MyMedia Retrospective - Super Nintendo

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Nintendo’s first worldwide released videogame console was the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) which single-handedly resurrected the once dying videogames industry. This humble looking box took videogames out of the bargain bin and back onto the shelves and got people back into gaming. So for Nintendo to improve on this it was one amazing achievement and I’m sure when most people got wind that Nintendo was working on a Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES) their initial reaction was “holy crap, an NES but SUPER! Must have”. For me I couldn’t possibly fathom the amount of hours I sat in front of a TV with an SNES controller in my hand; hit after hit after hit the awesome games just kept rolling in one after another it was almost too hard to keep up. Frequent trips to video store to hire games were basically routine as I couldn’t get enough of the system. I was lucky enough to get to play the SNES before it was officially released to the public and when I first laid eyes on F-Zero, I was literally blown away. The mesmerising Mode 7 graphics made me feel a little queasy and it took a while for me to wrap my head around it all. It’s been a while since a game has done that too me with Mario 64 being the next time Nintendo truly had me gob smacked. I guess we’ve all been sensitised to the evolutionary steps in videogames so with that said lets take a closer look at the Super Nintendo back when the new stuff still had that amazing “wow” factor.

Super Nintendo

You've got to give credit where credit is due, the NES was the major contributor to putting the much needed spark back into the gaming industry; but the problem with technology is that it can only stay competitive for a certain amount of time before it becomes obsolete. Around the early 90s the NES was beginning to show its age as consoles featuring 16bit processors were quickly becoming the standard. Sega had already made the jump and released their Mega Drive/Gensis which was slowly building up popularity with sly marketing slogans such as “Gensis does what Nintendon’t” showing off its superior hardware compared to the NES. Sega got to enjoy a two year head start over Nintendo in the 16bit era (4th generation) with their only major 16bit competitor being the NEC’s TurboGrafx-16. In those two years the Mega Drive established its self a respectable worldwide user base, which they needed, because Nintendo at the time were brewing up something special.

In November 1990 the SNES was first released in Japan, other wise known as the Super Famicom (Super Family Computer) and was greeted with phenomenal success. Nintendo’s initial shipment of 300,000 units disappeared from store shelves in a matter of hours. August 1991, April 1992 and July 1992 saw the North America, European and Australian releases respectively and was welcomed with similar success to the Japanese launch. The PAL versions of the SNES used the same casing and game pack shape as the Japanese Super Famicom except for the logos but the NTSC version sported a totally different case design. Dressed in gray with purple system buttons the NTSC version had a more straight line design for both the console and the game packs plus being NTSC format the processors were running a 16.7% faster clock speed. NTSC game pack design differed from other regions to stop users from playing games from other regions however aftermarket devices and illegal modifications were available to bypass Nintendo’s region lock out systems.

The Masayuki Uemura designed console quickly took the world by storm but Sega was not giving up without a fight. The battle between SNES and Mega Drive turned out to be the fiercest and most memorable console war of all time. Both consoles were backed with an impressive games library and both had hardware strengths and weakness, as a consumer choosing between the two 16bit systems would have been a tough decision at the time. Nintendo had a good family friendly image that they have upheld since the NES days and Sega was promoting their Mega Drive as “the cool” console by using edgy marketing. The Mega Drive had a faster processor than the SNES but the SNES had better graphics processing abilities and a better sound processor (which was made by Sony). The Mega Drive’s faster processor meant it could work with additional hardware add-ons more efficiently than the SNES but Nintendo proved they could push their hardware further with the aid of co-processor chips fitted to game packs. This Sega vs Nintendo rivalry stayed neck to neck for many years with neither console holding the position as most popular 16bit console for decent length of time before the other caught up again. Nintendo did eventually take top position and became the undisputed king of the 16bit consoles. While Sega was juggling a multitude of different formats Nintendo kept on impressing consumers with what could be achieved with the SNES and they continued to do so right into the 32bit era. In 1997 Nintendo released a slim version of the SNES in the US and in Japan called the SNES2 or Super Famicom Jr. The SNES2 was simply a redesign of the original SNES but lighter and smaller with the S-Video and RGB outputs removed and was sold at a much cheaper price. All good things must come to an end though; in 1999 Nintendo America discontinued the SNES but Nintendo Japan continued to produce the Super Famicom right up until late 2003.

