwan and they usually featured a variety of small 32k or less games which were selected from a menu and bank switched some were also hacks of existing games especially super mario bros and a few were cartridge conversions of famicom disk system titles such as the japanese super mario bros 2 problems with the 10nes lockout chip frequently resulted in the consoles most infamous problem the blinking red power light in which the system appears to turn itself on and off repeatedly because the 10nes would reset the console once per second the lockout chip required constant communication with the chip in the game to work in 1989 nintendo released an official nes cleaning kit to help users clean malfunctioning cartridges and consoles with the release of the toploading nes101 nes 2 toward the end of the ness lifespan nintendo resolved the problems by switching to a standard card edge connector and eliminating the lockout chip all of the famicom systems used standard card edge connectors as did nintendos subsequent game consoles the super nintendo entertainment system and the nintendo 64 in response to these hardware flaws nintendo authorized repair centers sprang up across the us according to nintendo the authorization program was designed to ensure that the machines were properly repaired nintendo would ship the necessary replacement parts only to shops that had enrolled in the authorization program in practice the authorization process consisted of nothing more than paying a fee to nintendo for the privilege in a recent trend many sites have sprung up to offer nintendo repair parts guides and services that replace those formerly offered by the authorized repair centers famicom 3d system nintendo released a 3d headset peripheral called famicom 3d system for 3d stereoscopic entertainment this was never released outside japan since it was an utter commercial failure making gamers experience headaches and nausea famicom modem nintendo released a modem peripheral called famicom modem this was not intended for children instead adults would use it for gambling horse races set stocking dates use their bank and more technical specifications the motherboard of the nes the two largest chips are the ricohproduced cpu and ppu for its cpu the nes uses the ricoh 2a03 an 8bit microprocessor based on a mos technology 6502 core running at 179 mhz for the ntsc nes and 166 mhz for the pal version the nes contains 2kb of onboard work ram a game cartridge may contain expanded ram to increase this amount the size of nes games varies from 8 kb galaxian to 1 mb metal slader glory but 128 to 384kb was the most common the nes uses a custommade picture processing unit ppu developed by ricoh all variations of the ppu feature 2kb of video ram 256bytes of ondie object attribute memory oam to store the positions colors and tile indices of up to 64 sprites on the screen and 28bytes of ondie palette ram to allow selection of background and sprite colors the consoles 2kb of onboard ram may be used for tile maps and attributes on the nes board and 8kb of tile pattern rom or ram may be included on a cartridge the system has an available color palette of 48 colors and 6 grays up to 25 simultaneous colors may be used without writing new values midframe a background color four sets of three tile colors and four sets of three sprite colors the nes palette is based on ntsc rather than rgb values a total of 64 sprites may be displayed onscreen at a given time without reloading sprites midscreen the standard display resolution of the nes is 256 horizontal pixels by 240 vertical pixels video output connections varied from one model of the console to the next the original hvc001 model of the family computer featured only radio frequency rf modulator output when the console was released in north america and europe support for composite video through rca connectors was added in addition to the rf modulator the hvc101 model of the famicom dropped the rf modulator entirely and adopted composite video output via a proprietary 12pin multiout connector first introduced for the super famicomsuper nintendo entertainment system conversely the north american rereleased nes101 model most closely resembled the original hvc001 model famicom in that it featured rf modulator output only finally the playchoice10 utilized an inverted rgb video output the stock nes supports a total of five sound channels two of which are pulse channels with 4 pulse width settings one is a triangle wave generator another is a noise generator often used for percussion and the 5th one plays lowquality digital samples the nes supports expansion chips contained in certain cartridges to add sound channels and help with data processing developers can add these chips to their games such as the konami vrc6 konami vrc7 sunsoft 5b namco 163 and two more by nintendo itself the nintendo fds wave generator a modified ricoh rp2c33 chip with singlecycle wave tablelookup sound support and the nintendo memory management controller 5 mmc5 further information memory management controller accessories see also list of nintendo entertainment system accessories in addition to featuring a revised color scheme that matched the more subdued tones of the console itself nes controllers could be unplugged they nevertheless lacked the microphone featured in famicom controllers controllers the game controller used for both the nes and the famicom featured an oblong bricklike design with a simple four button layout two round buttons labeled a and b a start button and a select button the original model famicom featured two game controllers both of which were hardwired to the back of the console the second controller lacked the start