40 Facts About Nintendo Famicom

Nintendo Famicom Entertainment System is an 8-bit third-generation home video game console produced by Nintendo Famicom.

Nintendo Famicom released several add-ons, such as a light gun for shooting games.

Early Nintendo Famicom games were written on a system that ran on an NEC PC-8001 computer and LEDs on a grid were used with a digitizer to design graphics as no software design tools for this purpose existed at that time.

The Nintendo Famicom was slow to gather success; a bad chip set caused the early revisions to crash.

At June 1985's Consumer Electronics Show, Nintendo unveiled the American version of its Famicom, with a new case redesigned by Lance Barr and featuring a "zero insertion force" cartridge slot.

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Additionally, Uemura explained that Nintendo Famicom developers had feared that the console's electronics might face electrostatic hazards in dry American states such as Arizona and Texas, and a front-loading design would be safer if children handled the console carelessly.

Nintendo Famicom released 17 launch games: 10-Yard Fight, Baseball, Clu Clu Land, Duck Hunt, Excitebike, Golf, Gyromite, Hogan's Alley, Ice Climber, Kung Fu, Pinball, Soccer, Stack-Up, Super Mario Bros.

The initial seal states, "This seal is your assurance that Nintendo Famicom has approved and guaranteed the quality of this product".

The original Nintendo Famicom's design is predominantly white plastic, with dark red trim; it featured a top-loading cartridge slot, grooves on both sides of the deck in which the hardwired game controllers could be placed when not in use, and a 15-pin expansion port located on the unit's front panel for accessories.

Conversely, the redesigned Nintendo Famicom offered such output while introducing detachable game controllers, though the microphone functionality was omitted as a result.

One variant was a television set with an integrated Nintendo Famicom; originally released in 1983 as the My Computer TV in 14-inch and 19-inch models, it was later released in the United States in 1989 as a 19-inch model named the Video Game Television.

Nintendo Famicom wanted to distinguish its product from those of competitors and to avoid the generally poor reputation that game consoles had acquired following the video game crash of 1983.

In 1989, Nintendo Famicom released an official NES Cleaning Kit to help users clean malfunctioning cartridges and consoles.

Nintendo Famicom as released in Japan contains no lockout hardware, which led to unlicensed cartridges becoming extremely common throughout Japan and East Asia.

Nintendo tried to promote its "Seal of Quality" in these regions to identify licensed games to combat bootlegs, but bootleg Famicom games continued to be produced even after Nintendo moved production onto the Super Famicom, effectively extending the lifetime of the Famicom.

Nintendo Famicom did not want to see that happen with the NES and used the lockout chip to restrict games to only those they licensed and approved for the system.

The original Nintendo Famicom has a deepened DA-15 expansion port on the front of the unit to accommodate them.

Nintendo Famicom has mimicked the look of the controller in several other products, from promotional merchandise to limited edition versions of the Game Boy Advance.

Nintendo Famicom Modem connected a Nintendo Famicom to a now defunct proprietary network in Japan which provided content such as financial services.

Nintendo Famicom set up "Disk Fax" kiosks for players to submit their high scores on special blue disks for contests and rankings, predating the online leaderboard by several years.

Nintendo Famicom demanded half of the copyright ownership for each game it selected for release on the Disk System, resulting in developers electing to remain on cartridge instead as the latter gained functionality previously considered unique to the former.

In 1991, Nintendo Famicom provided an add-on called the "Super NES Counter Tester" that tests Super NES components and games.

Nintendo Famicom produced yellow-plastic carts for internal use at Nintendo Famicom Service Centers, although these "test carts" were never made available for purchase.

Unlike NES games, official Nintendo Famicom cartridges were produced in many colors of plastic.

Unlike Atari, which never actively pursued third-party developers, Nintendo Famicom had anticipated and encouraged the involvement of third-party software developers, though strictly on Nintendo Famicom's terms.

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Nintendo Famicom portrayed these measures as intended to protect the public against poor-quality games, and placed a golden seal of approval on all licensed games released for the system.

Nintendo Famicom found success with Japanese arcade manufacturers such as Konami, Capcom, Taito and Namco, which signed on as third-party developers.

Nintendo Famicom was not as restrictive as Sega, which did not permit third-party publishing until Mediagenic in late summer 1988.

Nintendo Famicom's intention was to reserve a large part of NES game revenue for itself.

Nintendo Famicom required that it be the sole manufacturer of all cartridges, and that the publisher had to pay in full before the cartridges for that game be produced.

Nintendo Famicom was accused of antitrust violations because of the strict licensing requirements.

GameSpy remarked that Nintendo Famicom's punishment was particularly weak giving the case's findings, although it has been speculated that the FTC did not want to damage the video game industry in the United States.

Companies that refused to pay the licensing fee or were rejected by Nintendo Famicom found ways to circumvent the console's authentication system.

Nintendo Famicom attempted to reverse engineer the lockout chip to develop its own "Rabbit" chip.

Nintendo Famicom received no profit from the practice beyond the initial cost of their game, and unlike movie rentals, a newly released game could hit store shelves and be available for rent on the same day.

Nintendo Famicom took steps to stop game rentals, but did not take any formal legal action until Blockbuster Video began to make game rentals a large-scale service.

Nintendo Famicom claimed that allowing customers to rent games would significantly hurt sales and drive up the cost of games.

Nintendo Famicom lost the lawsuit, but did win on a claim of copyright infringement.

The final licensed Nintendo Famicom game released in Japan is Takahashi Meijin no Boken Jima IV, in North America is Wario's Woods, and in Europe is The Lion King in 1995.

Nintendo Famicom chose the name "Nintendo Famicom Entertainment System" for the US market and redesigned the system so it would not give the appearance of a child's toy.