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= Super_Nintendo_Entertainment_System =
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Introduction
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The Super Nintendo Entertainment System, commonly shortened to Super
Nintendo, Super NES or SNES, is a 16-bit home video game console
developed by Nintendo that was released in 1990 in Japan, 1991 in
North America, 1992 in Europe and Oceania and 1993 in South America.
In Japan, it is called the In South Korea, it is called the Super
Comboy and was distributed by Hyundai Electronics. The system was
released in Brazil on August 30, 1993, by Playtronic. In Russia and
CIS, the system was distributed by Steepler from 1994 until 1996.
Although each version is essentially the same, several forms of
regional lockout prevent cartridges for one version from being used in
other versions.
The Super NES is Nintendo's second programmable home console,
following the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES). The console
introduced advanced graphics and sound capabilities compared with
other systems at the time. It was designed to accommodate the ongoing
development of a variety of enhancement chips integrated into game
cartridges to be more competitive into the next generation.
The Super NES received largely positive reviews and was a global
success, becoming the best-selling console of the 16-bit era after
launching relatively late and facing intense competition from Sega's
Genesis/Mega Drive console in North America and Europe. Overlapping
the NES's 61.9 million unit sales, the Super NES remained popular well
into the 32-bit era, with 49.1 million units sold worldwide by the
time it was discontinued in 2003. It continues to be popular among
collectors and retro gamers, with new homebrew games and Nintendo's
emulated rereleases, such as on the Virtual Console, the Super NES
Classic Edition, Nintendo Classics; as well as several non-console
emulators which operate on a desktop computer or mobile device, such
as Snes9x.
Background
============
To compete with the popular Family Computer in Japan, NEC Home
Electronics launched the PC Engine in 1987, and Sega followed suit
with the Mega Drive in 1988. The two platforms were later launched in
North America in 1989 as the TurboGrafx-16 and the Sega Genesis
respectively. Both systems were built on 16-bit architectures and
offered improved graphics and sound over the 8-bit NES. It took
several years for Sega's system to become successful. Bill Mensch, the
co-creator of the 8-bit MOS Technology 6502 microprocessor and founder
of the Western Design Center (WDC), gave Ricoh the exclusive right to
supply 8-bit and 16-bit WDC microprocessors for the new system.
Meanwhile, Sony engineer Ken Kutaragi reached an agreement with
Nintendo to design the console's sound chip without notifying his
supervisors, who were enraged when they discovered the project; though
Kutaragi was nearly fired, then-CEO Norio Ohga intervened in support
of the project and gave him permission to complete it.
Development
=============
On September 9, 1987, then-Nintendo president Hiroshi Yamauchi
revealed the development of the Super Famicom in the newspaper 'Kyoto
Shimbun'. On August 30, 1988, in an interview with 'TOUCH Magazine',
Yamauchi announced the development of 'Super Mario Bros. 4', 'Dragon
Quest V', three original games, and he projected sales of 3 million
units of the upcoming console. In that same interview, Yamauchi
pointed out that sales of the Famicom were slowing dropping ever since
it hit its peak about two years earlier, and that if they continued
supporting it, players would eventually "get bored" and move on in
favor of better-quality games, which would be "a dangerous situation"
for them. 'Famicom Hissyoubon' magazine speculated that Yamauchi's
early announcement was probably made to forestall Christmas shopping
for the PC Engine, and relayed Enix's clarification that it was
waiting on sales figures to select either PC Engine or Super Famicom
for its next 'Dragon Quest' game. The magazine and Enix both expressed
a strong interest in networking as a standard platform feature. The
console was demonstrated to the Japanese press on November 21, 1988,
and again on July 28, 1989. During the second demonstration, Nintendo
also announced that they were forced to delay the release of the Super
Famicom to the fall of 1990, as a result of problems such as a
distinct lack of software for third-party developers and a global chip
shortage - due to a new generation of semiconductor and chip
technology that forced manufacturers to split production capacity,
which also drove prices up considerably.
