25 years of the NES by GBAXE

So 25 years ago today, The United States of America was able to see the limited release of the Nintendo Entertainment System by a company we have never heard of from a land far away in the east. This same land was already able to enjoy this machine two years prior under the title of the Famicom & The West was just recovering the follies & mismanagement that the video game market dug into through poor distribution & saturation in the early eighties that nearly painted a foreboding premonition on the success of the new stalwart NES, it was the surprise that not only became the gateway for the market to thrive again, but the exposure of many of us today into one of our favorite past times including myself.

Personally it's very hard for me to call the NES the best system of all time & I believe that I may not be the only one, I will say that it is definitely the most significant console however. The NES had been given the advantage of knowing the market it was coming to & researching from a market that it already established in it's origin of the east. The first thing I wanted to point were the cosmetic changes of the console itself, though it doesn't sound like prevalent point to make right away but it ties into the overall scheme of things that I hold strongly to this retrospective. where the Famicom mostly represented the soon-to-be standard top loading cartridge format which was even done in a NES revision in the later end of the consoles life cycle, however the NES was designed to load cartridges in the front with cover-door that opened & closed to protect the cartridge slot. Why do you completely redesign the look & feel of the console? Nintendo applied the same practice & pitch that it does with the Wii & that is  the concept of welcoming approach & accessibility. The first step in trying to re-ignite & generate a market again was presentation, the look will be the first thing that will lead to the appeal of the console & the NES was purposely designed to resemble the most popular American home entertainment machine being the VCR. The second major feature in my opinion which has become a standard that is still used even to this day is the directional pad, an evolution of the Intelivision discus from it's respective controller, the D-pad along with the effective control lay-out of the "B" & "A" button allowed for precision unlike any other console or even arcade game before it being one of the most pivotal point of success the system had with software that properly took ad=vantage of it & even applied innovative interfaces to take advantage of the simple yet effective controller lay-out. The is the second theme that I want to point out towards the success & legacy the NES obtained, it was a system that became more then just something that came from another country, it was tailored for us, made for a culture far different from whence it came & was managed in the same independent fashion.

Granted Nintendo treated it's licensing & distribution right with Third-party companies fervently to the point where it might as well have been a monopoly, but with coming from a product crash in the same market earlier within the same decade which was mostly caused by the saturation of released software leads to me to begrudgingly credit Nintendo on this as well. Given that the Nintendo had a fine hold on what it was doing with the NES this then gave the opportunity for quality software be released, Nintendo also had the experience of developing first party properties like Donkey Kong & Mario Bros. for the arcades which were ported over to different consoles it now had a home platform of it's own to work with & strong one at that though not the strongest launch at all, the NES came out with seventeen games including the classics of Mach Ride, Wild Gun, & Duck Hunt. The hit Application which also happens to be sharing the same 25th anniversary of the NES, Super Mario Bros. helped generate mass market appeal in a move that also showed the care & difference within the Nintendo (for more on the 25th anniversary of Super Mario Bros. click here for an awesome piece that was already done by Sean). Nintendo was confident in Super Mario Bros. from the reception that it had received in Japan & bundled it in with NES consoles it started selling it the action set along with it's other hit app Duck Hunt through the Nintendo Zapper accessory which also came bundled in with it, Nintendo had it's audience, Kids & even young adults were interested in what it had to offer, but just like winning over the girl of your dreams, you're going to have to follow up on your new relationship & Nintendo did just that.

Franchises that we still play even to this day can all find their roots as early their initial release on the Nintendo Entertainment system, my favorite Third-Party company Capcom already had it start in the arcade market but it didn't hit it's stride until it became a home entertainment giant with hits like Megaman 2 & Bionic Commando which innovated on formulas that were established by previous games for Nintendo mainly Super Mario Bros. & Metroid, the games that followed suit for the most part were games that tried to innovate upon what was known to work within it's life span & created life changing experiences on the console that can never be topped or forgotten looking back & with a console had first time risks & misses that can be considered unforgivable even to this day, this console was innovated upon on & on again. The advantage all goes to really being the first gaming console that had the exposure & potential to do so, it also played to it's strengths, a console that was released during the popular era of arcade play outside of the home, developers learned to cater to it's home audience with experiences that couldn't even be emulated by a far more superior arcade system & became personable, to everyone along with it's open market to licenses for famous film & media (despite the actual quality behind said software) the Nintendo only worked to gain more of it's audience & work to cater to it's fanbase that it cemented, so much so that we the gamers ourselves became the viral marketing that even Nintendo couldn't anticipate, the discussion of exchanged strategies on how to win against Soda Popinski in Punch-out by the Swing Set or rumors of a Secret item in Castlevania 2 during the spelling test, these are personal experiences of my own, couple with the millions of other moments that transcended this media known of video games back into the social level where it wasn't obscure, the NES did this.

The Last thing that I want to say is reference back to my point that I had personally made earlier within this article, how I felt the NES was the most significant system in my life, not for the root of exposure for my favorite past time but for the fact that when it comes right down to it, The NES was a stepping stone for the many great games & consoles that came after it, though it didn't start the market & it wasn't the first, it was the platform that made the right decision & provided many different models both technically & business wise to be improved upon, Service Games AKA Sega may never have even considered first party development had it not been for the success of the NES which leads into Sony & so forth jumping on board, a market that had transformed into a billion dollar industry that motivated developers & publishers to provide experiences that could only be expunged by the cruelty of elderly senility, a catalyst that ignited everything we enjoy today & appreciate to be apart of.

So let us continue to be grateful for the NES & continue to pay our respects to the system as it wasn't just considered by many to be their first system, it was more than that...

Comments

[Dustin]

Well said!

It's hard to overstate the influence of this system--it was the first I played (though not the first I owned) and back in my day "Nintendo" was the generic name for consoles like "iPod" is for MP3 players today. The controller basically set down the standard arrangement for every controller since. And the games were awesome!