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Let's talk launches: Nintendo Entertainment System/Famicom (October 18, 1985)

T

Theslammer

Member
"It can't be beaten."

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Previous threads:

Sega Genesis/Mega Drive (1989)
Super NES (1991)
Nintendo 64 (1996)
Sega Dreamcast (1999)
Sony Playstation 2 (2000)
Game Boy Advance (2001)
Microsoft Xbox (2001)
Nintendo DS (2004)
Playstation Portable (2005)
Microsoft Xbox 360 (2005)
Sony Playstation 4 (2013)

Definitely the defining system of the 80s, but there wasn't really anything comparable as far as popularity or in terms of quality of games. I think many NES games were just warm-ups for the 16-bit era, and many NES games I don't believe have aged well. But at the time, this was the big system.

And Super Mario Bros. as a launch title isn't bad! Excitebike's fun, but some of the other games I wonder about. Is there a point to playing Baseball at this point in time? Or Kung-Fu? Duck Hunt is a nice diversion and the first light gun game I played, but it's definitely not something I'd play for as much as I did as a kid.

I'm pretty sure our SMB game was the SMB/Duck Hunt combo that a lot of us had.

Its initial launch in 1983 in Japan, though... eh. The US definitely had it best, with Europe second. I'm actually surprised Super Mario Bros. wasn't a launch title there.

EDIT:

I'm going to add this based on poster responses here. I'm a huge fan of The Video Game Years (I hope they get into the 90s one of these days), and this is the video they had involved Super Mario Bros when they covered 1985.

10-Yard Fight

wm3DaiK.png


Baseball
Clu Clu Land

JSMRTbS.png


h3aqKnb.png


Duck Hunt
Excitebike
Golf
Gyromite
Hogan's Alley
Ice Climber

ZLF43i5.png


Kung-Fu
Pinball
Stack-Up

6UZDF2v.png


Super Mario Bros.
Tennis
Wild Gunman
Wrecking Crew
Click to expand...

Japanese launch: July 15, 1983

Donkey Kong
Donkey Kong Jr.
Popeye

European launch: September 1, 1986

10-Yard Fight
Excitebike
Ice Climber
Mario Bros.
Pinball
Popeye
Stack-Up
Click to expand...
 
GZ!

GZ!

Member
Remember having this one in a local playstore:

closeup.jpg


25 cents would let you play 15 minutes, 1 Guilder would let you play one hour. After school, the playstore was loaded with kids.

For me, Super Mario was the game, while others played this boring Zelda of dull Metroid...I found those games were quite allright years later...
 
Robin64

Robin64

Member
GZ! said:
Remember having this one in a local playstore:

http://i221.photobucket.com/albums/dd75/flux-zero/Nintendo/closeup.jpg

25 cents would let you play 15 minutes, 1 Guilder would let you play one hour. After school, the playstore was loaded with kids.

For me, Super Mario was the game, while others played this boring Zelda of dull Metroid...I found those games were quite allright years later...
Click to expand...

Our local Dixons had one of these in the store, but never let us pay money to play for longer periods. It was purely a demo unit, and the timer was set to 60 seconds.

They had games like Faxanadu in there, oddly, and the 60 seconds never let you get past the intro.
 
T

Theslammer

Member
GZ! said:
Remember having this one in a local playstore:

closeup.jpg


25 cents would let you play 15 minutes, 1 Guilder would let you play one hour. After school, the playstore was loaded with kids.

For me, Super Mario was the game, while others played this boring Zelda of dull Metroid...I found those games were quite allright years later...
Click to expand...

Man, they basically made an arcade version of the NES at stores? =P
 
B

bionic77

Member
Horrible OP.

I had multiple Ataris and was resistant to this weird new console until my best friend got one. How could it possible beat PacMan and Joust?

It's hard to explain how utterly fucking amazing Super Mario Bros was when this console launched.

Definitely one of the greatest launch games and for its time definitely one of the greatest games of all time.

Shit almost melted my 7 year old brain when I first saw it.
 
//DEVIL//

//DEVIL//

Member
I have one of those brand new in its box. got it as gift when I was a kid and I never opened it. its still in its wrap from Nintendo even lol. I wonder how much this would give me on ebay .

it has super Mario bros in it as well ( physical game )
 
N

neoemonk

Member
GZ! said:
Remember having this one in a local playstore:

closeup.jpg


25 cents would let you play 15 minutes, 1 Guilder would let you play one hour. After school, the playstore was loaded with kids.

For me, Super Mario was the game, while others played this boring Zelda of dull Metroid...I found those games were quite allright years later...
Click to expand...

