The Nintendo Entertainment System (also abbreviated as NES or simply called Nintendo) is an 8-bit video game console that was released by Nintendo in North America during 1985, in Europe during 1986 and Australia in 1987. In most of Asia, including Japan (where it was first launched in 1983), China, Vietnam, Singapore, the Middle East and Hong Kong, it was released as the Family Computer (ファミリーコンピュータ, Famirī Konpyūta?), commonly shortened as either the Famicom (ファミコン, Famikon?), or abbreviated to FC. In South Korea, it was known as the Hyundai Comboy (현대 컴보이 Hyeondae Keomboi) and was distributed by Hynix which then was known as Hyundai Electronics. It was succeeded by the Super Nintendo Entertainment System.
The best-selling gaming console of its time,e the NES helped revitalize the US video game industry following the video game crash of 1983, and set the standard for subsequent consoles of its generation. With the NES, Nintendo introduced a now-standard business model of licensing third-party developers, authorizing them to produce and distribute software for Nintendo's platform.
In 2009, the Nintendo Entertainment System was named the single greatest video game console in history by IGN, out of a field of 25. 2010 marked the system's 25th anniversary, which was officially celebrated by Nintendo of America's magazine Nintendo Power in issue #260 (November 2010) with a special 26-page tribute section. Other video game publications also featured articles looking back at 25 years of the NES, and its impact in the video game console market.
Read more about Nintendo Entertainment System: History, North American Bundle Packages, Regional Differences, Game Controllers, Hardware Design Flaws, Third-party Licensing, NES Test Station
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“Such is the remorseless progression of human society, shedding lives and souls as it goes on its way. It is an ocean into which men sink who have been cast out by the law and consigned, with help most cruelly withheld, to moral death. The sea is the pitiless social darkness into which the penal system casts those it has condemned, an unfathomable waste of misery. The human soul, lost in those depths, may become a corpse. Who shall revive it?”
—Victor Hugo (1802–1885)