and select buttons but featured a small microphone relatively few games made use of this feature the earliest produced famicom units initially had square a and b buttons this was changed to the circular designs because of the square buttons being caught in the controller casing when pressed down and glitches within the hardware causing the system to freeze occasionally while playing a game instead of the famicoms hardwired controllers the nes features two custom 7pin ports on the front of the console to support swappable and potentially thirdparty controllers the controllers bundled with the nes are identical and include the start and select buttons allowing some nes versions of games such as the legend of zelda to use the start button on the second controller to save the game at any time the nes controllers lack the microphone which is used on the famicom version of zelda to kill certain enemies or for singing with karaoke games the nes zapper a light gun accessory a number of special controllers were designed for use with specific games though were not very popular such devices include the zapper light gun the rob on the nes these special controllers are generally connected to one of the two control ports on the front of the console nintendo made two advanced controllers for the nes called nes advantage and the nes max both controllers have a turbo feature where one press of the button represents multiple automatic rapid presses this feature allows players to shoot much faster in shooter games the nes advantage has two knobs that adjust the firing rate of the turbo button from quick to turbo as well as a slow button that slows down compatible games by rapidly pausing the game the nes max has a nonadjustable turbo feature and no slow feature and has a winglike handheld shape and a sleek directional pad turbo functionality exists on the nes satellite the nes four score and the uforce other accessories include the power pad and the power glove which is featured in the movie the wizard near the end of the ness lifespan upon the release of the av famicom and the toploading nes 2 the design of the game controllers was modified slightly though the original button layout was retained the controllers shape resembles that of the sness controller in addition the av famicom dropped the hardwired controllers in favor of detachable controller ports the controllers included with the famicom av have 90cm 3 feet long cables compared to the 180cm 6 feet of nes controllers the original nes controller has become one of the most recognizable symbols of the console nintendo has mimicked the look of the controller in several other products from promotional merchandise to limited edition versions of the game boy advance japanese accessories the japanese famicom has basic support with the family basic keyboard a number of peripheral devices and software packages were released for the famicom few of these devices were ever released outside japan family basic is an implementation of basic for the famicom packaged with a keyboard similar in concept to the atari 2600 basic cartridge it allows the user to program their own games which can be saved on an included cassette recorder the famicom modem connected a famicom to a now defunct proprietary network in japan which provided content such as financial services a dialup modem was never released for nes family computer disk system the disk system was a peripheral available only for the japanese famicom that used games stored on disk cards with a 3 quick disk mechanism family computer disk system see also memory management controller famicom disk system in 1986 nintendo released the famicom disk system fds in japan a type of floppy drive that uses a singlesided proprietary 5cm 2 disk and plugs into the cartridge port it contains ram for the game to load into and an extra singlecycle wavetablelookup sound chip the disks were originally obtained from kiosks in malls and other public places where buyers could select a title and have it written to the disk this process would cost less than cartridges and users could take the disk back to a vending booth and have it rewritten with a new game the disks were used both for storing the game and saving progress and total capacity was 128k 64k per side further information family computer disk system disk writer and disk fax kiosks a variety of games for the fds were released by nintendo including some which had already been released on cartridge such as super mario bros and third party companies such as konami and taito a few unlicensed titles were made as well its limitations became quickly apparent as larger rom chips were introduced allowing cartridges with greater than 128k of space more advanced memory management chips mmc soon appeared and the fds quickly became obsolete nintendo also charged developers considerable amounts of money to produce fds games and many refused to develop for it instead continuing to make cartridge titles many fds disks have no dust covers except in some unlicensed and bootleg variants and are easily prone to getting dirt on the media in addition the drive uses a belt which breaks frequently and requires invasive replacement after only two years the fds was discontinued although vending booths remained in place until 1993 and nintendo continued to service drives and to rewrite and offer replacement disks until 2003 nintendo did not released the disk system outside japan due to numerous problems encountered with the medium in japan and due to the increasing data storage capacity and reducing cost of the highly reliable cartridge medium as a result many disk system games such as castlevania the legend of zelda zelda and