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Archive 1Archive 2Archive 3Archive 4


Old discussion

Added some more history, more R.O.B info, and the "NES past 1995" section. Hopefully, I got most of that info right - the NES came back in a very nebulous way, and it's emulation scene is not given to posting historical accounts. Any technical specifics of those clunky early days of emulation (esp. pre-iNES) would be greatly appreciated. - Tzaquiel 17:47 Jan 3, 2003 (UTC)

You've added quite a bit of good stuff! This article is getting better and better. I'm afraid I haven't followed the emulation scene for very long (I entered it around the time that NESticle was already quite robust and mature), so I wouldn't have much to offer on its early history. I'd be interested in digging up some research, though - I know of a few developments as of a couple years ago, including some geniuses who managed to put the entire NES on a single chip, and another guy who does case mods that would custom-build you a NES with a ROM-dump interface, built-in games, and other capabilities (he also built an Atari 2600 with all of the games built into it!). We should probably try to limit the discussion of emulation on the NES page itself, though, and make a separate article for NES emulation and related stuff if it gets extra-long. -- Wapcaplet
Here, check this out: BlueTech. Some very cool stuff there! -- Wapcaplet

Added sound info about the tone generators (2 square, 1 triangle, 1 noise) and corrected an error with "Maximum number of sprite pixels on one scanline". This originally said 64, but the correct number per scanline is 8.

Looks good, though are you sure about the sprite pixels per scanline? I interpreted the original number (64) as meaning the maximum number of pixels in a single scanline that were part of any sprite; in other words, one scanline can be drawing parts of 8 different sprites (at 8 pixels apiece). Unless that is wrong... perhaps it should be rephrased for clarity. -- Wapcaplet 17:08, 20 Jun 2004 (UTC)
The NES can display eight OBJs (sprites) on each scanline. The hardware scans the OAM (sprite attribute RAM) in order from OBJ 0 to OBJ 63, and any OBJs in range after the first eight will be dropped, and a flag set to indicate this. This has been experimentally verified on actual NES/Famicom hardware by various contributors to the NES development scene. This document by Brad Taylor describes the NES PPU (graphics chip) in detail. There are a handful of minor errors, but this is 95% accurate. Firebug 22:22, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Quick minor update

'Such clones continue to be sold even now in 2005'. Should be changed to 2006. I am sure they are still selling, I saw a clone for sale in a mall a few months ago. However, I still havent litterally seen it with my own eyes. Surely someone can quickly confirm this for me? I am considering this page as a candidate for Spoken Wikipedia. -William Morgan Jan 10th 2006

Cleanup

I marked this as needing cleanup because it isn't written like a encyclopedia article. For example: Nintendo saw firsthand how successful videogames were in the late 1970s. could be changed to Videogames were very successful in the late 1970s. This is just an example.

There's no reason for that to be changed. Andre (talk) 21:43, Dec 31, 2004 (UTC)

Can we add some information that was missing from the article? What was the launch price of the NES bundle? What were the launch titles?

Moving "Nintendo Entertainment System" to "Nintendo Entertainment System/Family Computer"

I have moved this article from Nintendo Entertainment System/Family Computer back to Nintendo Entertainment System for the following reasons.

  1. The person who moved the article did not explain their reasoning on the talk page.
  2. It will interfere with the featured article canadacy. Any move of this nature should be done after this process is complete
  3. The name change seemed longer and redundant. Possibley, they were worried about people looking for the famicom. If this is the case a REDIRECT page would be more applicable.

before moving again please discuss. --The_stuart 01:51, 9 Jan 2005 (UTC)

PAL NES AV?

My PAL NES has no AV outs. Is this normal? If so, I figure it should be mentioned in the article. If not, does that mean my NES is rare and thereby worth something? Heh heh. Have a good one. - Vague | Rant 12:38, Jan 29, 2005 (UTC)

This is odd. Every NES I have seen in Ireland and the UK (the PAL-I version - there's a specific model number but I can't remember it) has PAL composite video out on the right side of the console in the form of RCA sockets, just like the NTSC NES. Do you know what period this console was made in, and are you sure it's not one of the new model "NES 2" consoles (which appear to have existed in PAL form in Australia and possibly New Zealand). Where did you purchase this console? --Zilog Jones 17:26, 1 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Dendy

The Dendy is not a licensed NES clone, so I stated that the "Dendy" clone is played in Russia - NOT that the NES is Dendy. WhisperToMe 01:23, 4 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Famicom

