Released in North America in 1986, the NES was a newcomer to a market that had all but failed. Due to a number of factors a “Video games Market Crash” occured in 1983. Parents throughout the nation considered video games a mind rotting waste of time. Arcades were seen as places of ill-repute, Crawling with alleged drug dealing degenerates. Things were not looking good for the video games industry.
The NES faced a difficult road to success. However, through clever marketing. And a dedication to ensuring the highest quality in all software released for the system. The Nintendo Entertainment system was a runaway hit. Breathing new life into the failed video game industry and building a platform for video game consoles to thrive for the next 30+ years, and still going strong.
The NES pushes the industry to new heights
The success of the NES created a renewed interest in video games. In consumers and developers of video game hardware and software alike. Competition is the basis of the capitalist, free market, business model. That being said, when an idea is successful, imitators and innovators will follow. In 1989 Sega brought the Genesis to North American consumers. This, in turn, uped the ante for everyone in the industry. The Sega Genesis, in theory, was twice as powerful as the NES. Being a 16 bit console, Sega had forced a new generation. As a result, Nintendo would move forward with their own 16 bit hardware. Nintendo then released their 16 bit Super Nintendo a year later.
Video games continued to get bigger and better with every generation. With Sony’s new Playstation, The Sega Saturn, and the Nintendo 64. The industry would move into another generation of innovative video game experiences. This trend is still going today. The biggest players in the industry, Playstation and Microsoft’s Xbox consoles, owe much of what they are to Nintendo. In fact, the d-pad, multiple face button layout, even shoulder buttons and analog joysticks are directly responsible for modern controller design, even to this day. Nintendo revolutionized all of these things in their hardware designs. Now they continue to drive the market, by being the example to follow.
Once again the NES has changed the way that consumers buy video games
The NES Classic Edition
In much the same way that the NES saved a failed video games market in the US, it is now driving a new segment of the industry. Nintendo released a miniaturized, plug and play version of the NES in 2016. The NES Classic is a mini-replica of the Nintendo Entertainment System with 30 classic games built-in. It was highly successful and led way to the Super Nintendo Classic Edition a year later. And now Sony is taking interest in this segment of the market. Enter the Playstation Classic, released December 3, 2018 in North America.
Sony’s Playstation Classic
The Nintendo Entertainment System reinvented the video game market in 1986. And now, a small version of the console with built-in games is leading a small segment of the industry today. The NES also spurred a market of clone consoles like the Retron line of emulation based consoles from Hyperkin and new fpga (field programmable gate array) based solutions used in consoles like the Analog NT. In many ways, the NES is arguably the most important console in the history of video games.
According to Nintendo, in recent statements, The NES and SNES Classic Edition Consoles will be discontinued after this holliday season. Will we see a N64 Classic? Will there be a Gameboy Classic? We will just have to wait and see. Keep it locked here for news on Nintendo’s next Classic Edition Consoles!
