Who did not play with a Super Nintendo in the 90s in the places of ‘little machines’? Who was lucky enough to have one of these consoles at home? What for many was a dream, today is a relic and precisely this 2020 turns 30.
The Super Nintendo became the great workhorse of this company in the 90s, after the success of the Game Boy years before.
If we talk about the chronology of the consoles that were enchanting gamers in other times, there is the Magnavox Odyssey with 4 bits, the Atari 2600 or Nintendo NES with 8 bits, which were considered from the first to third generation. The fourth would consider 16-bit and three-dimensional games.
By then the best-selling console was the Nintendo NES, followed by the Sega Genesis, which reached sales of US $ 30.75 million (about 23 billion pesos). But the company founded by Fusajiro Yamauchi had its new weapon ready: the Super Nintendo.
In 1987 it was introduced in Japan as the ‘Super Famicom Computer’ with a test set, the DragonFly (later renamed Pilotwings). Two years later another demonstration was made, but this time with a game that became a classic: Super Mario World.
In the end, it was on November 21, 1990 that the Super Famicom was launched for US $ 210 of the time (about 330 thousand Chilean pesos). Only in Japan 300 thousand units were sold in hours, which forced to expand production.
It is said that the success of this console was so much that Nintendo chose to distribute its products at night, to avoid theft by the Yakuza, the Japanese mafia.
A year later, on August 23, 1991, this item was released in the United States but renamed the Super Nintendo Entertainment System, which ended up being the name with which it became popular at the time. The price at that time reached about 300 thousand Chilean pesos, to be able to acquire one.
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More than 49 million units were sold worldwide, making it the best-selling 16-bit console of the era. This came hand in hand with the success of great titles that also went down in history, such as Mario World, Star Fox, The legend of Zelda: A link to the past o Super Metroid, to name a few.
What made it so popular?
The graphics presented by the Super Nintendo at the time were revolutionary, along with epic soundtracks, customers were delighted with the games.
“It was a console that came with technical innovations that allowed the introduction of graphic elements that until then were not available for a home console. As for 3D graphic examples “, explained Julio César Marambio, general manager of Octeto Studios and member of VideoGames Chile, in conversation with the newspaper Third.
In addition, the console paved the way for fifth-generation consoles of 3D titles, as was the Donkey Kong Country o Star Fox. And it also allowed arcade games like Street Fighter II o Mortal Kombat they were also present, so it was a very complete alternative.
In the end, the Super Nintendo managed to give the pass to the Nintendo 64 that years later also revolutionized the market. Today the most nostalgic can still play the titles with the Super Nintendo Classic Mini, a miniature edition of the SNES, which was released in 2017.
Did you have the opportunity to play with one of these consoles?
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