I think the Famicom should be a separate article from the NES. The amount of material for the Famicom is enough to make a good, coherent article. Also, the article seems US-centric as it only describes what is going on in the US in a large detail. Also, in other wikis, NES and Famicom are separate articles. WhisperToMe 02:20, 5 Feb 2005 (UTC)

They were separate articles. The problem was that there was way too much duplication: there simply are not enough differences between the NES and the Famicom to justify a different article, and splitting the two winds up being arbitrary and even damaging the usefulness of the article. If we have two articles, where do we put in material about emulation? Or hardware clones? Does the history of the console go in the Famicom article, or the NES article? As for being US-centric, there's several reasons for that: most of the people editing the article are likely from/most familiar with US, and there's far more English language material on the NES than on the Famicom. Recreating the old Famicom article isn't going to fix that. While specific information relating to the Famicom/NES abroad is certainly welcome, it should go here, not in some other article which would, at best, only duplicate the effort that went into this page. In short, it's likely to hurt more than it would help. –Seancdaug 03:35, Feb 5, 2005 (UTC)
Agreed. Andre (talk) 05:05, Feb 5, 2005 (UTC)
For the "English language" material, can't one just ask a Japanese person to translate material? We have several Japanese contributors who can help do this. The only things that I know must be duplicated in a Famicom article would be the History (to an extent) and the technical specifications. WhisperToMe 05:13, 6 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Which is really the bulk of the article, all things considered. They are the same system, barring a few extremely minor aesthetic changes, and it doesn't make a great deal of sense to split them up. I'm a bit lost as to what you think would be gained by doing so. There's just far too much crossover information to justify it, in my mind. -Seancdaug 05:31, Feb 6, 2005 (UTC)

This is my thinking as well: a separate article is needed. The Famicom was very different from the NES in many ways, and I feel that we need to get some more information about it in this article or just create another one, even if it's short. Oklonia 17:53, 10 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Again, this is a pretty vague reason for creating a new article: so far, any information regarding the Famicom has very comfortably fit within the confines of this article. There have been no complaints about flow, or content, or anything like that. You're trying to head off a problem that, quite simply, does not exist. Later on, if we introduce new information to the article that does present a problem, then I personally would reconsider my view, but until then this is very academic. That being said, I do agree about one thing: more information about the Famicom elsewhere in the world (Japan, but also the NES in Europe and Australia) would be a very welcome addition. But that information should come first, before we split the article, rather than trying to split the article in anticipation of information that may not actually be on its way. There is nothing stopping people from adding Famicom-centric information to the current article. That they are not doing so indicates that such information may not be all that easy to come by (in English, at least), which is a problem that has nothing to do with whether or not we have a seperate Famicom article.
Once more, I feel there is far too much crossover of information to make this practical: trying to keep two seperate Famicom and NES articles roughly aligned in terms of content and information is an extremely daunting task that doesn't seem like it would yield a great deal of practical benefit. In addition, it's easier to create subsections of an existing article than it is to find what to do with sections that only make sense in a combined article (if we moved all the information about the Famicom to another article, we'd need to figure out where the "Differences between the Famicom and the NES" section would best fit, not to mention redrafting the entire history section, and probably losing a good deal of information about the international scope of the system). It's also worth pointing out that it was partly the "tightening up" of the article when the old Famicom article was merged that led to its feature article candidacy, IMO. – Seancdaug 23:04, Apr 10, 2005 (UTC)
I think it could probably stay as one article as long as their is a section on the affect the console had on society and the consoles culture in each region. As it stand it is a very US centrict article. In Japan the Famicom was marketted as a Family Computer with keyboard and non gameing software and tape drives to compete with the MSX and the Japanese computers it literally was considered a computer. However in the US, they completedly changed it's culture because most computer platforms didnt do so well like the Amstrad CPC, Spectrum, BBC Micro, but Atari/Intellivision was really successful in America, so the NES was released as a console oriented device. Plus in the US they did same insane marketting, Nintendo Cartoons, breakfast serials, it just didnt happen that way in Japan. However in Europe the computer platforms where more popular then Consoles, so when the NES was released their it didnt do so well, plus it really didnt get a full release until 1990 so it was a mild success with Sega not being far behind. That being said, that would make the article quite large though, so it may be better to split them anyway. At least one article could focus on the history of the Famicom and the History of the NES and not get confused, plus we could go into more detail about the role the peripherals played, dammit I have convinced myself it should be split now. :) - UnlimitedAccess 05:09, 28 August 2005 (UTC)
This is not the first time this has come up, but I still think we should work from what we have now, as opposed to what we might have in the future. There is no reason information on the NES/Famicom on the international scene cannot be integrated into this article. The problem is that this information is not particularly easy to come by (in English, at least). If we split the article on the basis that there should be more information about the Japanese Famicom (or the UK NES, or whatever), we're just as likely, if not more likely, to end up with numerous dispersed stubs than we are to end up with substantial new information. And I still maintain that with several satelite articles already (Nintendo Entertainment System hardware clones, History of the Nintendo Entertainment System, et al.) it would be a mistake to subdivide further, lest we wind up duplicating information and ending up with a unmaintainable mess. – Seancdaug 07:38, August 30, 2005 (UTC)