The final design of the Super Famicom unveiled at the second
Shoshinkai show, which was held between August 28-29, 1990. This
included late prototypes of 'Super Mario World' and 'F-Zero'. The
demonstration garnered positive results by the public in terms of
gameplay. It gained so much popularity that Nintendo received 1.5
million pre-orders for the Super Famicom from wholesalers, making them
worried that launch day would get a little chaotic. To solve this,
they encouraged retailers to install a reservation system when selling
the console. On November 20th, the day before launch, Nintendo loaded
100 trucks with boxes of Super Famicom consoles, alongside cartridges
of 'F-Zero' and 'Super Mario World' early in the morning. In that same
day, Nintendo executed "Operation: Midnight Shipping" by sending these
orders late at night, in the hopes of warding off thieves.
Launch
========
Designed by Masayuki Uemura, the designer of the original Famicom, the
Super Famicom was released in Japan on Wednesday, November 21, 1990,
for . It was an instant success. Nintendo's initial shipment of
300,000 units sold out within hours, and the resulting social
disturbance led the Japanese government to ask video game
manufacturers to schedule future console releases on weekends. This
gained the attention of the yakuza criminal organizations, so the
devices were shipped at night to avoid robbery.
With the Super Famicom quickly outselling its rivals, Nintendo
reasserted itself as the leader of the Japanese console market.
Nintendo's success was partially due to the retention of most of its
key third-party developers, including Capcom, Konami, Tecmo, Square,
Koei, and Enix.
Nintendo released the Super Nintendo Entertainment System, a
redesigned version of the Super Famicom, in North America for . It
began shipping in limited quantities on August 23, 1991, with an
official nationwide release date of September 9, 1991. The Super NES
was released in the United Kingdom and Ireland in April 1992 for .
Most of the PAL region versions of the console use the Japanese Super
Famicom design, except for labeling and the length of the joypad
leads. The Playtronic Super NES in Brazil, although PAL-M, uses the
North American design. Both the NES and Super NES were released in
Brazil in 1993 by Playtronic, a joint venture between the toy company
Estrela and consumer electronics company Gradiente.
The Super NES and Super Famicom launched with few games, but these
games were well received. In Japan, only two games were initially
available: 'Super Mario World' and 'F-Zero'. 'Bombuzal' was released
during the launch week. In North America, 'Super Mario World' was
launched as a bundle with the console; other launch games include
'F-Zero', 'Pilotwings' (both of which demonstrate the console's Mode 7
pseudo-3D rendering), 'SimCity', and 'Gradius III'.
Console wars
==============
The rivalry between Nintendo and Sega was described as one of the most
notable console wars in video game history, in which Sega positioned
the Genesis as the "cool" console, with games aimed at older
audiences, and aggressive advertisements that occasionally attacked
the competition. Nintendo scored an early public-relations advantage
by securing the first console conversion of Capcom's arcade hit
'Street Fighter II' for Super NES, which took more than a year to make
the transition to the Genesis. Though the Genesis had a two-year lead
to launch time, a much larger library of games, and a lower price
point, it only represented an estimated 60% of the American 16-bit
console market in June 1992, and neither console could maintain a
definitive lead for several years. 'Donkey Kong Country' is said to
have helped establish the Super NES's market prominence in the latter
years of the 16-bit generation, and for a time, maintain against the
PlayStation and Saturn. According to Nintendo, the company had sold
more than 20 million Super NES units in the U.S. According to a 2014
Wedbush Securities report based on NPD sales data, the Super NES
outsold the Genesis in the U.S. market by units.
Changes in policy
===================
During the NES era, Nintendo maintained exclusive control over games
released for the system - the company had to approve every game, each
third-party developer could only release up to five games per year
(but some third parties got around this by using different names, such
as Konami's "Ultra Games" brand), those games could not be released on
another console within two years, and Nintendo was the exclusive
manufacturer and supplier of NES cartridges. Competition from Sega's
console brought an end to this practice; in 1991, Acclaim
Entertainment began releasing games for both platforms, with most of
Nintendo's other licensees following suit over the next several years;
Capcom (which licensed some games to Sega instead of producing them
directly) and Square were the most notable holdouts.
Nintendo continued to carefully review submitted games, scoring them
on a 40-point scale and allocating marketing resources accordingly.
Each region performed separate evaluations. Nintendo of America also
maintained a policy that, among other things, limited the amount of
violence in the games on its systems. The surprise arcade hit 'Mortal
Kombat' (1992), a gory fighting game with huge splashes of blood and
graphically violent fatality moves, was heavily censored by Nintendo.
Because the Genesis version allowed for an uncensored version via
cheat code, it outsold the censored Super NES version by a ratio of
nearly three to one.
