Nintendo Systems

**What is Nintendo Systems?**

The Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) or simply called Nintendo Systems was the game system that revived the moribund North American video game market following the 1983 crash. Based on the Nintendo Famicom, it ushered in the modern age of console gaming, its influence strong to this day.

The Nintendo Systems is an 8-bit video game console that was released by Nintendo in 1985, in Europe, Australia and North America. In most of Asia, it was released as the Family Computer, also known as the Famicom, or simply called FC, including Japan, Philippines, Vietnam, Taiwan and Singapore. This Nintendo System was known as the Tata Famicom in Southern Asia such as India.

For the best-selling gaming console of its time, following the video game crash of 1983, the Nintendo Systems helped revitalize the US video game industry, and for subsequent consoles in everything from controller layout to game design, had set the standard. With the Nintendo System, in addition, Nintendo introduced for third-party developers, a now-standard business model of software licensing.

On the market, The Nintendo System was the most advanced system when it was released, like most game consoles before and since. Its innovations came in the form of input hardware, internal hardware, and software. Originally the Nintendo Systems came in two bundles: the “Deluxe Set” ($249 US), containing the system, two controllers, Nintendo NES Zapper, Nintendo NES R.O.B. (Robotic Operating Buddy), and two games (Duck Hunt, and Gyromite). The “Action Set” ($199 US) that omitted the R.O.B. and replaced Gyromite with Super Mario Bros. Almost every component of this package was a step above what came before.

The Nintendo Systems Console itself was built around the 2A03 processor, a variant of the common 6502 used in most 8-bit home computers including the Apple II. The 2A03 lacked the 6502’s added integrated sound hardware and mostly superfluous decimal mode. The sound hardware was simple by modern standards but advanced by 1985 standards. With two square wave generators, it also contained a simple synthesizer, one triangle wave generator, a single-channel DAC and a noise generator. The Nintendo System resulting sounds replaced the bland beeps and bloops of the Atari 2600 and its contemporaries with distinctive sound effects and simple music, which developers were able to leverage to considerable effect.

The Nintendo Systems most revolutionary component hardware was its controller, the archetype of all video game controllers for the last twenty years, such as Nintendo Game Boy System. It replaced paddle controllers and the joysticks of earlier system with the now standard two-hand controller, with trigger buttons on the right, directional controls on the left and game control buttons in the middle. With the quick movements, Gumpei Yokoi’s invention of the D-pad fit perfectly onto the Nintendo System controller, it allows improving gameplay over the long-throw joysticks it replaced. The D-pad would be the de facto standard directional control until the introduction of the analog thumbstick a decade later.

The Nintendo Entertainment System or NES, the system that brought back the North American console industry, is now, just a memory and a relic next to the shiny new 3D game systems in the minds of the general public. Modern computers and systems can fully emulate the once-complex Nintendo Systems hardware in software with power to spare, pseudo-photorealistic 3D graphics are the norm, and video game controls use a complicated combination of buttons, triggers, thumbsticks and D-pads. Even the portable gaming world has entered the 3D era with the release of the Nintendo Ds System, Nintendo DS Lite System, PlayStation Portable and Nintendo Wii System. Nevertheless, some people prefer the days where simple sound required and blocky 2D graphics gameplay to be the only differentiator between bad games and good games, and when difficulty, not complexity, was the main option for providing replay value. For these people, then, the NES or Nintendo Systems will never die.

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