The real gem there is Wrath of the Black Manta
 
L

LizardKing

Member
SMB is undoubtedly the greatest launch game of all time. Even today, the way we look at games is before SMB and after SMB. It was the turning point in the gaming industry.
 
B

Baron_Calamity

Member
I remember playing it at Macys in New York for the first time in November of that year. I was shocked. I hadn't even heard of it. Video game Consoles died just a year earlier and I hadn't expected to ever see another dedicated console. Like ever. My brain couldn't handle the graphics. They looked way beyond what was possible. I went back to school in Maryland telling my friends about it and they all thought I was full of it and made the whole thing up.
I ended up getting one a year later at the national launch.
 
T

Theslammer

Member
LizardKing said:
SMB is undoubtedly the greatest launch game of all time. Even today, the way we look at games is before SMB and after SMB. It was the turning point in the gaming industry.
Click to expand...

I honestly don't think it's the greatest; I feel most 2D Marios I've played have surpassed it, and Mario 64, while probably not as replayable due to length, is just out of this world in comparison and what you can do with Mario.

But I do agree in terms of influence, you're spot the hell on. I've seen the launches before Super Mario Bros. and there's really nothing comparable in the slightest. NES is the earliest console I can think of where I feel timeless games started to be created (most other great games were in the arcades since they were way ahead technologically). I think it stepped up during the Genesis/SNES days as many NES games were warm-ups or even shells of what was yet to come, but Super Mario 3 is still a great game, whereas early 80s games, particularly on consoles, are kind of just... there, for me. No interest in playing them again or for the first time.
 
B

bionic77

Member
Theslammer said:
I honestly don't think it's the greatest; I feel most 2D Marios I've played have surpassed it, and Mario 64, while probably not as replayable due to length, is just out of this world in comparison and what you can do with Mario.

But I do agree in terms of influence, you're spot the hell on. I've seen the launches before Super Mario Bros. and there's really nothing comparable in the slightest. NES is the earliest console I can think of where I feel timeless games started to be created (most other great games were in the arcades since they were way ahead technologically). I think it stepped up during the Genesis/SNES days as many NES games were warm-ups or even shells of what was yet to come, but Super Mario 3 is still a great game, whereas early 80s games, particularly on consoles, are kind of just... there, for me. No interest in playing them again or for the first time.
Click to expand...
Super Mario was at least as mind blowing as Mario 64 was at launch.

I don't disagree with a lot of your points that many games were perfected during the 16bit era, but man you really selling SMB short. Not just in terms of influence, but for how amazing that game was at launch.

As others have said our brains as kids could barely handle that game at launch. Just look at the Atari games that preceded it. Its a fucking joke how much of a leap that was.
 
T

Theslammer

Member
bionic77 said:
Super Mario was at least as mind blowing as Mario 64 was at launch.

I don't disagree with a lot of your points that many games were perfected during the 16bit era, but man you really selling SMB short. Not just in terms of influence, but for how amazing that game was at launch.

As others have said our brains as kids could barely handle that game at launch. Just look at the Atari games that preceded it. Its a fucking joke how much of a leap that was.
Click to expand...

Oh, no no, don't get me wrong: I'm agreeing with you on its influence because at the time, it really expanded what you could do with level design, which is a major leap. Early NES games just didn't do the same in that regard as Super Mario Bros did. I think its influence is correlated with its quality at the time, even if I also think it's been surpassed by its own series many times over. My parents used to laugh among themselves at how into the game I'd get as a kid and how I'd jump every time I had to make a big jump.

SMB was the first launch game, and maybe one of the first console games, that I think could still be considered a very good game today. Of course now we'd be more critical of the palette swaps, Mario losing all power-ups on one hit rather than returning to Super Mario, and things like that, but this was an early game for an 8-bit system, and there was nothing like it at the time.
 
Boss Doggie

Boss Doggie

all my loli wolf companions are so moe
In my country we only had famicom. It was so great though, and the first game I played was Contra.
 
L

LizardKing

Member
Theslammer said:
Oh, no no, don't get me wrong: I'm agreeing with you on its influence because at the time, it really expanded what you could do with level design, which is a major leap. Early NES games just didn't do the same in that regard as Super Mario Bros did. I think its influence is correlated with its quality at the time, even if I also think it's been surpassed by its own series many times over. My parents used to laugh among themselves at how into the game I'd get as a kid and how I'd jump every time I had to make a big jump.

