Nintendo’s Golden Era: How SNES Changed Gaming Forever

If you don't know yet, at the beginning Nintendo was a Kyoto-based card maker company; they tried with instant rice, taxis, and even love hotels.

In 1980, Mr. Gunpei Yokoi, the father of the Game&Watch, was traveling on a train when he saw a bored man playing with a portable LCD calculator. This gave Mr. Gunpei the idea of the first portable LCD video game, and soon the first Game&Watch became a reality.

The golden era of Nintendo was starting.

After a huge list and versions of the Game&Watch, in 1983, Nintendo released the Famicom, which took the market by storm. There was no mercy as Nintendo's console crushed its competitors. Somehow, with this console, Nintendo defined video games.

Game&Watch, Famicon, Game Boy ...

Nintendo was doing pretty well, but it was in the early '90s when Nintendo hit the spot with the release of their new console, the Super Family Computer System (AKA Super Famicom), also known as the Super Nintendo Entertainment System, "SNES".

49.10 million units sold all over the world. You can add the sales of Sega's Dreamcast and Microsoft's Xbox, and you'll still not even be close.

The best-selling game?

You're right, one of the greatest games of all time, Super Mario World, 20.60 million sales.

SNES had the finest variety of video games, EVER!

If you take a look at Nintendo's SNES game library, you'll find many of the greatest video games of all time, not just for one generation but for ALL TIME. You don't believe me?

Super Mario World, check!

Street Fighter 2, check!

Chrono Trigger, check!

Mortal Kombat, check! Final Fantasy III, check!

Zelda, A Link to the Past, check!

Super Metroid, check!

and the list goes on and on.

"Sword & Sworcery 2011"

The big N did a pretty good job, and you can say that SNES still reigns supreme. If we look at the NES, it is just too old, and the N64 has ugly blocky polygons, but SNES is at that perfect middle point. Nowadays, many indie game developers try to reproduce that sweet timeless look of the SNES. The reason is simple: it just works!