The original Super Nintendo Entertainment System was a fourth-generation video gaming console that utilised 16-bit video and was released between the years of 1990 and 1993. This was the second home video gaming console produced by the Nintendo entertainment system and was a cartridge-based gaming system. During the 16-bit gaming era, the super Nintendo was one of the best selling home video gaming consoles at that time. This home gaming console also remained as popular all the way into the fifth generation, or the 32-bit era.
As an attempt to compete against the Nintendo Entertainment System, two home video gaming consoles were released. The first of these consoles was a TurboGrafx 16 while the second was the Sega Genesis. Since these consoles were released it would mean that Nintendo would no longer control the video gaming industry, Nintendo decided to start development on their Super Nintendo.
This unit was first released in Japan in 1990 and became an instant success, selling over 300,000 units within the first couple of hours after release. As a matter of fact, this gaming console was so successful, that the Japanese mafia, known as the Yakuza, had planned to steal some of the units. The Nintendo Corporation then decided to cancel all the shipments at night time in order to reduce any possibility of theft.
Within a year, this home gaming console was ready to be released throughout the United Kingdom, featuring a PAL regional lockout. These units were launched with only a couple of games, but due to the rivalry between Nintendo and Sega they were soon able to increase the number of games thanks to third-party developers.
Throughout 1992 Sega and Nintendo were in a console war and continuously dropped their prices in order to beat each other in the 32-bit generation of the home gaming console.
Although the Nintendo Corporation had utilised 3rd party developers, they also had exclusive control over every single title that was released to the system, as well as each game being required to be approved by the company itself. Due to fierce rivalry between Nintendo and Sega, Nintendo was forced to remove this exclusive design contract with the third party developers. This also led to the future of censorship in the video gaming consoles. It was at this time the game Mortal Kombat was released featuring blood splashing as well as the finishing death moves which forced several senators to hold a congressional hearing. These hearings backed the rating of any future game released after that point. Nintendo had decided to release their version of Mortal Kombat II, with the ratings on the box which was a completely uncensored version as compared with Sega’s version.
The Super Nintendo remained extremely popular and well into 1994, especially with their rare released version of Donkey Kong Country. This led Nintendo to sell over 6.1 million units during the 1994 Christmas season.
Still, today the Super Nintendo is considered to be an extremely popular piece of the video gaming industry's history.
Original Authors: Gobel Team (Nick)
Edit Update Authors: M.A.Harris
Updated On: 21/05/2008