I vote to seperate them, there are too many differences between the systems, and for background information that may be repeated, just state the information more briefly in the article that it has less relation to, linking to the article that has more. Shadic July 5, 2006

Introduction expansion request

Could someone please expand the intro. I'd like to put this article on the main page, but as-is, the introduction is simply too short. →Raul654 02:37, Feb 20, 2005 (UTC)

"NES Version" vs. "Mattel Version"

There appears to be two different PAL-I versions of the NES from my experience in car-boot sales and whatnot. Most of them seem to say "NES Version" on the cartridge slot door (under the other text), however I have also come across a few that say "Mattel Version" instead. I believe Mattel distributed Nintendo products for a period of time in Europe, but when was this? Is there any actual difference to the two versions of the NES?

Here's the only picture of a Mattel NES I could find from Googling. Could anyone enlighten me on this subject? --Zilog Jones 17:39, 1 Apr 2005 (UTC)

See this link for some information. TerokNor 18:25, 1 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Hmm, interesting - thanks for the link! So it also appears from this that UK/Ireland/Italy/Australia NESes were a totally different region to the rest of the PAL NES, regarding the lockout chips anyway.
There is one confusing thing about all this, though. I have a copy of Super Mario Bros. 2, which has the ID code "NES-MW-FRA" on the label - suggesting the cartridge is for the French market. But it plays fine on my NES, which it isn't supposed to if it is a French game (mine is a UK/Ireland model), and also the label on the back of the catridge is in English and Italian and bears the "EAI" code (which suggests it's a UK/Italy cart according to that guide you linked). The cartridge doesn't look like it's been tampered with at all, either. I bought this game second-hand in England a few years ago (unboxed), so I don't know where the hell it came from. Maybe there was some mess-up with the labels? This is really weird... --Zilog Jones 23:23, 2 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Australian NES's say Mattel Version and do not have any RCA ports, I believe the same goes for New Zealand. - UnlimitedAccess 04:28, 28 August 2005 (UTC)
Mattel initially distributed the NES in the UK, Italy, Australia, and New Zealand. These consoles were marked as the "Mattel Version." Nintendo eventually retained distribution rights, and subsequently sold "NES Version" consoles in these markets. Those markets had a different lockout region than the rest of Europe (to protect Mattel's distribution rights). But not all carts made use of the regional lockout.

Following is a list of the official international versions of the NES: (Versions are marked on the consoles unless noted)

  • European version (not marked on the console)
  • "Europa Version" (European version)
  • "Version Española" / "Spanish Version" (European version distributed in Spain by Spaco, S.A.)
  • "Mattel Version" (Australia, New Zealand, UK, Italy, possibly Ireland; distributed by Mattel)
  • "NES Version" (newer name for the Mattel Version; distributed by Nintendo)
  • "Asian Version" (Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Nepal, Pakistan, Singapore, Sri Lanka and Thailand)
  • "Comboy" (Korean version distributed by Hyundai Electronics; the consoles have "Nintendo Entertainment System" and "Comboy" markings)
  • "Family Computer" / "Famicom" (Japanese original)
  • US/Canada version (not marked on the consoles)

Brazil got an official release of the NES in the holiday season of 1993. But famiclones had been dominant since their introduction in May 1989. Gradiente and Estrela formed a joint-venture called Playtronics to officially distribute Nintendo products. Ironically, Gradiente had been involved in the manufacture and marketing of famiclones and pirated games (as well as officially-licensed games) in earlier years.


