Super Nintendo Entertainment System
The Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES), also known as the Super NES or Super Nintendo, is a 16-bit home video game console developed by Nintendo that was released in 1990 in Japan and South Korea, 1991 in North America, 1992 in Europe and Australasia (Oceania), and 1993 in South America. In Japan, the system is called the Super Famicom (SFC). In South Korea, it is known as the Super Comboy and was distributed by Hyundai Electronics. The system was released in Brazil on August 30, 1993, by Playtronic. Although each version is essentially the same, several forms of regional lockout prevent the different versions from being compatible with one another.
History of the Nintendo Entertainment System
While the NES in its heyday was never officially released in the Soviet Union, an unlicensed Chinese hardware clone named the Dendy was produced in Russia in the early 1990s. Aesthetically, it is an exact duplicate of the original Famicom, with the color scheme and labels altered. In addition, the hardwired controllers of the original console were omitted in favor of removable controllers which connected to the front of the unit using DE-9 serial connectors, identical to those used in the Atari 2600 and the Atari 8-bit family of computers.
All games sold in Russia for "Dendy" are bootleg copies, not the original Nintendo cartridges.
In North America, the NES widely outsold its primary competitors, the Atari 7800 and the Sega Master System. The successful launch of the NES positioned Nintendo to dominate the home video game market for the remainder of the 1980s. Buoyed by the success of the system, NES Game Paks produced similarly appropriate sales records. Released in 1988 in Japan, "Super Mario Bros. 3" would gross well over US$500 million, selling over 7 million copies in America and 4 million copies in Japan, making it the most popular and fastest selling standalone home video game in history. The original "Super Mario Bros." actually outsold "Super Mario Bros. 3" by a margin of 40.24 million to 17.28 million. Many of the sales of the original game, however, were the result of the fact that it was packaged alongside the NES console itself.