Super Nintendo Entertainment System
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"The Best Play Here!"
—The original slogan for the console
"Play It Loud!"
—The second slogan, made to appeal to the youth of that time
The NES had a long run, and was still quite popular years after it launched. Yet competition wouldn't stay away forever (and Nintendo's attempts at a monopoly in the United States had been legally struck down), and the Sega Genesis was catching up in the United States, while the TurboGrafx-16 was gaining ground in Japan.
The SNES was made to keep up, and so began one of the fiercest Console Wars in history. It was known as the Super Famicom in Japan (officially adopting the "Famicom" nickname of its predecessor, the Family Computer) while in South Korea, it's known as the Super Comboy (슈퍼 컴보이) and it was distributed by Hynix. While the SNES was very much a success (eventually beating out the rival Genesis in market share), Nintendo would still make some mistakes behind the scenes. Nintendo originally had a deal to make a CD add-on for the SNES, and signed with Sony for the latter to make the device. But the contract for the sound chip Sony made included a clause where Sony would receive all software royalties. The President of Nintendo, Hiroshi Yamauchi, decided to drop the contract and sign with Philips midway through development (and behind Sony's back), which turned the relationship into a rocky one. Eventually Nintendo, Sony and Philips consolidated forces to work on the CD add on, until Sony decided to go it alone, using the already-constructed hardware to launch their own console, the PlayStation.
One add-on for the system, did get made: The Super Game Boy, a cartridge attachment that allowed the system to play Game Boy games, and even add color to them.
Also notable for having very different casings on both the console and the games between the American and European versions. The picture shows the American version, with the harder edges, while the European edition was more rounded.
Specs:
- Like the NES, the Super NES has a CPU for main data processing, and a Picture Processing Unit for the graphics. Also like the NES, the Super NES CPU and PPU have a master clock speed of 21.5 MHz, but the CPU divides it down to between 1.78, 2.68 and 3.58 MHz due to slow (cheap) cartridge ROM, and it was cheaper to make the system with said clock speed. This led to the belief that the SNES was a slow system, and that too much on screen action would slow it down.
- The processor itself was a 65C816, a 16-bit successor to the 6502 used in the NES, Apple II, Commodore 64, and Atari consoles and computers. Nintendo actually used Apple IIgs computers as development systems, since they also used the 65C816.
- The bus speed was a problem at first, but the system has a lot of memory, and like the NES before, it has a cart-accessible expansion bus, which meant carts could add their own extra processors to run at higher speeds.
- One of the most famous of these chips is the "Super FX" chip, which was basically a GPU for running Polygonal Graphics. It even had some extra memory.
- Another famous chip called SA-1, used in Kirby Super Star and Super Mario RPG, was a second faster 65C816 clocked at 10.5 MHz that was also used for Polygonal Graphics (as well as for Copy Protection).
- The system also has its own sound processor, made by Sony (naturally, this was before Sony made its own system). This wasn't made just to generate sound, but to also mix it, like a MOD with it's own custom instruments/samples , with 8 ADPCM sample-playback channels available. Even though this hardware was advanced, it was bottlenecked by the low amount of space provided by the cartridges and the limited RAM. The filtering hardware managed to remove aliasing in heavily compressed audio samples. However, it also muffled certain types of audio samples. It also did reverb and other sound effects.