I added some information on this that I got from here: http://nindb.classicgaming.gamespy.com/nes/nes_eu.shtml I couldn't find anything on the "Spaco" version. --LordVader717 16:43, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

Developers' exclusivity, and tools

If I recall correctly, in the earlier days of the NES, in order to get a license to be a Nintendo developer, the developer had to promise exclusivity to Nintendo. You couldn't make both NES and Genesis games. Then Nintendo backed off from this. Can anyone verify this vague memory of mine?

An interesting section to add would be developer tools (by which I mean hardware). Tempshill 00:01, 2 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Yes, I was just about to post about this. The entire article about Nintendo manipulating the market is missing the point completely. The thing that was corrupt about this period of history was NOT that Nintendo had a lock-out system (all consoles do today), it was purely that Nintendo forced developers to only release for the NES. Third party developers who would have loved to support the Sega Master System were prevented from doing so by Nintendo, something that would possibly be illegal today.
Imagine if Sony said that PS2 developers wouldn't be allowed to develop for Xbox or GameCube, there'd be an absolute storm and Sony would have anti-trust lawsuits slapped on it by every lawyer in Microsoft and Nintendo. (Actually it might be rather fun to see a Microsoft lawyer preaching about the dangers of monopolies... ;-) ).
Could there be a section about this abuse of monopoly by Nintendo? --Krisse 14:52, 9 August 2005 (UTC)
It was a different time, the model wasnt in place, Atari tried to not allow any 3rd party developers so they would get 100% profits, hell Atari didnt even allow credits to appear in their own game, they just wanted to push the Atari brand, much like business do with products like Cars. Nintendo actively sought after developers and encouraged acknowledgement of their creators, then signing exclusivity contracts so their software is only released on "their" platform isnt dissimilar to recruiting a director to a specific Movie company or an actor to a TV channel or a Musician to a specific music label, exclusivity contracts are the norm for Artists. Both didnt work, the economic model for Artists didnt work and neither did the assembly line bussines model, it was several years later that the current one would evolve, where Nintendo/Sega/Sony/Microsoft would pay gobs of money to developers to be exclusive. Perhaps in a different world where Nintendo and Sega were equally successful and neither were considered a monopoly we would still have exclusive software contracts as the norm. - UnlimitedAccess 16:20, 9 September 2005 (UTC)
I'd rather see such a section as part of the Nintendo company article, as I think it would going a little far afield from the NES itself. – Seancdaug 22:59, September 9, 2005 (UTC)

It was all that and worse. Nintendo had FULL control of cartridge production and forbid developers from porting to other consoles for TWO years after the NES version. By having full control of cartridge production, Nintendo could control how much money a developer could make (as one developer said, they could destroy them). Stores that carried competitors products or lowered prices were stiffed in distribution. Finally the FTC started an investigation and just before they completed it, Nintendo made changes to their developer terms (like eliminating their two year wait) and agreed to settle with the FTC. The April 1991 settlement was for Nintendo to send $5 vouchers to people who bought NES titles from June 1998 to December 1990! Talk about a slap on the wrist!!! [1] —Pelladon 04:31, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Some would say that the procedures Nintendo put in place during the Famicom years were neccesary to preventing another crash... The public was skeptical and needed assurances that the mistakes wouldn't be made again... -- Daniel Davis 04:38, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Dendy Junior II

"Dendy Junior II" redirects here, but there's absolutely no information on this page about it. - furrykef (Talk at me) 05:25, 16 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I redirected it to Dendy, that seems to be the proper article about it. TerokNor 09:36, 16 Apr 2005 (UTC)
The redirect was an artifact of a previous version of the page, which did have more information regarding the system. That information was subsequently moved around, and eventually wound up at Dendy, where TerokNor has kindly redirected it. – Seancdaug 22:24, Apr 16, 2005 (UTC)

Killer app vs. killer game?

