Things weren’t all bright and sunny after the early console revisions crashed, but by the end of 1984 the Famicom was Japan’s best-selling video game console with over 2.5 million units. displaced. Nintendo didn’t break into the video game market in North America proper until 1985, but it did manage to enter the arcades thanks to the Nintendo VS. System, which was largely based on Famicom hardware. The rest, as they say, is history.
Incredibly, while the NES was discontinued in 1995 in North America and Europe, the Famicom was still in production in Japan until 2003. The very last Famicom was manufactured on September 25, 2003.
The Famicom (and NES) has sold 61.91 million units since its release. It’s the home of so many Nintendo franchises – Super Mario Bros.; THE Legend of Zelda; metroid; Kid Icarus; Mother. It’s also the console where many huge third-party series got their start, such as Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, Mega Man, Castlevania, Contra, and many more. Tons of popular franchises, such as Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Batman, and even Disney with DuckTales have jumped on the bandwagon and spawned classics.
It’s safe to say that even if you’ve never owned an NES, you’ve probably played more than a few of the games on the console – whether in a compilation, remaster or remake, the legacy of the NES speaks for itself. And many of them are available on the Nintendo Switch Online service.
In the space of a few years, Nintendo has grown from a humble Japanese toymaker to one of the biggest names in the technology and entertainment industry. He saved the reputation of the video game industry in the West, and quickly became THE video game developer. There’s a reason your parents probably ask you if you “play your Nintendo” regardless of what console you’re actually plugged into.