U.S. Senators Herb Kohl and Joe Lieberman convened a Congressional
hearing on December 9, 1993, to investigate the marketing of violent
video games to children. Though Nintendo took the high ground with
moderate success, the hearings led to the creation of the Interactive
Digital Software Association and the Entertainment Software Rating
Board and the inclusion of ratings on all video games. With these
ratings in place, Nintendo decided its censorship policies were no
longer needed.
32-bit era and beyond
=======================
While other companies were moving on to 32-bit systems, Rare and
Nintendo proved that the Super NES was still a strong contender in the
market. In November 1994, Rare released 'Donkey Kong Country', a
platform game featuring 3D models and textures pre-rendered on Silicon
Graphics workstations. With its detailed graphics, fluid animation,
and high-quality music, 'Donkey Kong Country' rivals the aesthetic
quality of games that were being released on newer 32-bit CD-based
consoles. In the last 45 days of 1994, 6.1 million copies were sold,
making it the fastest-selling video game in history to that date. This
game conveyed that early 32-bit systems had little to offer over the
Super NES, and proved the market for the more advanced consoles of the
near future. According to TRSTS reports, two of the top five
bestselling games in the U.S. for December 1996 are Super NES games.
In October 1997, Nintendo released a redesigned model of the Super NES
(the SNS-101 model referred to as "New-Style Super NES") in North
America for , with some units including the pack-in game 'Super Mario
World 2: Yoshi's Island'. Like the earlier New-Style NES (model
NES-101), this is slimmer and lighter than its predecessor, but it
lacks S-Video and RGB output, and it is among the last major Super
NES-related releases in the region. A similarly redesigned Super
Famicom Jr. was released in Japan at around the same time. The
redesign stayed out of Europe.
Nintendo ceased production of the Super NES in North America in 1999,
about two years after releasing 'Kirby's Dream Land 3' (its final
second-party game in the US) on November 27, 1997, and one year after
releasing 'Frogger' (its final third-party game in the US) in 1998. In
Japan, Nintendo continued production of both the Family Computer and
the Super Famicom until September 25, 2003, and new games were
produced until the year 2000, ending with the release of 'Metal Slader
Glory Director's Cut' on November 29, 2000.
Many popular Super NES games were ported to the Game Boy Advance,
which has similar video capabilities. In 2005, Nintendo announced that
Super NES games would be made available for download via the Wii's
Virtual Console service. On October 31, 2007, Nintendo Co., Ltd.
announced that it would no longer repair Family Computer or Super
Famicom systems due to an increasing shortage of the necessary parts.
On March 3, 2016, Nintendo Co., Ltd. announced that it would bring
Super NES games to the New Nintendo 3DS and New Nintendo 3DS XL (and
later the New Nintendo 2DS XL) via its eShop download service. At the
Nintendo Direct event on September 4, 2019, Nintendo announced that it
would be bringing select Super NES games to the Nintendo Switch Online
classic games library, later renamed Nintendo Classics.
Technical specifications
==========================
The 16-bit design of the Super NES incorporates graphics and sound
co-processors that perform tiling and simulated 3D effects, a palette
of 32,768 colors, and 8-channel ADPCM audio. These base platform
features, plus the ability to dramatically extend them all through
substantial chip upgrades inside of each cartridge, represent a leap
over the 8-bit NES generation and some significant advantages over
16-bit competitors such as the Genesis.
CPU and RAM
=============
The CPU is a Ricoh 5A22, a derivative of the 16-bit WDC 65C816
microprocessor. In NTSC regions, its nominal clock speed is 3.58 MHz
will slow to either 2.68 MHz or 1.79 MHz when accessing some slower
peripherals.
This CPU has an 8-bit data bus and two address buses. The 24-bit "Bus
A" is designated for general accesses, and the 8-bit "Bus B" can
access support chip registers such as the video and audio
co-processors.
The WDC 65C816 supports an 8-channel DMA unit, an 8-bit parallel I/O
port a controller port interface circuits allowing serial and parallel
access to controller data, a 16-bit multiplication and division unit,
and circuitry for generating non-maskable interrupts on V-blank and
IRQ interrupts on calculated screen positions.
