50 Fun Facts About NES

In what year was the Famicom released in Japan?

It launched on July 15, 1983, the same day as Sega's SG-1000.

Where did the NES first go on sale as a US test market in October 1985?

Los Angeles followed in February 1986 and the nationwide launch came that September.

Which engineer designed the 8-bit Famicom?

Uemura headed Nintendo Research & Development 2 from 1978.

Which Nintendo president demanded a simple, cheap console that ran arcade games?

He personally decided the controller layout, casing shape and red-and-white look.

The Famicom's hardware was based on that of which Nintendo arcade game?

The team even took a cabinet to chip maker Ricoh for analysis.

Which pair redesigned the console as the NES for Western markets?

They nicknamed the Japanese prototype they were sent "the lunchbox".

The Western NES was styled to resemble which household appliance?

The front-loading slot hid the cartridge once inserted, just like a VCR tape.

What was the name of the NES light gun?

It shipped in the Deluxe Set with Duck Hunt.

What does R.O.B. stand for?

The toy robot helped position the NES as cutting-edge rather than as a mere game console.

Which console was the NES's main rival in the third generation?

The Master System outsold the NES in Europe for much of the 1980s.

Roughly how many NES and Famicom consoles did Nintendo sell?

The exact figure is 61.91 million, most of them in Japan and North America.

In what year did Nintendo discontinue the NES in North America and Europe?

The Famicom carried on in Japan until 2003.

What was the Famicom project's codename during development?

The final name was suggested by the lead engineer's wife.

Who proposed the name "Famicom"?

She argued it was neither a personal nor a home computer but a "family computer".

What inspired the Famicom's red and white colour scheme?

The president spotted a hoarding for DX Antenna using those colours.

Which American console set the bar for the Famicom, according to its designer?

Its smooth port of Donkey Kong impressed the project manager's family.

Which chip maker produced the Famicom's Picture Processing Unit?

Ricoh also built the console's CPU, an unlicensed 6502 variant.

Who designed the Famicom's sound chip?

Kaneoka, who composed Donkey Kong, wanted a chip that could render more waveforms than rivals.

At whose suggestion was a cartridge eject lever added, purely to amuse children?

Yokoi also designed the cross-shaped D-pad for Game & Watch.

The D-pad and two-button layout came from which earlier Nintendo product line?

Joysticks were rejected for fear children would step on them.

What unusual feature did the Famicom's second controller include?

It lacked Start and Select, and very few games used the mic.

What was the Famicom's launch price in Japan?

It was still less than half the cost of rival consoles.

Which of these was one of the Famicom's three launch games?

All three launch titles were arcade ports: Donkey Kong, Donkey Kong Jr. and Popeye.

Which Sega console launched in Japan on the same day as the Famicom?

It failed to gain traction as fourteen rival makers left the market.

What fee did third-party Famicom developers pay Nintendo from 1984?

That cut became the standard platform-holder model for decades.

Which company was originally going to distribute the console in North America?

The deal collapsed at the 1983 Summer CES after Atari's CEO was fired.

Under what name was the console first shown to Americans at the January 1985 CES?

It had a keyboard, cassette drive and wireless controllers, and drew a lukewarm response.

Which 1984 arcade line brought Famicom games to American arcades?

The VS. System sold nearly 100,000 cabinets and was 1985's highest-grossing arcade machine in the US.

What nickname did Nintendo of America's designers give the Japanese prototype?

Their redesign added a two-tone gray scheme and a VCR-style front loader.

Which marketing manager coined the terms "Game Pak" and "Control Deck"?

The new vocabulary helped toy stores accept a console so soon after the 1983 crash.

How many games were in the NES's North American launch line-up?

They ranged from 10-Yard Fight to Wrecking Crew, with Super Mario Bros. among them.

Which toy company distributed the NES in its first American year?

Its salesmen told retailers they had to stock the NES to get Teddy Ruxpin and Lazer Tag.

What was the name of the NES lock-out chip that blocked unlicensed games?

Regional versions of the chip also enforced region locking.

What causes the NES's infamous blinking red power light?

The chip resets the console once per second when it cannot talk to the cartridge.

What was the 1993 redesigned NES controller nicknamed?

Its shape loosely echoed the SNES pad.

Which game came in the 1985 Deluxe Set alongside Duck Hunt?

Gyromite used the R.O.B. robot, which was also in the box.

Which home computer's popularity stymied the NES in the United Kingdom?

A 1990 Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles bundle finally lifted European sales past the Master System.

Which unlicensed Famicom clone became Russia's most popular console?

Made in Taiwan and sold by Steepler, it shifted six million units.

Under what name was the NES sold in South Korea?

In India it was the Samurai Electronic TV Game System.

The NES CPU was an unlicensed variant of which 8-bit chip?

Nintendo disabled its binary-coded decimal mode to dodge patent issues with MOS's owner, Commodore.

How many sound channels does the NES audio unit support?

Two pulse, one triangle, one noise and one sample channel.

Which licensed NES game shipped in a gold cartridge instead of gray?

Zelda II: The Adventure of Link got the same treatment.

Which label did Konami create to dodge Nintendo's five-titles-a-year limit?

Publishers also had to order at least 10,000 cartridges and develop exclusively for the NES.

What did the 1991 FTC settlement require Nintendo to send to NES game buyers?

Anyone who bought a game between June 1988 and December 1990 qualified.

What did Tengen call the chip it reverse-engineered to bypass the lock-out?

Atari's subsidiary also obtained the chip's description from the Patent Office under false pretences.

Which rental chain did Nintendo sue over game rentals?

Nintendo lost the main case but won a ban on photocopied instruction booklets.

The Famicom Disk add-on's floppy format was based on which company's Quick Disk?

It launched in Japan in February 1986 at ¥15,000.

Which Capcom cartridge undercut the Disk add-on's storage edge four months after launch?

Known in the US as Ghosts 'n Goblins, it used discrete logic chips for bank switching.

Which unreleased NES accessory did Nintendo show at CES in 1987?

An advert promised "Now you're knitting with power!"

The 1986 Famicombox was a pay-to-play Famicom built for which venues?

In 2026, some were found still running in a Japanese love hotel.