27 May, 2008 |

Nintendo Systems (NES)

About 23 years ago, the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) was introduced to the American public and it got a resounding approval. This was the video game console of the century. NES brought life to a dying industry. The collapse of Atari and ColecoVision were quickly forgotten.

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NES became as American as McDonalds and was the leading video game player for the next decade. It simply white washed the competition. NES become synonymous with video games. Nintendo became rich, super rich and it rivaled Hollywood movies in earning power.

In one decade it sold over 60 million consoles and helped revitalize the American video game industry. NES became the standard and set the standard for designs, platforms, controllers and layout of machines. The 8 bit NES was more than a video game player. Besides the two peripherals, the console also had an external Zapper light gun and a toy like robot called R.O.B.

It was not the status of the device which made NES proud or famous. It was a game called Super Mario Bros. This game became the single most sold game for over a decade. Everyone was addicted to it. NES revealed the world of Mario Bros and everything went straight up. The future of video games had never looked brighter.

NES maintained a strong monopoly of its games and released such great classis as Mike Tyson’s Punch Out, Metroid, Battle Toads and Mega Man.

Nintendo continued strong in the early 90s but by now the newer generation of video game consoles had hit the market. NES released it last game in 1994 and the empire evolved to Super Nintendo in 1994.