bubble bobble were converted to cartridge format for their export releases resulting in simplified sound and the disk save function replaced by passwords or battery save systems hardware clones pirated clones of nes hardware remained in production for many years after the original had been discontinued some clones play cartridges from multiple systems such as this fc twin that plays nes and snes games nintendo entertainment system hardware clone a thriving market of unlicensed nes hardware clones emerged during the climax of the consoles popularity initially such clones were popular in markets where nintendo never issued a legitimate version of the console in particular the dendy russian an unlicensed hardware clone produced in taiwan and sold in the former soviet union emerged as the most popular video game console of its time in that setting and it enjoyed a degree of fame roughly equivalent to that experienced by the nesfamicom in north america and japan a famicom clone was marketed in argentina under the name of family game resembling the original hardware design the micro genius simplified chinese was marketed in southeast asia as an alternative to the famicom samurai was the popular pal alternative to the nes and in central europe especially poland the pegasus was available the retrousb avs an fpgabased hardware clone of the nes that outputs 720p via hdmi the unlicensed clone market has flourished following nintendos discontinuation of the nes some of the more exotic of these resulting systems have gone beyond the functionality of the original hardware and have included variations such as a portable system with a color lcd eg pocketfami others have been produced with certain specialized markets in mind such as an nes clone that functions as a rather primitive personal computer which includes a keyboard and basic word processing software as was the case with unlicensed software titles nintendo has typically gone to the courts to prohibit the manufacture and sale of unlicensed cloned hardware many of the clone vendors have included builtin copies of licensed nintendo software which constitutes copyright infringement in most countries although most hardware clones were not produced under license by nintendo certain companies were granted licenses to produce nescompatible devices the sharp corporation produced at least two such clones the twin famicom and the sharp 19sc111 television the twin famicom was compatible with both famicom cartridges and famicom disk system disks nes test station the nes test station lower left snes counter tester lower right snes test cart upper right and the original tv that came with the unit upper left the nes test station was a diagnostics machine for the nintendo entertainment system introduced in 1988 it was a nesbased unit designed for testing nes hardware components and games it was only provided for use in world of nintendo boutiques as part of the nintendo world class service program visitors were to bring items to test with the station and could be assisted by a store technician or employee the nes test stations front features a game pak slot and connectors for testing various components ac adapter rf switch audiovideo cable nes control deck accessories and games with a centrallylocated selector knob to choose which component to test the unit itself weighs approximately 117 pounds without a tv it connects to a television via a combined av and rf switch cable by actuating the green button a user can toggle between an av cable or rf switch connection the television it is connected to typically 11 to 14 is meant to be placed atop it at the front of the test station are three colored switches from left to right a green switch for alternating between av and rf connections when testing an nes control deck a blue reset switch and an illuminated red power switch the system can test nes test station ac adapter pass or fail test demonstration game paks when set to this the test station would run like a normal nes control deck and accessories nes controllers the nes zapper rob and power pad av cables ac adapters rf switches upon connecting an rf av or ac adapter to the test station the system displays a pass or fail result there was a manual included with the test station to help the user understand how to use the equipment or how to make repairs the manual came in a black binder with a nintendo world class service logo on the front in 1991 nintendo provided an addon called the super nes counter tester that tests super nintendo components and games the snes counter tester is a standard snes on a metal fixture with the connection from the back of the snes rerouted to the front of the unit these connections may be made directly to the test station or to the tv depending on what is to be tested nintendo portal history of nintendo nintendo hard nintendo world championships nes classic edition notes mwparseroutput refbeginfontsize90marginbottom05emmwparseroutput refbeginhangingindentsulliststyletypenonemarginleft0mwparseroutput refbeginhangingindentsullimwparseroutput refbeginhangingindentsdlddmarginleft0paddingleft32emtextindent32emliststylenonemwparseroutput refbegin100fontsize100 afor distribution purposes europe and australasia were divided into two regions by nintendo the first of these regions consisted of france west germany scandinavia and spain and saw the nes released during 1986 in the netherlands the console was released in q4 of 1987 the console was released in the second region consisting of the united kingdom the republic of ireland and italy as well as australia and new zealand in 1987 bin japan nintendo sold an optional expansion peripheral for the famicom called the