Many of the advancements in gaming consoles are due to the success of the Nintendo Entertainment System or NES. While Atari 2600 was the father of the home unit, the NES was the prodigal son. Nintendo put a unit in almost every kid's home between the mid 80's to early 90's and supplied it with some of the best games we had ever seen. Nintendo was gaming back then. It sent kids indoors after school instead of into the parks and streets to play. While the Super Nintendo was arguably a better machine with more advanced games, but it all started with the NES.
A Symbol Of An Entire Generation
The NES hardware is outdated by today's standards, but it did the job and many game developers found ways to push the envelope of its performance. The Nintendo's processor was made by Motorola and was capable of a speed of just 1.79 MHz. The Nintendo also had just 2KB of RAM as well as 2KB of video RAM. Thus the screen resolution could only manage 256x240 and output 16 different colors. It's amazing to think this hardware was capable of supporting such masterpieces as Super Mario Brothers 3, Tecmo Super Bowl, and Metroid.
The outside of the Nintendo is probably where people like me are most familiar with the NES. On the outside was a light gray or off-white rectangular casing. On the right front side is where the two controller ports were located. On the left front side is where you could find a door to insert your cartridges. Cartridges were roughly 5" x 6" and were in a darker gray casing with a label affixed on the face and front side. After inserting them inside the slot, you pressed down on them to "lock" them into place. Also on the front side of the NES were the power and reset buttons. The power button is a toggle switch that has a light to tell when it's turned on. On the right side is where you could find 2 RCA jacks, one red one and one white for sound and video respectively. The backside had an AC port to plug in for power as well as a port to plug in an RF switch. There was also a switch on the backside of the NES for the RF port to tell whether to receive the signal on channel 3 or 4. Overall the control deck itself is very light by today's standards, however it's about as large as a Dreamcast and larger than the GameCube and PSOne systems in terms of its dimensions.
Accessorizing
Due to the popularity of the NES, you could find a ton of accessories from the wildly popular controllers like the NES Advantage and NES Max, to more specialized accessories like the Satellite, Powerpad and Light Gun. Also the NES had some accessories that never quite took off like the R.O.B., Powerglove, and U-Force.
The NES came with two standard controllers. These were small rectangles in shape and were roughly the size of two Hershey bars stacked on top of each other. The standard controller had 4 buttons and a directional pad capable of 8 different directions. The controller had two red buttons on the right roughly the size of M&Ms. Those were the A and B buttons respectively. In the middle there were two small rectangle buttons that were roughly the size of Tic-Tacs (I'm on a diet and I'm hungry, OK?!). Those were the select and start buttons respectively. On the left was the directional pad. The controller is small by today's standards and many adults will probably have a hard time holding onto it. The amount of buttons is also small by today's standards as well, but many games managed very well. My only major complaint about this controller was the shape of the A and B buttons. They were raised craters on the surface of the control pad meaning the circular edges wore into your right thumb, causing blisters and many other sores. The dpad wasn't much easier on your left thumb either as the corners of the cross-shaped dpad had rigid corners that wore away at your thumb. What's funny is that the SNES controller still used the inward shaped buttons for half of its buttons on the right side and the more thumb-friendly outward shaped buttons for the other two.
The two controllers that were wildly popular were the NES Max, and the NES Advantage. The NES Max had a shape roughly similar to the modern Playstation controller in its inverted U shape. Its more unique feature was its directional pad. It featured a looser circle shape with free-flowing slide for your thumb. You pressed down in the rough direction giving the illusion of it being an analog controller. However, in actuality it still used the 8 directional movements as the traditional dpad. There was also a black ring along the outside of the slide that allowed you to press down for more precise movements. The controller featured all the other buttons, however below both the A and B buttons were two small gray buttons for turbo. The NES Advantage was a much larger beast that was roughly took up as much space as a mouse pad. It had a joystick instead of a dpad and had two large A and B buttons. There were also toggle buttons for turbo above each A and B button. You could control the speed of the turbo with the knobs at the top of the controller. The select and start buttons were to the right of the A and B buttons and there was also a toggle button to simulate "slow motion". This was essentially a turbo for the start button. Since many games used the start button to pause the game, this created a slow motion effect for many games. The controller also had two controller outputs so that two people could switch off for games like Super Mario Brothers. The toggle switch was above the start and select buttons. These two controllers were examples of the great accessories available.