Software

The main thing people remember about the Super Nintendo/Famicom is the games. Even though the SNES was capable of producing impressive visuals for its time, such as pseudo 3D Mode 7 graphics, Nintendo still put a strong emphasis on game play over graphics. Not only did SNES users get to experience updated versions of popular Nintendo franchises such as Zelda, Mario and Metroid third party developers that published games for the NES continued to bring top quality titles to the SNES. The likes of Capcom, Konami, Tecmo, Square Co and Enix, just to name a few, released a great number of smash hit games. Between Nintendo in-house developers and third party developers there was huge variety of games to choose from. Over the life of the SNES 785 games were released and that’s only the SNES titles not including the Japanese only Super Famicom releases. When consumers began to demand 3D games filled with polygons the SNES architecture was nowhere near cable of achieving this on its own. So Nintendo used co-processor chips fitted to game packs to bring the FX series of games to the SNES such as Star Fox FX and Stunt Racer FX. The FX games may have looked a bit blocky but they still played well and they gave consumers a good taste of full 3D gaming. Towards the tail end of the SNES’s production life it looked like Nintendo had extracted all that it could out of the SNES hardware. Nintendo in collaboration with Rare managed to “wow” consumers that one last time by producing games that used 3D models and textures pre-rendered on SGI workstations with impressive results. The classics Donkey Kong Country and Killer Instinct had people in disbelief with its stunning visuals and music that seemed more fitting on a 32bit console, not a 16bit one. The top selling game was Super Mario World which was one of the launch titles and the original pack in game that came with the SNES hardware. Super Mario World was ported over to the Game Boy Advance and is now available on the Wii’s Vitual Console and so far over 20 million copies of this game have been sold.

Accessories and Hardware Add-Ons

Control Pad Nintendo moved away from the simplistic look of the NES controller while at the same time retaining some familiarity. The now standard issued D-pad still remains along with the Start and Select buttons. The SNES controller has a sleeker feel and look to it with its updated contour design. Four main action buttons are placed in cross pattern and two shoulder buttons are on top of the controller. This button placement has been adopted by a number of other manufactures with only small refinements being made over time to keep up with the current gaming trends. The NTSC version of the SNES controller only differs in appearance to the PAL SNES and Super Famicom, sporting a different colour scheme. As usual there was a large selection of aftermarket versions of the SNES controller, some offering alternate button layouts to suite particular games, others keeping the original layout but adding turbo buttons and programmable features.

Satellaview The Satellaview was a Japanese only release add-on for the SNES that connected to the underside of the SNES unit. When fully set up users could access a number features through a subscription service called St. GIGA. That included exclusive games, re-mixed SNES games and re-released SNES games. For a closer more in-depth look at this add-on check out the Retrospective on Hardware Add-Ons for the 16bit Era.

Super Gameboy The Super Gameboy was a accessory that gave SNES owners the luxury of backwards compatibility with the Game Boy and Game Boy Color. In short the Super Game Boy is an oversized SNES cartridge that uses similar hardware to the Game Boy to display all the portable classics on a television. Original Game Boy games could be customised to a certain degree with a number of colour and border options to play with. Some gaming developers optimized Game Boy Color games for this accessory which was noted on the packaging. For a closer more in-depth look at this add-on check out the Retrospective on Hardware Add-Ons for the 16bit Era.

Super Scope The Super Scope is the successor to the NES zapper and featured a great number of differences to its predecessor. Firstly the most noticeable aspect of the unit is the shear physical size, measuring in at roughly 76cms in length. Rather than go with the traditional pistol style design the Super Scope looks more like a Bazooka with the fire button positioned on top of the unit. A handle grip is located at the front of the unit and a shoulder brace towards the rear. A detachable viewing scope could be positioned towards the front or the middle of the Super Scope. This design may have made the Super Scope look more aggressive but prolonged use of this accessory gave users discomfort, from both the awkward position you have to hold the unit in and the eye strain caused from looking through the viewing scope. The Super Scope did have the advantage of being wireless using a sensor that plugs into the second player port of the SNES to receive signals from the gun. Nintendo claimed a distance of three meters would still have accurate targeting and to avoid travelling back to the SNES unit to reset the game, a soft reset could be achieved via the Super Scope. The down side to being wireless was the alarming rate at which the unit devoured the six AA batteries required to power it. For those that are wanting a little nostalgia and planning on firing up the old Super Scope once again you better have an old CRT TV/monitor in order for the gun to work. This is because the Super Scope depends on the short persistence of CRT pixels to detect shots fired at the screen. Only a handful of titles were released that were compatible with this accessory.

