History of the Nintendo Entertainment System
In the late 80s, Nintendo's dominance was threatened by newer, technologically superior consoles. 1987, NEC and Hudson Soft released the PC Engine, and a year later, Sega released the 16 bit Mega Drive. Both were introduced in North America in 1989, where they were respectively marketed as the "TurboGrafx-16" and the "Genesis." Facing new competition from the PC Engine in Japan, and the Genesis in North America, Nintendo's market share began to erode. Nintendo responded in the form of the Super Famicom ("Super Nintendo Entertainment System" in North America and Europe), the Famicom's 16-bit successor, in 1990. Although Nintendo announced their intention to continue to support the Famicom alongside their newer console, the success of the newer offering began to draw even more gamers and developers from the original NES, whose decline accelerated. However, Nintendo did continue support of the NES for about three years after the September 1991 release of the Super NES, with the NES's final first-party games being "" and "Wario's Woods".
Nintendo video game consoles
Released July 15, 1983, the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) is an 8-bit video game console released by Nintendo in North America, South America, Europe, Asia, Oceania and Africa and was Nintendo's first home video game console released outside Japan. In Japan, it is known as the "Family Computer" (or "Famicom", as it is commonly abbreviated). Selling 61.91 million units worldwide, the NES helped revitalize the video game industry following the video game crash of 1983 and set the standard for subsequent consoles in everything from game design to business practices. The NES was the first console for which the manufacturer openly courted third-party developers. Many of Nintendo's most iconic franchises, such as "The Legend of Zelda" and "Metroid" were started on the NES. Nintendo continued to repair Famicom consoles in Japan until October 31, 2007, attributing the decision to discontinue support to an increasing shortage of the necessary parts.