NES
More info
- Owner
- Nintendo
- Released
- 1983 (Japan), 1985 (US)
- Type
- Games console
- CPU
- Ricoh 2A03 (a 6502 variant)
- Units sold
- about 62 million
The console that revived a dead market — by controlling exactly who was allowed to release games for it.
The Famicom launched in Japan in 1983 and was an immediate hit. When Nintendo went into the US in 1985 the words "video game" were poison in retail, so the machine was marketed as a toy with a robot and a light gun and named the Nintendo Entertainment System. Inside sat a variant of the 6502 and, crucially, the 10NES lockout chip that refused to start cartridges without Nintendo's matching part.
The licensing agreements limited how many titles a publisher could release per year and required Nintendo to manufacture the cartridges. The control was tight enough to attract US regulatory scrutiny, but it worked: Super Mario Bros., The Legend of Zelda and Metroid gave the platform a library that made the console the standard again, with over 60 million sold.