Early revisions of the 5A22 used in SHVC boards are prone to
spontaneous failure which can produce a variety of symptoms including
graphics glitches in Mode 7, a black screen on power-on, or improperly
reading the controllers. The first revision 5A22 has a fatal bug in
the DMA controller that can crash games; this was corrected in
subsequent revisions.
The console contains 128KB of general-purpose "work" RAM, which is
separate from the 64KB dedicated to the video subsystem and the 64KB
dedicated to the audio subsystem.
Video
=======
The Picture Processing Unit (PPU) consists of two closely tied IC
packages. It contains 64KB of SRAM for video data, 544 bytes of object
attribute memory (OAM) for sprite data, and 256 × 15 bits of color
generator RAM (CGRAM) for palette data. This CGRAM provisions up to
256 colors, chosen from the 15-bit RGB color space, from a palette of
32,768 colors. The PPU is clocked by the same signal as the CPU and
generates a pixel every two or four cycles.
Audio
=======
The S-SMP audio subsystem consisted of a 16-bit digital signal
processor (DSP) to mix the sample sequences, an 8-bit SPC700 CPU to
drive the DSP, and 64KB of dedicated PSRAM. It was designed by Ken
Kutaragi and produced by Sony and is completely independent from the
rest of the system. It is clocked at a nominal 24.576 MHz in both NTSC
and PAL systems. It is capable of stereo sound, composed from eight
voices generated using 16-bit audio samples compressed using BRR and
capable of applying effects such as echo. On early revisions of the
motherboard the S-SMP audio system was spread across four chips: the
DSP, the CPU, and two RAM modules. On later revisions, the sound
hardware consolidated to a single chip, the S-APU.
Regional lockout
==================
Nintendo employed several types of regional lockout, including both
physical and hardware incompatibilities.
Physically, the cartridges are shaped differently for different
regions. North American cartridges have a rectangular bottom with
inset grooves matching protruding tabs in the console, and other
regions' cartridges are narrower with a smooth curve on the front and
no grooves. The physical incompatibility can be overcome with the use
of various adapters, or through modification of the console.
Internally, a regional lockout chip (CIC) within the console and in
each cartridge prevents the PAL region games from being played on
Japanese or North American consoles and vice versa. The Japanese and
North American machines have the same region chip. This can be
overcome through the use of adapters, typically by inserting the
imported cartridge in one slot and a cartridge with the correct region
chip in a second slot. Alternatively, disconnecting one pin of the
console's lockout chip will prevent it from locking the console;
hardware in later games can detect this situation, so it became common
to install a switch to reconnect the lockout chip as needed.
PAL consoles face another incompatibility when playing out-of-region
cartridges: the NTSC video standard specifies video at 60 Hz but PAL
operates at 50 Hz, resulting in an approximately 16.7% slower
framerate. PAL's higher resolution results in letterboxing of the
output image. Some commercial PAL region releases exhibit this same
problem and, therefore, can be played in NTSC systems without issue,
but other games will face a 20% speedup if played in an NTSC console.
To mostly correct this issue, a switch can be added to place the Super
NES PPU into a 60 Hz mode supported by most newer PAL televisions.
Later games will detect this setting and refuse to run, requiring the
switch to be thrown only after the check completes.
Casing
========
All models of the Super NES control deck are predominantly gray, of
slightly different shades. The original North American version,
designed by Nintendo of America industrial designer Lance Barr (who
previously redesigned the Famicom to become the NES), has a boxy
design with purple sliding switches and a dark gray eject lever. The
loading bay surface is curved, both to invite interaction and to
prevent food or drinks from being placed on the console and spilling
as with the flat-surfaced NES. The Japanese and European versions are
more rounded, with darker gray accents and buttons.
All versions incorporate a top-loading slot for game cartridges,
although the shape of the slot differs between regions to match the
different shapes of the cartridges. The MULTI OUT connector (later
used on the Nintendo 64 and GameCube) can output composite video,
S-Video and RGB signals, as well as RF with an external RF modulator.
Original versions additionally include a 28-pin expansion port under a
small cover on the bottom of the unit and a standard RF output with
channel selection switch on the back; the redesigned models output
composite video only, requiring an external modulator for RF.
The Nintendo Super System (NSS) is an arcade system for retail preview
of 11 particular Super NES games in the United States, similar to the
PlayChoice-10 for NES games. It consists of slightly modified Super
NES hardware with a menu interface and 25-inch monitor, that allows
gameplay for a certain amount of time depending on game credits.
