Super NintendoThough in
the planning stages for years, the Super Nintendo Entertainment
System (SNES), was immediately stepped up for production when sales
for the 8-bit NES had begun to decline in early 1991.
The head of the design team for the original NES, Masayuki Uemura
was again commissioned as the architect for the new console.
President of Nintendo, Hiroshi Yamauchi asked Uemura that he explore
the option of making the new 16-bit system compatible with the
millions of cartridges they had sold for the 8-bit NES. He knew that
cross-compatibility was a major factor in the success of a
second-generation system.
As before, Uemera's primary goal in designing the SNES was to keep
production costs down as much as possible. He found that in order to
make the new system compatible with NES cartridges, a minimum $75
would have to be tacked on to the cost of each unit. Instead of
opting for this, Yamauchi decided to make an NES cartridge adapter
available at a later date; though none was ever introduced (note:
the unlicensed Super Eight converter from Innovation for $59.95 does
allow NES cartridges to be played on the SNES).
Uemera added several impressive features to the SNES. It is capable
of producing 32,768 total colors. It also has the capability of
dividing backgrounds into multiple layers, as could Nintendo's main
competitor Sega's Genesis. This opened up a new three-dimensional
realm for game designers.
On the bottom of the SNES, Uemera designed a special expansion port.
It allows a CD-ROM player to be plugged in. Nintendo intended to
introduce this component when they had more fully developed the
technology. They spent years designing a CD-ROM peripheral with both
Sony and Phillips. In 1994 Nintendo announced the termination of the
project. They announced that they would instead be focusing their
attention to a new cartridge based 64-bit system that later became
the Nintendo 64.
Close to 4 million Super Famicons (the Japanese name for the SNES)
had been sold in Japan by the time it had been introduced in the
United States. Nintendo was having difficulty keeping the product in
stock in Japanese stores. In America sales figures turned out to be
a different story. The SNES retailed for a reasonable $199.99 but
16-bit systems like the Sega Genesis and NEC's TurboGrafx-16 had
already made an impact on the US market. Upon its introduction to
the United States SNES had only a few cartridges available, at the
same time, the Sega Genesis had one hundred. Somehow Nintendo had to
catch up to its 16-bit competitors.
In order to immediately increase the number of titles for the SNES,
Nintendo decided to alter its policy for outside game manufacturers.
Nintendo would not restrict companies to design games only for their
system. They would allow their licensees to produce three games a
year, but to encourage a standard of quality; they instituted their
own rating system. If a third party game was impressive enough to
receive a rating of thirty or more points, Nintendo would not count
it as one of the three.
Nintendo would still receive a twenty percent royalty for every
third party game manufactured. Eventually many superior games were
made for the SNES and though it gained in popularity up until 1996
with the introduction of the Nintendo 64, there was never a
clear-cut winner in its battle with Sega's Genesis system.
In early 1992, Nintendo made a major move to attract gamers to its
system by releasing the Super Scope. Obviously inspired by the NES
Zapper light gun, but much different in design, this wireless
bazooka includes a receiver that plugs into the controller port.
Sporting a gun sight, a shoulder mount and hand grip, it runs on 6
AA batteries and retailed for $49.95. It was packaged with the Super
Scope 6 cartridge that contained six shooting games. Other software
titles that are compatible with the Super Scope are: Terminator 2:
The Arcade Game, Tin Star, X-Zone, Metal Combat: Falcon's Revenge,
Battle Clash, Bazooka Blitzkrieg, Lamborghini American Challenge and
Yoshi's Safari
Keeping potential future sales in mind, one of Nintendo's main
interests became attracting young children to the SNES. Later, in
the fall of 1992, Nintendo introduced the Mario Paint program giving
users the opportunity to interactively paint pictures and create
cartoon animation. Homemade cartoons can be set to music by using a
selection of automated instruments. The SNES Mouse was introduced
with the release of Mario Paint, and though the mouse was
undoubtedly intended for other gaming purposes, it was not utilized
often. Games compatible with the SNES mouse include: Jurassic Park,
Civilization, Lemmings 2: The Tribes, Advanced Dungeons and Dragons:
Eye of the Beholder and Shien's Revenge.
Like the NES console, there is a multiplayer adapter available for
the SNES, however it is not manufactured by Nintendo. The Super
MultiTap allows up to five players on the system at one time. When
it was introduced, the MultiTap sold for $59 and came packaged with
the Super Bomberman game. Other SNES multi-player games include:
Madden '97, NHL '97, NBA Live '97, Lord of the Rings and Firestriker.
Over 600 games have been released for American SNES systems. The
most popular games have been: Super Mario All-Stars, Donkey Kong
Country, F-Zero, Super Metroid, Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past
and Super Mario Kart.
— Dave Beuscher
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