Compatible Super Scope Games

Battle Clash
Bazooka Blitzkrig
The Hunt for Red October (it is used for bonus games)
Lamborghini American Challenge (it accesses a different game mode from the normal one)
Metal Combat: Falcon's Revenge
Operation Thunderbolt
Super Scope 6 (bundled with the hardware)
T2: The Arcade Game
Tin Star
X-Zone
Yoshi's Safari

Super Multitap Nearly all the major consoles on the market at the time offered some sort device that expanded the number of controller ports that could be used at the one time. Nintendo also offered such a device called the Super Multitap, which was an officially licensed version but manufactured by Hudsonsoft. The Super Multitap plugged into the second controller port of the SNES offering four more controller ports in addition to the first player controller port making that a total of five available ports. Through out its lifespan over 50 titles were released on the SNES that utilized this accessory with Super Bomberman being one of the most popular. Hudsonsoft even went to the extent of releasing a second version of the Super Multitap in the shape of the Bomberman character’s head.

Nintendo Mouse One of the odd accessories for the SNES that doesn’t have the word “super” in its title which was common for most things associated with the SNES. The Nintendo Mouse came bundled with the game Mario Paint which was an artistic program that encouraged creativity. With Mario Paint the user could use the mouse to create images, simple animations, compose music and play a handful of minigames. The Nintendo Mouse was not just limited to Mario Paint as it was intended for use with other titles but there wasn’t a great deal that did, with the majority of these games only getting a Japanese release.

Score Master Joystic The Score Master Joystick is one of the many joysticks that was released for the SNES. This one in particular has a traditional Street Fighter six button layout as well as a turbo option for each of the action buttons. Since the popular arcade 'beat’em up’s' were getting ported over to the SNES, a lot of aftermarket joysticks were released to suit. Different button positioning, turbo/rapid fire buttons, programmable features and various levels of quality construction were available. Depending on what your wanted to use it for or how deep your pockets were there was no shortage of joystick options, but as a general rule, you get what you pay for.

The Batter Up! This accessory is an officially licensed item manufactured by Sport Sciences. Batter up is compatible with all Baseball games on the SNES and is designed to simulate a swing on a baseball bat in a similar manner to how we interact with Wii Sports using the Wii Remote today. Measuring in at roughly 30cms in length and constructed from black plastic with blue foam padding at the end of the bat, just above the handle sits a control panel that consists of A, B, X, Y buttons, four directional buttons, start + select buttons and four dip switches, presumably these are used to position your on screen character to avoid the need to swap back to the standard controller.

SNES Baseball Games

Ken Griffey Jr. Presents Major League Baseball
Hardball III
ESPN Baseball Tonight
MLBPA Baseball
Super Baseball
Cal Ripken Jr. Baseball
Sports Illustrated Championship Football and Baseball
Super Batter Up

Unauthorised Accessories Back before CD ROM and DVD were the common media and the vast resources available on the Internet today, other means to an end were necessary in order to exploit the SNES. A number of cheat devices were available with the most common being the Action Replay and the Game Genie. These cheat devices slotted into the SNES cartridge slot with the game you wanted to cheat on being plugged into the top. Specific codes would then be entered to activate the desired cheats. Even though cartridges weren’t a common storage medium like CD/DVD’s are these days it was still possible to make “back ups” of SNES games but rather than simply adding a bypass chip to your system and sourcing the Internet an extra piece of hardware was needed. There was a number of these so-called back up devices on the market, some of which could be used on more than one brand of console. Basically these units allowed the user to copy an SNES game to floppy discs and depending on the size of the game sometimes more than one disc was required. There was a limit to what games you could copy to disc; in most cases the games containing co-processor chips could not be copied. Nintendo made it clear that they didn’t want games from other regions to be played on your local SNES by having a different game pack design for the PAL and NTSC consoles. Aftermarket Universal adaptors allowed you to play games from another region, some of these adaptors worked by inserting both the import copy of the game and a local game. Others were simply a pass through cartridge used to get around the different shaped game packs but they only worked if you had a PAL/NTSC switch fitted to you console. All of the above mentioned accessories were not authorised and Nintendo did what they could to stop these accessories from working with new games as they got released. Naturally neither Nintendo or any developer wouldn't want their hard work being pirated and people that have used these unauthorised accessories have experienced problems that were detrimental to their SNES hardware.

