Fourth generation of video game consoles
Nintendo executives were initially reluctant to design a new system, but as the market transitioned to the newer hardware, Nintendo saw the erosion of the commanding market share it had built up with the Nintendo Entertainment System. Nintendo's fourth-generation console, the Super Famicom, was released in Japan on November 21, 1990; Nintendo's initial shipment of 300,000 units sold out within hours. The machine reached North America as the Super Nintendo Entertainment System on August 23, 1991, and Europe and Australia in April 1992.
Super Mario Bros. 2
Also that year, the young subsidiary Nintendo of America was just completing its test marketing of, and beginning its nationwide launch of, the new Nintendo Entertainment System and its flagship game, "Super Mario Bros." This American adaptation of the Famicom platform had been altogether deliberately delayed in the wake of the video game crash of 1983, a regional market disaster which the Japanese market had not directly experienced. The subsidiary did not want the increasingly popular "Mario" series to be known for maximal frustration and thus inaccessible to a recovering, transfiguring, and expanding market — nor to be stylistically outdated by the time the Japanese "Super Mario Bros. 2" could be eventually converted to the NES's cartridge format, localized, and mass-produced for America. Utilizing its considerable regional autonomy in order to avoid risking the franchise's popularity in this burgeoning market, Nintendo of America declined this game's American release and instead requested a newer and more player-friendly "Super Mario Bros." sequel for the non-Japanese world.