SMB was the first launch game, and maybe one of the first console games, that I think could still be considered a very good game today. Of course now we'd be more critical of the palette swaps, Mario losing all power-ups on one hit rather than returning to Super Mario, and things like that, but this was an early game for an 8-bit system, and there was nothing like it at the time.
Click to expand...

I didn't mean it was the best game or even Mario game of all time when comparing them today of course. There are many better. I mean for what it was at launch, it was the best and most influential launch game of all time. Probably game period. Comparing the impact (in quality and influence) of SMB in 1985 to the impact of other launch games in the year they were released. That game alone made the NES a bombshell and reignited games in the US at least. The NES launch was huge.

Just seems like you were kinda downplaying the NES launch in the OP. Even though I agree most games eventually didn't age well. But that's the thing about time. How do you think people are going to talk about the PS launch in another 10-20 years. As time goes by you have to put things in the context of when they were released.
 
T

Theslammer

Member
LizardKing said:
I didn't mean it was the best game or even Mario game of all time when comparing them today of course. There are many better. I mean for what it was at launch, it was the best and most influential launch game of all time. Probably game period. Comparing the impact (in quality and influence) of SMB in 1985 to the impact of other launch games in the year they were released.
Click to expand...

Agreed. I think I just wasn't clear enough in making that point. =P

LizardKing said:
Just seems like you were kinda downplaying the NES launch in the OP. Even though I agree most games eventually didn't age well. But that's the thing about time. How do you think people are going to talk about the PS launch in another 10-20 years. As time goes by you have to put things in the context of when they were released.
Click to expand...

I've thought the PS1 launch has looked bad for years now. =P

I did say it was the defining system of the 80s, as it easily was. But I'm also looking at it now and how the games hold up, like Baseball, and it's different than how I feel the SNES and Genesis hold up.
 
L

LizardKing

Member
Theslammer said:
Agreed. I think I just wasn't clear enough in making that point. =P



I've thought the PS1 launch has looked bad for years now. =P

I did say it was the defining system of the 80s, as it easily was. But I'm also looking at it now and how the games hold up, like Baseball, and it's different than how I feel the SNES and Genesis hold up.
Click to expand...

True! There always seems to be that sweet spot of people with nostalgia for something that's old but not too old where you realize it doesn't hold up anymore. Thought maybe the PS hit that for some atm, it was kind of a guess lol.

Yeah, no games really evolved through that era and into 16 bit. It's a tweener system between the beginning of games and modern era. A lot don't hold up I agree with all that. Just for a topic about the NES lauch, you kinda seemed to downplay something that was a revolution in the industry, other than a nod in that one sentence of being the system of the 80's. Which is even still a very inadequate way of stating what the NES was and what the NES launch was.
 
B

bionic77

Member
A lot of NES games don't hold up as well as SNES games do, but some of them are still pretty damn good.

And as the King of Lizards pointed out, the shit was fucking bananas when it was released. The OP doesn't do a great job of capturing the feel of how utterly amazing SMB was when the NES released in the US. I agree with with others that that feeling probably has not been captured since.
 
R

Rockandrollclown

lookwhatyou'vedone
I was 4 when this came out. I actually remember seeing commercials for it, but not really grasping what it was. Probably 2 years later, I stopped by my friend's house before school in the morning and saw him playing Super Mario Bros. I was immediately in love and was probably insufferable begging my parents for an NES.
 
F

Forkball

Member
It's strange to think that the Famicom came out in 83, two whole years before Super Mario Bros. I mean, what the hell were people playing? Donkey Kong is good stuff but so many NES classics are post 85 that I'm really curious about the reception of the Famicom in Japan during those years before SMB changed everything.
 
T

Theslammer

Member
LizardKing said:
True! There always seems to be that sweet spot of people with nostalgia for something that's old but not too old where you realize it doesn't hold up anymore. Thought maybe the PS hit that for some atm, it was kind of a guess lol.

Yeah, no games really evolved through that era and into 16 bit. It's a tweener system between the beginning of games and modern era. A lot don't hold up I agree with all that. Just for a topic about the NES lauch, you kinda seemed to downplay something that was a revolution in the industry, other than a nod in that one sentence of being the system of the 80's. Which is even still a very inadequate way of stating what the NES was and what the NES launch was.
Click to expand...

It'll always have its position in history as the system that influenced the gaming industry in gigantic ways and straight-up saved it. It's something that's understood at this point and has been talked about extensively for years, so I'm looking at it more like, "Well... what would I want to play now?" To a much lesser extent, it's the same thing as when I look at the PS2: it's one of my favorite consoles, but it's easy now to point out off the bat how it lagged behind in internet adoption even moreso than the older Dreamcast, and it still had two controller ports as opposed to everyone else and even the N64 the previous generation. Doesn't mean it wasn't the best-selling system ever with an excellent library, but it's okay to talk about its shortcomings or how some of the games have held up.