Manufacturing of this model was discontinued in 1992.
Redesigned model
==================
A cost-reduced version of the console, referred to as the New-Style
Super NES (model SNS-101) in North America and as the in Japan, was
released late in the platform's lifespan; designed by Barr, it
incorporates design elements from both the original North American and
Japanese/European console models but in a smaller form factor. Unlike
the original console models, the redesigned model is virtually
identical across both regions save for the color palette (the North
American model receiving purple buttons and the Japanese model
receiving grey buttons). The redesign did not receive a release in
Europe.
Externally, the power and reset buttons were moved to the left-hand
side of the console while the cartridge eject button and power LED
indicator were omitted. Internally, the redesigned model consolidates
the console's hardware into a system-on-chip (SoC) design. The
redesigned console lacks the bottom expansion slot, rendering it
incompatible with the Japan-exclusive Satellaview add-on.
For AV output, the redesigned console features the same multi-out port
used on the original models. Unlike the latter models, the former's AV
port only supports composite video output natively as support for RGB
video and S-Video was disabled internally; however, they can be
restored via a "relatively simple" modification. The internal RF
modulator was also removed, requiring an external one for such output
if needed. Due to the SoC design, it is highly sought after by Super
NES/Famicom enthusiasts since its RGB video quality (if restored) is
improved over earlier internal revisions of the console.
The redesigned console first released in October 1997 in North
America, where it originally retailed for US$99.95 in a bundle with
'Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island';
it was subsequently released in Japan on March 27, 1998, where it
retailed for ¥7,800. Nintendo marketed it as an entry-level gamer's
system for consumers who were apprehensive about the higher price of
newer systems such as the Nintendo 64. Nintendo also introduced a
slightly altered controller for it, with the console's logo replaced
by an embossed Nintendo logo.
Yellowing
===========
The ABS plastic used in the casing of some older Super NES and Super
Famicom consoles is particularly susceptible to oxidation with
exposure to air. This, along with the particularly light color of the
original plastic, causes affected consoles to quickly become yellow;
if the sections of the casing came from different batches of plastic,
a "two-tone" effect results. This issue may be reversed with a method
called Retrobrighting, where a mixture of chemicals is applied to the
case and exposed to UV light.
Game cartridge
================
Super NES games are distributed on ROM cartridges, officially referred
to as Game Pak in most Western regions, and as in Japan and parts of
Latin America. Though the Super NES can address 128 Mbit, only 117.75
Mbit are actually available for cartridge use. A fairly normal mapping
could easily address up to 95 Mbit of ROM data (48 Mbit at FastROM
speed) with 8 Mbit of battery-backed RAM. Most available memory access
controllers only support mappings of up to 32 Mbit. The largest games
released ('Tales of Phantasia' and 'Star Ocean') contain 48 Mbit of
ROM data, and the smallest games contain only 2 Mbit.
Cartridges may also contain battery-backed SRAM to save the game
state, extra working RAM, custom coprocessors, or any other hardware
that will not exceed the maximum current rating of the console.
Games
======================================================================
1757 Super NES games were officially released: 717 in North America
(plus 4 championship cartridges), 521 in Europe, 1,448 in Japan, 231
on Satellaview, and 13 on Sufami Turbo. Many Super NES games have been
called some of the greatest video games of all time, such as 'Super
Mario World' (1990), 'The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past' (1991),
'Final Fantasy VI' (1994), 'Donkey Kong Country' (1994), 'EarthBound'
(1994), 'Super Metroid' (1994), 'Chrono Trigger' (1995) and 'Yoshi's
Island' (1995). Many Super NES games have been rereleased several
times, including on the Virtual Console, Super NES Classic Edition,
and the Nintendo Classics service on Nintendo Switch Online. All Game
Boy games are playable with the Super Game Boy add-on.
Peripherals
======================================================================
The Super NES controller design expands on that of the NES, with A, B,
X, and Y face buttons in a diamond arrangement, and two shoulder
buttons. Lance Barr created its ergonomic design, and he later adapted
it in 1993 for the NES-039 "dogbone" controller. The Japanese and PAL
region versions incorporated the four colors of the face buttons into
the system's logo. The North American version's buttons were colored
to match the redesigned console; the X and Y buttons are lavender with
concave faces, and the A and B buttons are purple with convex faces.