CD-ROM Drive After Sega released the Sega CD for the Mega Drive and the acceptance of CD ROM technology in videogames began to grow., Nintendo began to explore the idea of producing their own CD ROM add-on for the SNES. Originally the services of both Phillips and Sony were sourced but deals with both the companies fell through and they all went their separate ways. Phillips walked away with the rights to develop some Nintendo franchise games for their CD-i multimedia player. Many people would have to agree that the Zelda games released on the CD-i somewhat tainted the Zelda brand name. For Sony it was a little different as they were extremely keen on getting involved in the videogames industry. Initial plans were made for Sony to produce a CD ROM drive for the SNES, as well as a stand alone unit that could play both CD ROMs and SNES cartridges. Dubbed the “Playstation” this add-on would have used a CD encased in a plastic caddy for protection and to help combat piracy. The deal with Sony and Nintendo didn’t eventuate due to disagreements with profit allocations, and both parties eventually moved on. Sony later released the Playstation which over time has become one of the most popular franchises in the videogames industry and one of Nintendo’s strongest competitors.

Co-Processor Chips Since the idea of addition hardware to boost the SNES’s performance were looking grim Nintendo did the next best thing to extract further potential out of the SNES hardware. Co-Processor chips were fitted to certain games to aid with a number of tasks that the SNES hardware could not achieve on its own. The most common of these chips was the FX Chip and Nintendo proudly branded the games that featured this chip with the FX logo on the packaging. These chips did incur an additional cost to the manufacturing process of cartridges but was quickly offset by high performance games, the fact that no extra hardware was required to play the games and that these games were near impossible to pirate. The chips could help with drawing polygons to produce 3D environments, complex mathematical calculations, sprite handling, data compression and much more. Nintendo and their third party developer’s decision to utilize co-processor chips in cartridges helped the SNES stay competitive well into the 32 era. For a closer look at the FX Chip and other co-processor chips used for SNES games take a look at the Retrospective article on the FX Chip.

Super Nintendo Media

Commercial for the Super Nintendo

Now you’re playing with power commercial

Sega’s Nintendon’t commercial

Mario Paint Commercial

One of the Street Fighter 2 commercial for the Super Famicom

F-Zero is a prime example of Mode 7 graphics

Back in the 16bit era most gamers were either on Nintendo’s side, or Sega’s side, with frequent quarrels about which was the better console. Things were pretty simple then with only two major players in the industry battling it out against each other and everyone else just grabbing for scraps. It was definitely and interesting time to be a gamer and I’m sure many of you reading this will also have some fond memories of this time. If you skipped this era and started a bit later then I highly recommend downloading some classic 16bit games from the Wii’s Virtual Console.

Super Nintendo Hardware Specifications

Processor: Ricoh 5A22, based on a 16-bit 65c816 core
Clock Rates: (NTSC) Input: 21.47727 MHz Bus: 3.58 MHz, 2.68 MHz, or 1.79 MHz
Clock Rates: (PAL) Input: 21.28137 MHz Bus: 3.55 MHz, 2.66 MHz, or 1.77 MHz
Buses: 24-bit and 8-bit address buses, 8-bit data bus

Additional Features

DMA and HDMA
Timed IRQ
Parallel I/O processing
Hardware multiplication and division

Resolutions: Progressive: 256x224, 512x224, 256x239, 512x239 Interlaced: 512x448, 512x478
Pixel Depth: 2, 4, 7, or 8 bpp indexed; 8 or 11 bpp direct
Total Colours: 32768 (15-bit) Sprites 128, 32 max per line; up to 64x64 pixels
Backgrounds: Up to 4 planes; each up to 1024x1024 pixels

Effects