famicom disk system which would enable the console to run software from proprietary floppy disks cthe original famicom featured two hardwired game controllers and a single port for additional input devices see game controllers section ethe nes was the overall bestselling system worldwide of its time in japan and the united states it controlled 85 to 90 percent of the market fthe commonly bundled game super mario bros popularized the platform game genre and introduced elements that would be copied in many subsequent games gatari broke off negotiations with nintendo in response to colecos unveiling of an unlicensed port of donkey kong for its coleco adam computer system although the game had been produced without nintendos permission or support atari took its release as a sign that nintendo was dealing with one of its major competitors in the market hdonkey kong jr math and mach rider are often erroneously included in lists of launch titles in reality neither title was available until later in 1986 wikimedia commons has media related to famicom and variants video of nintendo famicom hardware and features from famicomdojotv nintendo entertainment system archived from the original on october 20 2007 at nintendocom archived versions at the internet archive wayback machine nes games list at nintendocom archived from the original at the internet archive wayback machine nintendo entertainment system at curlie nes classic edition official website vtenintendo entertainment system known in japan as the family computer or famicom third generation console accessoriesnintendo manufactured family computer disk system famicom data recorder famicom modem family basic nes advantage nes controller basic nes controller 2 basic nes four score nes max nes satellite nes zapper power pad rob thirdparty aladdin deck enhancer arkanoid controller double player famicoin game genie hes unidaptor homework first jammer laserscope miracle piano power glove pro beam light gun speedboard super controller teleplay modem turbo tech controller turbo touch 360 turbotronic uforce ultimate superstick hardware ricoh 2a03 mos technology 6502 picture processing unit game pak software list of family computer games list of family computer disk system games list of nes games variations nes101 nes classic edition twin famicom sharp nintendo television famicom titler hardware clones predecessor color tv game successor super nintendo entertainment system vtenintendo video game hardwareconsoleshome nes famicom titler twin famicom nes101 sharp nintendo television nes classic edition accessories super nes newstyle sf naizou tv sf1 super nes classic edition nintendo 64 ique player gamecube panasonic q accessories wii wii u switch handheld game boy game boy color virtual boy game boy advance sp micro dockable entertainment pokmon mini nintendo ds lite dsi nintendo 3ds 2ds new 3ds new 2ds xl dedicatedhome color tvgame nes classic edition super nes classic edition handheld game watch mini classics pokmon pikachu arcade vs system playchoice10 super famicom box nintendo super system peripheralsaddons 3d system data recorder disk system satellaview super nes cdrom unreleased super game boy game boy camera game boy printer 64dd rumble pak ereader game boy player connectivity nes four score nes satellite game link cable gcngba link cable controllers family basic nes advantage nes zapper power pad rob speedboard snes mouse super scope nintendo 64 controller gamecube controller wavebird wireless wii balance board wii remote classic controller motionplus wii zapper thirdparty accessories wii speak wii u gamepad wii u pro controller joycon networking family computer network system teleplay modem xband satellaview nintendo wifi usb connector other nintendo power nintendo ds dsi browser amiibo technologymedia nes game pak snes game pak n64 game pak game boy advance video nintendo optical discs nintendo game card processors 2a03 ppu 5a22 gsu rcp gekko broadway hollywood pica200 espresso erista allwinner r16 list of products vtevideo game consoles third generationtypes home video game console list handheld game console list microconsole list dedicated console list generations first 197280 second 197692 third 19832003 fourth 19872004 fifth 19932005 sixth 19982013 seventh 200517 eighth 2012present thirdgenerationhome action max amstrad gx4000 atari 7800 atari xe games system casio pv1000 commodore 64 games system nintendo entertainment system nes101 rdi halcyon sega master system sega sg1000 super cassette vision vtech socrates second generation fourth generation emulator game history list manufacturer vtehome video game consolesatari atari 2600 atari 5200 atari 7800 atari xegs atari jaguar atari vcs bandai super vision 8000 arcadia rx78 playdia apple bandai pippin casio pv1000 casio loopy commodore commodore 64 games system commodore cdtv amiga cd32 mattel intellivision hyperscan microsoft xbox xbox 360 xbox one nec turbografx16 pcfx nintendo nes snes n64 gamecube wii wii u switch philips magnavox odyssey odyssey videopac g7400 philips cdi sega sg1000 master system sega genesis sega saturn dreamcast snk neo geo neo geo cd sony playstation playstation 2 psx playstation 3 playstation 4 vtech vtech creativision socrates vsmile vflash others1970s apfmp1000 bally astrocade fairchild channel f rca studio ii interton vc 40001292 advanced programmable video system 1980s action max arcadia 2001 colecovision epoch cassette vision super cassette vision rdi halcyon vectrex viewmaster interactive vision 1990s 3do interactive multiplayer amstrad gx4000 cps changer fm towns marty laseractive super acan 2000s discover evo smart console game wave nuon xavix zeebo list authority control gnd 45181950 