Super Nintendo Entertainment System

The Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES) is a 16-bit home video game console developed and released by Nintendo, the company’s second programmable home console following the NES. ¹² It debuted in Japan as the Super Famicom on November 21, 1990, reached North America as the Super NES on August 23, 1991, and rolled out across South America, Europe, and Australia during 1992. ¹² The European launch began in the U.K. and Ireland on April 11, 1992, continued to the rest of Europe on June 6, and reached Australia and Brazil on July 3 and in September respectively. ¹² In Chile the console arrived on June 8, 1992, nearly two years after its Japanese debut. ⁹

Nintendo brought the console to market after the worldwide success of the NES and after competitors introduced more powerful hardware such as Sega?’s Genesis (Mega Drive) and NEC’s TurboGrafx-16. ¹² By the time the SNES appeared, Sega’s players had already moved into the 16-bit era while Nintendo was still competing with the NES, and the new console was expressly intended to win back market share from those rivals. ⁴¹³ The SNES was a direct competitor to the Genesis in what was then known as the “16-bit generation,” a rivalry that carried into markets as far afield as Russia, where the console arrived from Germany through the distributor Steepler beginning November 15, 1994, at a price of about $130, matched to the Sega Mega Drive. ¹²¹¹ In Germany the system launched in mid-August 1992 at an official price of 329 Deutsche Mark, bundled with Super Mario World, though its formal European release date is given as April 11, 1992. ⁴² In the United States it originally sold for $199, also packaged with Super Mario World, the seventh entry in the Super Mario series. ¹³⁹

Hardware

The SNES is built around a custom 65C816 (65816) 16-bit CPU running at 3.58 MHz, with 128 kilobytes of work RAM and a 16-bit picture processing unit backed by 64 kilobytes of video RAM. ¹⁸ It could display 256 colors on screen at once from a palette of 32,768, with a maximum resolution of 512 by 448 pixels and support for up to 128 sprites, 32 per scanline, with sprites ranging in size from 8-by-8 to 64-by-64 pixels. ¹⁸⁴ The audio hardware combined an 8-bit audio processing unit with a 16-bit pulse code modulator producing eight channels of true stereo sound, and the system offered roughly twice the built-in memory of the older NES. ¹⁴¹⁸ The console shipped with a power supply rated at 120 volts AC and 17 watts. ¹⁸ Contemporary observers noted the 65816 CPU as a bottleneck, and early titles such as Super R-Type could slow noticeably when too much appeared on screen, a limitation that experienced programming teams later learned to work around. ⁴

A signature capability was “Mode 7,” a graphics mode driven by the console’s digital signal processor that let it take flat two-dimensional shapes and rotate and scale them through three dimensions, used to create the pseudo-3D tracks of Super Mario Kart, the sensation of flight in F-Zero and Pilotwings, and effects in The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past. ¹⁴⁴ The cartridge slot was designed so that games could carry co-processor chips to enhance performance beyond the main CPU. ¹³⁴ The Super FX chip rendered polygons and vector graphics for titles including Star Fox (released in Europe as Starwing) and Stunt Race FX, while later games such as Yoshi’s Island used the Super FX 2 chip. ¹⁴¹³⁴ Such enhancement cartridges were comparatively expensive to produce, and Sega pursued a similar approach with its SVP chip on the Genesis. ⁴ Other add-on chips included the Cx4, used in Mega Man games for wireframe transformations, and the SA-1 (Super Accelerator), which raised clock speed and RAM; combined with Mode 7, these processors helped the SNES remain competitive into the 32-bit era. ¹³

The controller built on the seminal NES design with a directional pad and added two extra face buttons (X and Y) and two shoulder buttons (L and R), the latter a video-game first. ¹⁴¹³ The redesigned shape was more ergonomic than the square NES pad, and on the North American controller the X and Y buttons were concave, while on the Japanese Super Famicom they matched the A and B buttons. ¹³ The cartridges, or Game Paks, were about half the size of NES cartridges but used the same color scheme and connection method. ¹³

Peripherals and later models

Nintendo produced a range of accessories for the console. The Super Game Boy, which contained most of the hardware of an actual Game Boy, allowed Game Boy cartridges to be played on a television through the SNES, with the console handling video output and controller input. ¹³ In Japan the Super Famicom received the Satellaview, a satellite modem for downloading gaming news and demos in installments. ¹³ The third-party Game Genie enabled cheat codes, though it could not work with games using the Super FX chip. ¹³

Nintendo also worked with Sony and later Philips on a CD-ROM peripheral for the console; Nintendo cancelled both projects, after which Sony developed its work into the first PlayStation and Philips gained the right to publish CD-i games based on the Super Mario and The Legend of Zelda franchises. ¹³ Nintendo’s early plans around optical drives were ultimately realized only with the later GameCube. ⁴ On October 20, 1997, about a year after the launch of the Nintendo 64, Nintendo released a smaller, streamlined redesign officially called the SNES-101, priced at $99.99 and aimed at consumers who wanted access to the console’s inexpensive library without buying the newer machine. ¹³ The Japanese Super Famicom itself underwent cosmetic changes in 1998. ¹⁰

Software library

The SNES became, in the words of Nintendo’s own history, the platform on which the company began to advance its biggest series, with games such as Super Mario World, The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, Donkey Kong Country, Super Metroid, and Super Mario Kart, all remembered as among the finest games in their genres. ²¹⁴ The console drew strong third-party support from developers including Capcom, Squaresoft, and Konami, whose Axelay combined horizontal and vertical shooting with Mode 7 effects. ¹²⁴ According to figures cited in a 2015 retrospective, there were 784 official releases for the console, 251 exclusive to North America and 63 exclusive to Europe, bringing its catalogue to over 500 titles. ¹³¹⁴ In the early 1990s Nintendo also fielded an arcade unit, the Nintendo Super System, which previewed upcoming SNES titles including Super Mario World, ActRaiser, Contra III: The Alien Wars, and F-Zero. ¹² The SNES era is widely remembered as a high point for the medium. ¹²

Sales and discontinuation

The SNES was the best-selling console of the 16-bit generation despite launching later than the Sega Genesis. ¹³¹⁷ Nintendo’s own consolidated sales data records life-to-date hardware shipments of about 49.1 million units for the Super Famicom/SNES worldwide, split roughly 17.17 million in Japan, 23.35 million in the Americas, and 8.58 million elsewhere. ³⁸

The console had a long life. Nintendo discontinued the North American model in 1999 and continued the Japanese Super Famicom until 2003, giving it an approximate lifespan of eight years in the U.S. and twelve years in Japan. ⁸ Nintendo announced that it would cease manufacturing the Famicom and Super Famicom in Japan that September, ending production of both classic consoles and its disk-rewriting service for the Famicom Disk System. ¹⁰ The Nintendo 64 succeeded the SNES as Nintendo’s cartridge console, arriving in 1996 in Japan and 1997 in Europe, by which time the format war with the CD-based Sega Saturn and Sony PlayStation was already underway. ⁴

Nintendo has revisited the platform’s catalogue in later years, releasing the Nintendo Classic Mini: Super Nintendo Entertainment System (Super NES Classic Edition), a dedicated miniature reissue that went on sale September 29, 2017, preloaded with 21 games including The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, Super Mario World, Super Metroid, EarthBound, and the previously unreleased Star Fox 2. ¹⁶¹⁹ Super NES titles have also been made available through the NES & Super NES service on Nintendo Switch Online. ¹⁴

Super Nintendo Entertainment System™: Super NES Classic Edition Features TrailerNintendo of America