Super Nintendo Entertainment System

Known as the Nintendo Super Famicom in the Japanese market, it begins its global career with the much better known name, Super NES or simply SNES. SNES comes to continue the huge commercial success of NES, which in 1991 (when the SNES was released) is already in its 8th year of life.

Despite the tough competition, SNES also manages to dominate the 16-bit gaming market, despite its delayed entry against a powerful Sega Genesis/Mega Drive (1988) and despite not being compatible with NES. Until 1999, when it remained on the world market (it will continue to be produced in Japan until 2003), its sales will exceed 49 million units. The SNES, designed by Masayuki Wemuras, who also designed NES, had already made an impressive start in November 1990, with an opening that reached 300,000 sales in a matter of hours. It is indicative that SNES managed to stand even against the powerful 64-bit competition a few years later and its impressive 3D graphics.

The SNES 16-bit processor is specially designed by Ricoh for this game console. In the field of graphics, in addition to the palette of 32,768 colors (15bit), the Nintendo console continues to be based on two-dimensional models, with the ability to display up to 128 sprites of size 64 × 64 pixels. Traditionally, Nintendo insists on using cartridges (even on the Nintendo 64 that will follow the SNES) for games. And in the case of SNES, the sales load is primarily driven by Nintendo's most famous franchise, the Mario series of hero games. It is worth noting that a single title, Super Mario World, is responsible for over 20 million sales. Finally, the support is similar in peripherals, from special controls to backup devices, and from add-on chips to a special cartridge that allowed the SNES to play portable Nintendo Game Boy games.