On August 23, 1991, Nintendo launched the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES) in the US and it became one of the company's most successful consoles. Time has flown by so fast and it will be 25 years old in a few days. The SNES along with Sega Genesis were two bestselling 16-bit consoles and at the same time arch rivals. We all had debates with friends on who has the cooler console and better games. Today, we look back at the SNES and why it’s such an important console even today.
A New NES
Nintendo had big shoes to fill with the successor to the successful Nintendo Entertainment System, also known as NES, and in came the 16-bit console SNES. Back then, Nintendo would just add the Super prefix and in marketing terms, it meant that yes you’re buying the superior console. In fact, some SNES games had the same marketing tactic. For example, there was Super Contra and it was as fun and intense as the original Contra on the NES. We even had WWF Super WrestleMania — a 16-bit early 90s wrestling title that was marketed as an SNES game. Super Mario Bros. stayed the same, but instead got a new game called Super Mario World that to date is one of the most fun games ever made and in fact one of the best Mario titles ever. We also got to play Super Mario Kart for the first time on a Nintendo console and since then the franchise is one of the most popular Nintendo franchises of all time.
The SNES Legacy
SNES’ significance today lies in the fact that it was one of the last major consoles to have success with cartridges. The successor Nintendo 64 also used cartridges or Game Packs but even Nintendo perhaps knew that these would soon become obsolete. The PlayStation by Sony was the first console to successfully deliver hit games on compact discs. Since then, optical discs have been the norm whether they are CD, DVD, or Blu-ray. When it comes to cartridge-based consoles SNES ranks among the top five. It brought a whole new dimension to Nintendo franchises such as Mario and Zelda. One of the best Zelda titles was “The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past” that released on the SNES in November 1991, not too long after launch. It’s still a classic and well loved by fans to this day.
Taking on Sega Genesis
SNES and Sega Genesis were on a collision course in the early 90s. In order to prove that the Genesis is for “mature” gamers, Mortal Kombat went from arcades to the Genesis first. It would later release on the SNES, but which fighting game did not come to the Genesis first? Street Fighter II, in its original form, released on the SNES from the arcades and became one of the best fighting titles ever released. It would eventually get the Championship Edition of SF II but the SNES will always have bragging rights for being the only console to play the original on. We can see that it was perhaps due to SNES’ success with Mario titles, Sega developed its own mascot, Sonic the Hedgehog. The Sonic-Mario rivalry became the face of the SNES-Genesis console war of the 90s.
Redefining the Console War
This console war would define future such competitions between consoles in the mid to late 90s. When Sony became the third player in the gaming industry in 1994 with the PlayStation, the Genesis-SNES rivalry ended but we eventually saw Sony take on Microsoft in the form of PlayStation-Xbox rivalry. That lasted a few generations such as PS2 vs. Xbox, PS3 vs. Xbox 360 and now PS4 vs. Xbox One. As you can see it’s only a competition between two dominant consoles. The third player will either take backseat or dominate the other two, but may not directly compete as we saw with Nintendo and the Wii, when it outsold the Xbox 360 and PS3. Does anyone remember the Genesis tagline "Sega does what Nintendont?" This was the height of the Sega-Nintendo console war back in the day. Had it not been for SNES giving Genesis enough competition we wouldn't have had such excellent gaming experiences in the 90s.
The SNES Today
The SNES today is regarded as one of the biggest consoles ever developed by Nintendo. It kept Nintendo in the public eye during 90s when it competed with Sega’s Genesis. After the blockbuster NES’ impact in the late 80s, It furthered Nintendo’s success in the 90s. The Nintendo 64 and GameCube were unable to have the same impact the SNES did in its heyday. The Virtual Console on the Wii, Wii U and 3DS is home to several SNES titles. You can play over 200 titles via the Virtual Console. It explains that there are still gamers longing for the early 90s era of gaming. Nintendo is still alive, kicking in the console business while its former arch rival Sega has closed the hardware shop and become a third-party game developer/publisher. We can perhaps credit the success of the SNES to Nintendo’s longevity. Perhaps, a SNES Classic is now due once the NES Classic comes out in November.
Thank you SNES for 25 great years!
