The big picture: It's been 35 years since Nintendo released its first 16-bit home gaming console, the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. A follow-up to the wildly successful NES, the SNES was Nintendo's answer to Sega's 16-bit Genesis console and saw the company through the early 90s to the eventual launch of the Nintendo 64.
The Super Nintendo debuted in North America on August 23, 1991, after having launched as the Super Famicom in Japan a full nine months earlier. Nintendo was technically late to the 16-bit fight considering Sega's next-gen gaming machine had been around since the tail end of the 80s, but made up for lost time in a big way.
The SNES was vastly superior to its predecessor in terms of graphics and audio performance, but hardware is only part of the equation. Nintendo had committed to turning out quality games with the original NES in a bid to avoid the same fate as Atari, and that really became evident with the SNES.
Nintendo's 16-bit machine shipped with Super Mario World as its pack-in title. Following Super Mario Bros. 3 was a daunting task, but Nintendo hit a grand slam with Super Mario World. Other brilliant games would eventually follow, including Super Metroid, Donkey Kong Country, TMNT: Turtles in Time, and Star Fox, just to name a few. Many of them still hold up well today.
Nintendo even had plans to launch a CD-ROM add-on for the console, but that never came to be as its partnership with Sony soured. That snafu ultimately led to the creation of the PlayStation, forever altering the home console landscape. Can you imagine what gaming might look like today without Sony as the leading player?
Nintendo sold 49.1 million SNES consoles before the machine was officially discontinued in 1999. That is only good for 16th all-time and pales in comparison to more popular platforms like the PS2 and the Switch, but the system's impact remains undeniable even all these years later.
Image credit: Evan Amos
