More Power

Japan in 1987 saw hot competition between the Famicom and Sega Mark III. The same went for the American market with the NES and Master System. On September 9, realizing that it was only a matter of time before their console would age, then-Nintendo president Hiroshi Yamauchi formally announced the beginning of the Super Famicom's development. Like its predecessor, its development was led by Masayuki Uemura. Days later, a price of ¥20,000 was announced. But the war heated up on October 30, when electronic company NEC brought out their PC Engine. It was marketed as 16-bit to boast that it's more state-of-the-art than the competition, when in reality it ran on an 8-bit CPU and 16-bit graphics chip. Still, it never really garnered as much ground as its opponents would. It wasn't until August 30 the next year that the first handful of games for the Super Famicom were revealed, including Super Mario Bros. 4 (subtitle for Super Mario World), Dragon Quest V, Zelda 3, and two others. Back on the Famicom, on October 23, 1988, Nintendo released their biggest game yet, Super Mario Bros. 3. Not only was it a massive success that bolstered sales of the 8-bit console, it dealt a sizable blow to the Mega Drive as it came out six days later!

Proto-atypical

It wasn't until a month later on November 21 that a working prototype of the Super Famicom was demonstrated to the press. Slated for release in July 1989, it had a reset button, power switch, and a mysterious "FAMICOM" switch whose supposed function you can read about here. All three were long, narrow, and sat in front of each other on one side. The eject button is white and rests over the front curve. On the right side, there was a headphone jack and volume dial, like the Sega Mega Drive had. The front featured two relatively small controller ports that, as seen on the left image, seem to not be compatible with the controller shown. Also on the front was an external port.














The general consensus among software creators concerning the new console was very positive.

On July 28, 1989, Nintendo showcased a second, nearly complete prototype of the Super Famicom and gave a new release date of "a year later at the earliest". The delay was due to semiconductor shortages, also why the price was raised to ¥25,000. The overall appearance has been finalized, except for a couple of differences from the release: The power switch was still red, although in its final shape; The headphone jack was still present on the right side; The controller ports were changed so the controllers can plug in; And the external port was changed slightly to have a small cover that slides over to protect it from dust.
In 2024, on a Yahoo! Auctions listing in Japan, a prototype surfaced that's almost identical to this one and went for over ¥1,000,000!














In August, starting with the Genesis and TurboGrafx-16 releasing within two weeks of each other, the three-front war arrived in the United States. With how successful Super Mario Bros. 3 was in Japan, and the excitement the game brought to Americans in the movie The Wizard in December, the game was a smash hit when they released it in February 1990. This was an obvious but brilliant move because this bought Nintendo more time to finish development on the Super Famicom.
At about the same time, Nintendo unveiled one more prototype to the press. The headphone jack was removed and the controller ports were moved the right, eliminating the external port and moving it to the underside of the console.















In the end, the Super Famicom was released on November 21, 1990, precisely two years after the first prototype was shown to the public. Its first shipment of 300,000 units sold out within hours, prompting the government to ask that all game manufacturers release consoles during weekends in the future because of the massive rush and lines causing disturbances to traffic.



















Lance Barr, designer of the NES, also designed the Super Nintendo. He drew up some concept designs, some of which showed an eject "handle" instead of a button. Notice that it was called "Nintendo Entertainment System 2". No Nintendo console would come out with a standalone "2" in its name until the Switch 2 in 2025!














In a 1991 issue of Nintendo Power, the new Super Nintendo was shown. The controller ports faced inward rather than outward and there are no dots next to each to indicate Player 1 and 2. Mysteriously, the eject and reset labels were switched. It may be an error by the magazine, unless the eject mechanism was once built with the rightmost switch in mind. The center button was originally colored to match the switches, until the final turned it gray. The "Super Nintendo Entertainment System" logo is pretty different. In fact, the cursive-style "Super" resembles that of Super Game Boy adapter's logo, released in 1994.

The Nintendo VS. Sega Peak Arrives

Ultimately, the Super Nintendo reached America on August 23, 1991 with a price of $199. Unlike the Super Famicom's launch in Japan with two, the American version featured launch titles including F-Zero, Pilotwings, SimCity, and Gradius III. Also unlike the Japanese release, the Super Nintendo came bundled with Super Mario World. Needless to say, this game was the best-selling for the console. It's notable for absolutely heating up the console wars between Sega and Nintendo that started with the Mark III and Famicom in Japan and crossed into America with the Master System and NES. Since Nintendo's 16-bit console came out over two years after Sega's in Japan and America, it took a while for the SNES's sales to catch up to the Genesis, but Nintendo eventually prevailed.



In 1997, Nintendo released a smaller and cost-reduced version of the Super Nintendo, as they did with the NES.

The Dynamic Demise

The Super Nintendo was first discontinued in 1996 in the Soviet Union and 1998 in Europe, with sales totaling 8,600,000 units. This makes some sense as it was just not as successful in those regions. Later, in 1999, the Super Nintendo was discontinued in the US, where it sold the most units at 23,000,000. But Japan kept running it and the original Famicom ragged all the way until 2003, and it was in solid second-place, selling 17,000,000 consoles. It's very important to look back on in comparison to other contemporary consoles for two reasons:
First, the rise in violent, lewd, and otherwise questionable content found in video games "supposedly" meant for children, causing concern among parents. Without getting too deep into it here, the ESRB was created so parents knew what kind of games would be best suited for their children to play, just like with movies. Starting with its NES, Nintendo did take the liberty of having developers making games or localizing existing ones censor or remove anything that might not be suitable for children to see, including blood, nudity, and foul language through their licensing policies. But in short, the ESRB took a more fair and powerful approach which changed the landscape of gaming as we knew it.
Second, the generation's role in bringing gaming into the third dimension. Consoles such as the Atari Jaguar and Panasonic 3DO, although far less successful than the Super Nintendo, had a lot of games that were presented with 3D graphics. Those systems didn't catch on because of the high price, false advertising, and low-quality game selection. The 16-bit Super Nintendo used special chips such as the Super FX and Mode 7 chips that provide high-quality 3D game experiences while still being affordable and fun to play, playing into its enduring success over Sega, who was beginning to lose confidence in the console market at this point.