Several later controller designs have elements from the Super NES
controller, including the PlayStation, Dreamcast, Xbox, and Wii
Classic Controller. This face button layout is on future Nintendo
systems since the Nintendo DS.
Several peripherals add to the functionality of the Super NES. Some
are required by certain games, such as the Super Scope light gun, and
the Super NES Mouse for a point and click interface. Hudson Soft
released the Super Multitap in conjunction with 'Super Bomberman', a
multi-player adapter for the Super NES that allows up to four
additional controllers to be connected into the control deck's second
controller port for up to five possible simultaneous players in
supported titles. Many other peripheral manufacturers would follow
suit with their own multi-player adapters for the Super NES, both
officially licensed and off-brand, such as the Super Links by
Bulletproof Software (based on the Hori Multitap by Hori in Japan) and
the Super 5-Play by Performance. All Super NES titles that support the
Super Multitap or its compatible derivatives feature a "Super NES
Multi-Player Adapter" logo on their packaging or cartridge label.
Japanese Super Famicom titles used a logo instead, which was
Nintendo's generic name for the Super Multitap and its compatible
derivatives.
Various specialized joypad and joystick controllers were created by
third-party companies such as Asciiware (the AsciiPad and the Super
Advantage), Capcom (the Capcom Fighter Power Stick and the Capcom Pad
Soldier), Hudson Soft (Super Joy Card), Hori (Super Commander and the
SGB Commander) and Konami (the Hissatsu Command Controller), among
others. Unusual controllers include the BatterUP baseball bat, the
Life Fitness Entertainment System (an exercise bike controller with
built-in monitoring software), the TeeV Golf golf club, and the
Justifier (a revolver-shaped light gun made by Konami for 'Lethal
Enforcers').
Though Nintendo never released an adapter for playing NES games on the
Super NES, the Super Game Boy adapter cartridge allows games designed
for Nintendo's portable Game Boy system to be played on the Super NES.
The Super Game Boy touts several feature enhancements over the Game
Boy, including palette substitution, custom screen borders, and access
to the Super NES console's features by specially enhanced Game Boy
games. Japan also saw the release of the Super Game Boy 2, which adds
a communication port to enable a second Game Boy to connect for
multiplayer games.
Like the NES before it, the Super NES has unlicensed third-party
peripherals, including a new version of the Game Genie cheat cartridge
designed for use with Super NES games.
Soon after the release of the Super NES, companies began marketing
backup devices such as the Super Wildcard, Super Pro Fighter Q, and
Game Doctor. These devices create a backup of a cartridge, and can be
used to play illicit ROM images or to copy games, violating copyright
laws in many jurisdictions.
The Japan-only Satellaview is a satellite modem attached to the Super
Famicom's expansion port and connected to the St.GIGA satellite radio
station from April 23, 1995, to June 30, 2000. Satellaview subscribers
could download gaming news and specially designed games, which were
frequently either remakes of or sequels to older Famicom games, and
released in installments. In the United States, the relatively
short-lived XBAND allowed users to connect to a network via a dial-up
modem to compete against other players around the country.
Nintendo attempted partnerships with Sony and later Philips to develop
CD-ROM-based peripherals, aiming to compete with add-ons like the
TurboGrafx-CD and Sega CD. Sony's effort resulted in a prototype known
as the PlayStation, a Super NES with a built-in CD-ROM drive, which
never reached the market but laid the groundwork for Sony's later
independently produced console. The Philips project was canceled
before a prototype was produced. However, under the original
development agreement, Nintendo had granted Philips the rights to use
certain franchises for games intended for the planned peripheral.
After the project's cancellation, Philips retained these rights and
used them to develop Mario and Zelda titles for its CD-i multimedia
system.
Enhancement chips
======================================================================
As part of the overall plan for the Super NES, rather than include an
expensive CPU that would still become obsolete in a few years, the
hardware designers made it easy to interface special coprocessor chips
to the console, just like the MMC chips used for most NES games. This
is most often characterized by 16 additional pins on the cartridge
card edge.
The Super FX is a RISC CPU designed to perform functions that the main
CPU can not feasibly do. The chip is primarily used to create 3D game
worlds made with polygons, texture mapping and light source shading.
The chip can also be used to enhance 2D games.