The NES also featured some accessories that, while weren't as popular as those two controllers, did see some success. The light gun was the most widely available. Many kids got their Control deck with two controllers, a Super Mario Brothers/Duck Hunt cartridge and a light gun. For many, the light gun was only used for this game. There were some others out there, but they didn't really sell that well, while others weren’t widely available. This was despite the fact that there was an abundance of light guns. The satellite allowed up to 4 players to play one game at a time. It also featured a wireless access from the unit to the control deck. This wasn't as successful either because this unit was an additional purchase to the typical 4-player game. While there were a few multiplayer games out there, some of the best multiplayer games weren’t 4-player games. Finally the powerpad was a mild success early on with games like Track & Field. However like the other two accessories, it didn't have much support over the long haul. All these accessories could have done better if it wasn't for the lack of games that supported them.
Worth The Price Of Admission?
While the NES might not have had the most consistent games released for it, it certainly had one of the most in terms of sheer quantity. The NES's success didn't come by conventional method. That is, there weren't many big name hits that drove the system. While games like Super Mario Brothers, Zelda, and Metroid, were good enough to drive the system all by itself, the sheer number of quality games were enough to keep gamers coming back again and again. The biggest problem with this was that with the sheer number of games, there were many stinkers out there too. Games like Ghostbusters, Wayne Gretzky Hockey, and Where's Waldo were just horrible and were a waste of $50. Those are just a few of the many horrible games out there.
The NES had many great games from both Nintendo itself and from 3rd party companies. Nintendo released many polished games and followed many of its most successful games with sequels as well. Konami was one of the 3rd party developers that created hits like Contra, Life Force, Blades of Steel and Castlevania. Tecmo added successful games like the Tecmo Bowl and Ninja Gaiden series. Even Square released Final Fantasy that was considered a success in North America. Enix also had the Dragon Warrior series if you were interested in roleplaying games. The games thrived from the beginning with Kid Icarus, Metriod and the Legend of Zelda, to its twilight with Tecmo Super Bowl, Final Fantasy, Battletoads, and Dr. Mario.
From a 2004 perspective the biggest flaw in the games seems to be their own popularity and fame. Now that it's been over 10 years since the last NES game, the market for used Nintendo games have been flourishing. The Nintendo generation is now out of college and making money and thus is able to afford to reclaim that NES that they had to sell to pay for their prom, books, or college tuition. Therefore a used NES can sell for as much as $20 more than a used Dreamcast. Games like Super Mario Brothers 3 sell for $10 at a store like Gamestop. Even games like Contra and Final Fantasy are selling for $25-$40 on auction sites like Ebay. This is despite the fact that some of these cartridges have battery backup and their battery has long since died. These games sold on many occasions for $50 new. Now they are beginning to return to their former price, this time they are in some cases almost 20 years old. While many of these games are still fun today, they aren't worth this much from an entertainment perspective.
Success Comes At A Price
How would I value the NES? This is a very interesting question and it's quite a dilemma for old school gamers like myself. With the price of Nintendo games exceeding their entertainment value, how much would this bring down the price of a system so rich in old school games? I would value the NES at $20 and I'll tell you why. There are a few bastions for low-priced NES game seekers like myself. Yard sales are a gold mine if you're willing to invest the time. Many old NES gamers probably have girlfriends or wives that never got into NES games as much as you or me and thus yard sales are a way to spend time with her on a Saturday or Sunday morning or afternoon while hunting for good gaming bargains. You can usually get a box of 20 games for as little as $5, sometimes with the system included. If you cannot do the yard sale thing, Ebay is a good alternative. Ebay lets you set your own price limitations. However, you'll be less likely to find as huge a bargain as yard sales due to the sheer demand for these games. One last place to look is Half.com. They can have many of these games for a fraction of the cost of a winning Ebay bid. My experience with half.com is that it can be a little more risky than Ebay in getting your games. Overall the NES is a great system to have if you like to play games with friends. I still hear about people who get together and have Tecmo Super Bowl tournaments on their old NESes. I've even seen dorm rooms sign out an overhead projector and play the old games in a lounge all night. It's for these reasons that I wouldn't hesitate on pulling the trigger if you find a NES at the right price.
The system that took the world by storm boasts a game library that proves the Nintendo difference can still shine through after over 20 years. Gaze up...More at eBay
The system that took the world by storm boasts a game library that proves the Nintendo difference can still shine through after over 20 years. Gaze up...More at eBay
Retro Nintendo NES 8-bit Top Loading Loader System New Please see my store for more Nintendo games, parts and accessories. Item Description: Retro 8 B...More at eBay
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