Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES)
With Nintendo losing its hold on the market in Japan, Nintendo released the
16-bit Super Famicom (SNES). The Super Famicom was made to be more powerful than
its competitors. Internally it had a Sony made sound chip for superior sound
quality to anything out there and its graphics hardware was designed for
versatility. It had several resoultion modes, plenty of available colors and
onscreen characters and also it had simple math functions to preform 3D
manipulation. The way the system was designed made it so that programmers had to
use less onscreen characters and/or 3D effect to make a game that was comparable
to the competition in number colors and speed. Because of this Nintendo had to
use a special graphics chip in its second cartridge for the system, Pilotwings,
simply to make the graphics the way Nintendo wanted them to.
The fourth Super Mario Bros. game, Super Mario World, accompanied the Super
Famicom in its release and it was extremely successful. Nintendo sold out of
everything within a few days of release. During the following year games such as
Castlevania IV, Actraiser and Super R-Type got a warm receival, also fans and a
lot of others anticipated the arrival of the sequel to Legend of Zelda 2, Legend
of Zelda: A Link to the Past and also a new Final Fantasy game which was slated
for release.
After the success of Super Mario Bros. 3 Nintendo was confident about the
future release of the Super Nintendo (SFC) in the US. With 16-Bit games already
taking the spotlight, Nintendo had to take back ground that they were already
losing to Sega's Genesis. And in Christmas 1991 Nintendo had made all of the
modifications needed for the Super Famicom and it was released in the US under
the name Super NES.
After years of development and planning Nintendo came up with an idea for an
addon for the SNES called the Super NES CD-ROM. After having problems with
creating the device and other conflicts the addon was canned. Nintendo then
moved on to alternatives to the CD-ROM. This included the Super FX chip which
was used in Star Fox in 1993 and later in Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island.
The development of the CD-ROM addon can be fought as a reason for Sony entering
the console system as Nintendo was working with them on a while for creating the
device.
During the SNES' reign, Congress scheduled hearings on violence in games.
Nintendo tried to say they were "family oriented" but after being shot
down by congress about their bazooka like light gun the Super Scope 6 and the
lack of popularity for the bloodless Mortal Kombat, Nintendo removed the
restraints on violence and worked with others on creating a video game rating
system.
In Japan, Nintendo launched a device called the Satellaview. The Satellaview
allowed a link up to a network that allowed users to download games for
temporary use. Sega had a similar service in the US but Nintendo saw no need to
compete in the US. During a low point with N64 this device was turned back to
because of its ability to play games such as Link to the Past with new dungeons.
To strenghten the console, Nintendo of America released Super Metroid, Stunt
Race FX, Super Punch-Out and Super Mario All-Stars. But just when the world
started to think of the SNES as outdated, Rare, a long-time game developer for
Nintendo, had pioneered the technology to create Donkey Kong Country's special
look. This new technology lengthed the span of the SNES for a few years.
Nintendo continued creating new games for the SNES such as DKC 3 and Tetris
Attack. At the end of the SNES' life span when creating the N64 games Nintendo
"relived" its successes of the past from 8-bit and 16-bit systems and
used them for the N64. They created Super Mario 64, Pilotwings, Star Fox 64 and
Mario Kart 64 all four of which had related games on the SNES.
Provided by Nintendo
Intense
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