Notable games/series:
- The 7th Saga
- ActRaiser
- Aero the Acro Bat
- Aladdin
- Another World
- Ardy Lightfoot
- Arkanoid: Doh It Again
- Assault Suits Valken (Cybernator)
- A.S.P. Air Strike Patrol (Desert Fighter)
- Axelay
- Bahamut Lagoon
- Batman Returns
- Battle Clash
- Metal Combat: Falcon's Revenge
- Biker Mice From Mars
- BIOMETAL
- Blackthorne
- Boogerman
- Brain Lord
- Brandish
- Breath of Fire I
- Bubsy
- Captain America and The Avengers
- Captain Commando
- Captain Novolin
- Cho Aniki: Bakuretsu Ranto Hen
- Chrono Trigger
- Clock Tower
- The Combatribes
- Contra III: The Alien Wars
- Cutthroat Island
- Daikaijuu Monogatari
- Daikajuu Monogatari II
- Darius Twin
- Deae Tonosama Appare Ichiban
- Der Langrisser
- Desert Strike
- Disney's Magical Quest
- Donkey Kong Country
- Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest
- Donkey Kong Country 3: Dixie Kong's Double Trouble
- Doom
- Doom Troopers
- Doremi Fantasy
- Dragon Quest V
- EarthBound
- Earthworm Jim
- Earthworm Jim 2
- Emerald Dragon
- EVO Search for Eden
- F-Zero
- Fatal Fury
- Fighter's History
- Fighter's History Dynamite
- Final Fantasy IV
- Final Fight
- Final Fight Guy
- Final Fight 2
- Final Fight 3
- Fire Emblem
- Super Fire Pro Wrestling
- Super Fire Pro Wrestling 2
- Super Fire Pro Wrestling 3 Final Bout
- Super Fire Pro Wrestling 3 Easy Type
- Fire Pro Women: All Star Dream Slam
- Super Fire Pro Wrestling Special
- Super Fire Pro Wrestling: Queen's Special
- Super Fire Pro Wrestling X
- Super Fire Pro Wrestling X Premium
- Flashback
- Front Mission
- Gundam Wing Endless Duel
- Hagane
- Harvest Moon
- Illusion of Gaia
- Indiana Jones' Greatest Adventures
- Judge Dredd: The Movie
- Kid Klown in Crazy Chase
- Killer Instinct
- Killer Instinct 2
- The King of Dragons
- Kirby Super Star
- Knights of the Round
- Kunio Tachi no Banka
- The Legend of Zelda III: A Link To The Past
- Lennus II
- The Lion King
- Live a Live
- Looney Tunes: Acme Animation Factory
- Lufia and The Fortress of Doom
- Magic Knight Rayearth
- Magic Sword Heroic Fantasy
- Mario Paint
- Maui Mallard in Cold Shadow
- Mega Man 7
- Rockman & Forte
- Mega Man Soccer
- Mega Man X
- Mega Man X2
- Mega Man X3
- Metal Marines
- Mickey Mania
- The Miracle Piano Teaching System
- Mortal Kombat
- Mortal Kombat 2
- Mortal Kombat 3
- Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3
- Mr. Do
- Mysterious Dungeon: Shiren the Wanderer
- Mystic Ark
- NHL Hockey
- NHLPA Hockey 93
- NHL 94
- NHL 95
- NHL 96
- NHL 97
- NHL 98
- Ninja Gaiden Trilogy
- Ogre Battle
- Paladin's Quest
- The Pirates of Dark Water
- Pit-Fighter
- Plok
- Pocky & Rocky
- Pop'n Twinbee
- Twinbee: Rainbow Bell Adventure
- Prehistoric Man
- Raiden Trad
- Rise of the Robots
- Robotrek
- Rock n' Roll Racing
- Rocky Rodent
- Romancing Sa Ga
- Run Saber
- Rushing Beat series
- Sailor Moon: Another Story
- Samurai Shodown
- Saturday Night Slam Masters
- Secret of Evermore
- Secret of Mana
- Secret of the Stars
- Seiken Densetsu 3
- Shin Megami Tensei I
- Shodai Nekketsu Koha Kunio-kun
- SimCity
- Sonic Blast Man
- SOS
- Soul Blazer
- Sparkster
- Star Fox 1993
- Star Ocean 1
- Street Fighter II
- Street Fighter II Turbo (actually a compilation of Champion Edition and Hyper Fighting)
- Super Street Fighter II
- Street Fighter Alpha 2
- Sunset Riders
- Super Bomberman
- Super Bonk
- Super Castlevania IV
- Super Double Dragon
- Super Ghouls 'n' Ghosts
- Super Mario All-Stars
- Super Mario World
- Super Mario Bros. spinoffs:
- Super Metroid
- Super Punch-Out!!
- Super R-Type
- R-Type III: The Third Lightning
- Super Robot Wars 3
- Super Robot Wars Gaiden: Masou Kishin: The Lord of Elemental
- Super Star Wars
- Super Turrican
- Super Valis
- Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles IV: Turtles In Time
- Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Tournament Fighters
- Tales of Phantasia
- Terranigma
- Tin Star
- Total Carnage
- Toy Story
- Treasure Hunter G
- Treasure of the Rudra
- 'The Twisted Tales of Spike McFang
- UN Squadron
- Ultima: The Black Gate
- Uniracers
- Vortex
- Weaponlord
- Wild Guns
- Wolfenstein 3D
- World Heroes
- World Heroes 2
- Young Merlin
- Ys III: Wanderers from Ys
- Ys IV: Mask of the Sun
- Ys V: The Lost City of Kefin
- Zombies Ate My Neighbors
- Zool