There seems to be a small degree of controversy of which term is more appropriate for the introductory paragraph. Both would seem to apply, technically speaking, although, personally, it seems like "killer game" is more specific, and therefore more appropriate. IIRC, I was the one who originally stuck the killer app link there, but only because it never occurred to me to check for "killer game." What does everyone else think? – Seancdaug 20:30, Apr 19, 2005 (UTC)

My thoughts on the subject are that app brings to mind more along the lines of computer games and programs, whereas a game is a specific entity more applicable to this article. — THOR 21:16, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)
"Killer game" doesn't sound right to me, and I hear "killer app" a lot when referring to games in magazines and stuff - it's a rather general phrase, but it is a well-known phrase - "killer game" is just two words stuck together. --193.1.100.105 15:25, 1 May 2005 (UTC)
If you want to argue that "killer game" should not be included on Wikipedia, then that's another discussion (and one which doesn't really belong here). But, as things currently stand, "killer game" is pretty clearly more useful for these circumstances, whether or not it "sounds right" or not: video game specific information is more likely to be at the "killer game" article than the "killer app" article. – Seancdaug 22:10, May 9, 2005 (UTC)
To me, "killer game" seems to hint at it's content, i.e. a violent "killing" game. I don't know, as I haven't had too much experience with the usage. But it might cause confusion. --LordVader717 20:42, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

Sound Capabilities?

Could anybody add some notes on the sound capabilities of the NES? Jontce 29 June 2005 12:59 (UTC)

WORLD'S LARGEST (and SMALLEST) AMERICAN NES CONTROLLERS

On Attack of the Show. You may watch it at any time on the G4 website on their media player. Cool thing is that THEY ACTUALLY WORK!

NES (disambiguation)

I think NES should not be redirected to Nintendo Entertainment System, NES can be all sorts of things, and disambiguation does take a while to type, what makes this article so special, that NES redirects to Nintendo Entertainment System, instead of a disambiguation pagethat has a link to Nintendo Entertainment System page in the first place?

Because this is the most notable thing called NES. Andre (talk) 22:54, August 21, 2005 (UTC)

Hmph... Just because it's the most notable doesn't mean anything, there are many things that mean NES, We should not naturally assume that anyone who types NES should mean this game system...

Yes we should, because that is how we do things. Andre (talk) 22:09, August 28, 2005 (UTC)
We do it like this because there is a much higher probability that people are looking for this compared to the other things, since that saves on clicks for the average user looking up NES, making it more user-friendly (same goes for Firefox).
Had the probability of two different meanings been fairly close to one another, we would have a disambiguation page on NES, since we would not be able to determine what the best option would be. --Pidgeot (t) (c) (e) 22:43, 7 September 2005 (UTC)

72 pin cartridges

In the differences section, the comparison of 60 to 72 pin cartridges is incorrect. The lockout chip uses 4 pins. The 2 external audio pins that allows Famicom game cartridges to provide their own sound expansion chips were removed. The NES has 10 pins on the cartridge port that go directly to the expansion port on the bottom. 60 + 4 + 10 - 2 = 72. -- Myria 03:39, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

Finicky Button

I think my NES has a busted/no 10NES chip. It is the US model w/power light, and it never had the finicky button. (At least as long as I've had it) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 72.128.199.222 (talk • contribs) .

New sentence with bad information

Tinkerers at home in later years discovered that disassembling the NES and cutting the fourth pin of the lockout chip (a process now legal with the expiration of the NES patent) would cut power to the chip, removing all effects and severely improving the console's ability to play legal games, as well as bootlegs and converted imports.

This was added today by 141.154.244.65. The problem with this statement is that it is NOT legal to do this, even though the 10NES patent has expired. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act takes effect until the copyright expires, not the patent. Thanks to Sonny Bono, that will happen in 2080. -- Myria 05:52, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

It's FamicoM, NOT FamicoN, yo!

mispellings all over the place!! OK, I undid changes by 24.49.56.153

Wow... Well, technically if you go by the katakana spelling, it is famikon (I'm sorry, but I disagree with any romanization that uses c instead of k, and si instead of Shi... Tu, I don't have a problem with) but since it's an abbreviation of the English words "Family Computer" Famicom would be correct. WhateverTS 21:49, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

The external links section was getting to be a bit overwhelming, IMO. In keeping with the suggestions of "What Wikipedia is not", I added a link to the dmoz NES directory, and trimmed out all of the links that were contained therein. I also removed a number of other links which didn't seem to have any real relevance: the main Nintendo page, for instance, has very little information regarding the long-discontinued NES. Finally, I removed one or two more links which, while interesting, were either too nuanced or too technical for the average reader: Kevin Horton's FPGA console project is a fascinating read for the initiated, but there's little context or technical background to make it comprehensible to non-hackers. Any arguments? – Seancdaug 17:43, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

None from me. And you don't know what link abuse is until you have seen this ;) -- ReyBrujo 18:23, 27 December 2005 (UTC)
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