That won't influence how much fun I had with it in my very young years, of course!

Forkball said:
It's strange to think that the Famicom came out in 83, two whole years before Super Mario Bros. I mean, what the hell were people playing? Donkey Kong is good stuff but so many NES classics are post 85 that I'm really curious about the reception of the Famicom in Japan during those years before SMB changed everything.
Click to expand...

I have no earthly idea. That Japanese launch is weird in comparison the US one.
 
B

bionic77

Member
Theslammer said:
It'll always have its position in history as the system that influenced the gaming industry in gigantic ways and straight-up saved it. It's something that's understood at this point and has been talked about extensively for years, so I'm looking at it more like, "Well... what would I want to play now?" To a much lesser extent, it's the same thing as when I look at the PS2: it's one of my favorite consoles, but it's easy now to point out off the bat how it lagged behind in internet adoption even moreso than the older Dreamcast, and it still had two controller ports as opposed to everyone else and even the N64 the previous generation. Doesn't mean it wasn't the best-selling system ever with an excellent library, but it's okay to talk about its shortcomings or how some of the games have held up.

That won't influence how much fun I had with it in my very young years, of course!



I have no earthly idea. That Japanese launch is weird in comparison the US one.
Click to expand...
Nothing wrong to talk about how badly some NES games aged or how the system had a ton of shit games on it. Some of which were not even really playable even when the system came out.

Not a lot of companies were able to put out complete games back then or come close to matching what Nintendo did at launch.

But man you have to cover just how awesome the system was at launch as well. As I and others have said it is really hard to explain just how awesome SMB was at launch and how far ahead it was of every other console game prior to it.
 
N

NeoZeedeater

Member
I loved the style of launch era NES games. And I was lucky enough to play some of them early as I had a friend with a Famicom, and I lived near the Chuck E. Cheese's attached to Nintendo of Canada HQ. It had almost all the Nintendo arcade games. This was an amazing time for me, and the NES remains one of my favourite systems.

Theslammer said:
Definitely the defining system of the 80s, but there wasn't really anything comparable as far as popularity or in terms of quality of games.
Click to expand...
I disagree on the quality of games part. Even ignoring computer formats, the SMS was really impressive for its time. For '80s stuff I would say Phantasy Star was the best JRPG, Wonder Boy III was the best action-adventure game, Shinobi and Kenseiden were as good as the NES' best action-platformers, Penguin Land was among the best puzzles games, R-Type, Fantasy Zone, Power Strike, and Choplifter were some of the best shooters around, and the SMS was easily top for home gun games. I do think the NES was better for releases in the '90s. Sega had moved most of their best people to the Genesis.
 
mindatlarge

mindatlarge

Member
I didn't get a NES at launch, it was several years later. My mom got us the Power Pad Set with 3 games on one cart, a Zapper and two controllers. Mega Man 2 shortly there after. Was glorious, minus World Class Track Meet!

nes-konsole-power-set-3-spiele-2-original-pads-zapper-matte-zub-f.jpg
Click to expand...
 
T

Theslammer

Member
bionic77 said:
Nothing wrong to talk about how badly some NES games aged or how the system had a ton of shit games on it. Some of which were not even really playable even when the system came out.

Not a lot of companies were able to put out complete games back then or come close to matching what Nintendo did at launch.

But man you have to cover just how awesome the system was at launch as well. As I and others have said it is really hard to explain just how awesome SMB was at launch and how far ahead it was of every other console game prior to it.
Click to expand...

I gotcha, man! I didn't mean to make it seem like the NES was unimportant; I was just looking at it from a different angle nowadays.

NeoZeedeater said:
I disagree on the quality of games part. Even ignoring computer formats, the SMS was really impressive for its time. For '80s stuff I would say Phantasy Star was the best JRPG, Wonder Boy III was the best action-adventure game, Shinobi and Kenseiden were as good as the NES' best action-platformers, Penguin Land was among the best puzzles games, R-Type, Fantasy Zone, Power Strike, and Choplifter were some of the best shooters around, and the SMS was easily top for home gun games. I do think the NES was better for releases in the '90s. Sega had moved most of their best people to the Genesis.
Click to expand...