The Nintendo fixed-point digital signal processor (DSP) chip allowed
fast vector-based calculations, bitmap conversions, both 2D and 3D
coordinate transformations, and other functions. Four revisions of the
chip exist, each physically identical but with different microcode.
The DSP-1 version, including the later 1A and 1B bug fix revisions, is
used most often; the DSP-2, DSP-3, and DSP-4 are used in only one game
each.
Similar to the 5A22 CPU in the console, the SA-1 chip contains a
65C816 processor core clocked at 10.7 MHz, a memory mapper, DMA,
decompression and bitplane conversion circuitry, several programmable
timers, and CIC region lockout functionality.
In Japan, games could be downloaded cheaper than standard cartridges,
from Nintendo Power kiosks onto special cartridges containing flash
memory and a MegaChips MX15001TFC chip. The chip manages communication
with the kiosks to download ROM images and has an initial menu to
select a game. Some were published both in cartridge and download
form, and others were download only. The service closed on February 8,
2007.
Many cartridges contain other enhancement chips, most of which were
created for use by a single company in a few games.
Reception and legacy
======================================================================
Approximately 49.1 million Super NES consoles were sold worldwide,
with 23.35 million of those units sold in the Americas and 17.17
million in Japan. Although it could not quite repeat the success of
the NES, which sold 61.91 million units worldwide, the Super NES was
the best-selling console of its era.
In a 1997 year-end review, a team of five 'Electronic Gaming Monthly'
editors gave the Super NES scores of 5.5, 8.0, 7.0, 7.0, and 8.0.
Though they criticized how few new games were coming out for the
system and how dated its graphics were compared to current generation
consoles, they regarded its selection of must-have games to be still
unsurpassed. Additionally noting that used Super NES games were
readily available in bargain bins, most of them still recommended
buying a Super NES. In 2007, 'GameTrailers' named the Super NES as the
second-best console of all time (only behind the PlayStation 2) in
their list of top ten consoles that "left their mark on the history of
gaming", citing its graphics, sound, and library of top-quality games.
In 2015, they also named it the best Nintendo console of all time,
saying, "The list of games we love from this console completely
annihilates any other roster from the Big N." Technology columnist Don
Reisinger proclaimed "The SNES is the greatest console of all time" in
January 2008, citing the quality of the games and the console's
dramatic improvement over its predecessor; fellow technology columnist
Will Greenwald replied with a more nuanced view, giving the Super NES
top marks with his heart, the NES with his head, and the PlayStation
(for its controller) with his hands. GamingExcellence also gave the
Super NES first place in 2008, declaring it "simply the most timeless
system ever created" with many games that stand the test of time and
citing its innovation in controller design, graphics capabilities, and
game storytelling. At the same time, GameDaily rated it fifth of the
ten greatest consoles for its graphics, audio, controllers, and games.
In 2009, 'IGN' named the Super NES the fourth-best video game console,
complimenting its audio and number of AAA games.
Emulation
===========
SNES emulation began with VSMC in 1994, and Super Pasofami became the
first working emulator in 1996. During that time, two competing
emulation projects, Snes96 and Snes97, merged to form Snes9x. In 1997,
ZSNES development began. In 2004, Bsnes development began with the
goal of preservation through maximal accuracy and compatibility, and
was later renamed to Higan.
Nintendo of America maintained its stance against the distribution of
SNES ROM image files and the use of emulators, as it had with the NES
before, saying they represent copyright infringement. Emulation
proponents assert that the discontinued hardware production
constitutes abandonware status, the owners' right to make a personal
backup, space shifting for private use, the development of homebrew
games, the frailty of ROM cartridges and consoles, and the lack of
certain foreign imports. Nintendo designed a hobbyist development
system for the SNES, but never released it.
Unofficial SNES emulation is available on virtually all platforms,
including Android, iOS, game consoles, and PDAs. Individual games have
been bundled with official dedicated emulators on some GameCube discs,
and Nintendo's Virtual Console service for the Wii introduced diverse
and officially licensed SNES emulation.
The Super NES Classic Edition was released in September 2017 following
the NES Classic Edition. This emulation-based mini-console, which is
physically modeled after the North American and European versions of
the SNES, is bundled with two SNES-style controllers and 21 games,
including the unreleased 'Star Fox 2'.
License
=========
All content on Gopherpedia comes from Wikipedia, and is licensed under CC-BY-SA
License URL:
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
Original Article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Nintendo_Entertainment_System