I think I'm comparing it more to Atari than anything else, but I'm a big Master System n00b. When I get to that system, I'm counting on all of you to fill me in on if the launch was good. xD~~
 
W

WhatNXt

Member
Living through console launches before the Internet was fucking magical.. seriously.

I had a neighbour who had the NES, he had all the good shit - I remember playing Super Mario Bros and Duck Hunt at his house in the early years. Before that my dad had shown us games on cassette and floppy disk based systems, and there were plenty of cool games around before NES. But SMB was something else. It was a phenomenon. It's true that NES games have dated much moreso than Nintendo have ever allowed on later systems, but in it's time it was a revolution. So slick to control, so fluid, so fun, accessible. People had literally never seen or played anything like it before. Even the music was fun.

Along came stuff like Duck Dales, Chip N Dale, TMNT, Zelda, the other Mario Games, Balloon Fight, Gyromite with ROB, Maniac Mansion, Wrecking Crew, Track n Field, Castlevania, and a million other games. The library had some crap in it, but man it was massive.

I begged my parents for an NES as a kid, and at the time, they simply couldn't afford it. They would be honest and tell me that, and I always understood. I consoled myself by harassing friends to go hang at their place and play games. Once, and this is a true story, I even knocked at a friends house while he wasn't there - and asked his mother if I could come in and play his NES while we waited for him to come back. And she let me!!. She must have thought I was so cheeky! I mean, I was!

In 1991/2 I still wanted one, and believe it or not - thanks to the Internet not existing, being too young for magazines, and having not browsed the catalogues yet - I didn't know that the SUPER Nintendo now existed. I can't tell you how happy I was the Christmas we were given that thing. The sheer surprise and joy was overwhelming.

I hold a huge fondness in my heart for the 8 bit and 16 bit consoles. Happy days and simpler times.

To this day, in the very best games, you can appreciate how technical limitation spurred creative solutions, and how clever these guys must have had to have been to not only program these things in assembly, while also making good gameplay. The 70s, 80s, 90s systems laid the foundations for everything we have today.
 
T

Theslammer

Member
WhatNXt said:
I had a neighbour who had the NES, he had all the good shit - I remember playing Super Mario Bros and Duck Hunt at his house in the early years. Before that my dad had shown us games on cassette and floppy disk based systems, and there were plenty of cool games around before NES. But SMB was something else. It was a phenomenon. It's true that NES games have dated much moreso than Nintendo have ever allowed on later systems, but in it's time it was a revolution. So slick to control, so fluid, so fun, accessible. People had literally never seen or played anything like it before. Even the music was fun.

Along came stuff like Duck Dales, Chip N Dale, TMNT, Zelda, the other Mario Games, Balloon Fight, Gyromite with ROB, Maniac Mansion, Wrecking Crew, Track n Field, Castlevania, and a million other games. The library had some crap in it, but man it was massive.
Click to expand...

Mmm, speaking of fun music from that list.
 
A

Atolm

Member
Hmmm, by October 1985 I still wasn't a project inside my mother's womb.

NES was my second most played system in my infancy though. Master System was more popular here.
 
T

Theslammer

Member
Atolm said:
Hmmm, by October 1985 I still wasn't a project inside my mother's womb.

NES was my second most played system in my infancy though. Master System was more popular here.
Click to expand...

I didn't even know the Master System existed at the time. In fact, I don't remember when I found out it was a thing.

I wonder, with all the NES's popularity, how some parents found the Master System for their kids. Perhaps that'll be saved for when we get to the Master System launch.
 
M

mrchad

Member
I had an Atari 2600 when my neighbor got an NES with Super Mario Bros. I remember being awestruck by that game. When I eventually got a system of my own, I had:

Super Mario Bros / Duck Hunt
Rad Racer
Golf
The Legend of Zelda
Mike Tyson's Punch-Out
 
S

Stefarno

Member
Theslammer said:
The US definitely had it best, with Europe second. I'm actually surprised Super Mario Bros. wasn't a launch title there.
Click to expand...

Considering the handling of the NES in Europe was pretty much a total disaster it is hardly a surprise. That European launch didn't include the UK either, it wasn't available here until April 1987 IIRC.
 
T

Theslammer

Member
Stefarno said:
Considering the handling of the NES in Europe was pretty much a total disaster it is hardly a surprise. That European launch didn't include the UK either, it wasn't available here until April 1987 IIRC.
Click to expand...

Man, I can't imagine systems nowadays spreading their launches out over four years.

Then again, the video game business was more of a "toy" business back in the day, which is why most games came out during the holidays. Now it's more similar to the movie and music business with releases coming out throughout the year.
 
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