Nintendo: Difference between revisions

== Electronic Era (1975 - Present) ==

=== 1975 - Present ===

In 1975, Nintendo obtained the rights to distribute the "Maddox Odyssey", a home video game console in Japan.  Later in 1977, they produced as series of their own home console, known as the "Color TV Game".  A year later in 1978, they entered the Arcade Game market and produced Computer Othello.  In 1981, Nintendo produced the game "Donkey Kong" which generated major popularity and profits for the company, and is still in some Video Arcades today, and has been ported to many other systems (ex: "ColecoVision", "Atari 2600", "Personal Computers", etc.).

In 1983, the "Famicon" or "Family Computer" hit shelves, and then two years later in 1975, its global brother, the NEW or "Nintendo Entrainment System".  These two systems had a very similar library of games and ensured that Nintendo would last.

Back in 1989, Nintendo launched the "Game Boy" (GB), which was a portable hand held gaming console which gained massive popularity because people who owned these games could play video games in most places, quite a few of the original NES/Famicon games were ported to this system, but lacked color and graphics due to the systems limitations.

In 1990, the "Super Nintendo Entertainment System" (SNES) and "Super Famicon", an "upgrade" of the NES/Famicon which supported a wider depth of color, basic 3D graphics, expansive cartridges among other things.  This system has commonly been hailed to be Nintendo's best console ever produced.  At the time of its release, some buyers of the NES/Famicon did not like the idea of this, so some of the games produced for the SNES/Super Famicon had ports for the original system, but of course, were graphically downgraded.

The "Nintendo 64" (N64) was another home video game console created by Nintendo in 1996, it mainly boasted and featured 3D graphics.

In 1998, Nintendo released an upgrade to the "Game Boy", called the "Game Boy Color" (GBC), it featured color as one of its main selling points, and was noticeably slimmer and lighter then it predecessor.  In the begging of its release, Colored version or "DX" version of original Game Boy games were ported to the system (ex: "The legend of Zelda: Link Awakening DX").  The size of the GBC cartridges were identical to those of the original game boy, and could even be played on the older system because the processors they used were very similar.

In 2001, both the "Game Cube" (GC) and the "Game Boy Advanced" (GBA) were released, and both were a major success.  The GC operated using a CD system, which was new to the company at the time, yet offered better quality games and more storage then the old cartridges, yet required customers to buy a memory card to save their game data.  The GBA was a major upgrade of the "Game Boy" series and boasted SNES like graphics and functionality.  It had much smaller cartridges and could play the old GB and GBC games as well.  In 2003, the GBA SP was released, a much slimmer version of the system, and also came with a backlit light to deal with the poor visibility issues that plagued the console series before, and was very well received and praised.

In late 2004, Nintendo produced the "Nintendo DS" (DS), which had two screens, similar to the old "Game and Watch", the bottom one was slightly smaller then the top, and was a touch screen.  It was hailed as a great innovation, but later was criticized by many of Nintendo's hard core fans as "forgetting about them", releasing "[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shovelware Shovelware]", and "paying too much attention to casual gamers rather then its fan-base".  It had backwards compatibility with the GBA games yet not the GB and GBC games, due to an issue with the processor it used.  In mid 2006 Nintendo released a revision of it called the "DS Lite", which was a much slimmer and lighter version of the original DS.

In late 2006, Nintendo released the "Wii" (previously "Revolution").  It had a control system where you pointed to screen using a remote.  It also had something called the "Virtual Arcade" where customers could buy "Wii Points" and then spend them to buy games from Nintendo's previous systems to play on the Wii, some praised this while other people were annoyed that they had to pay money to play games that already owned.

Mid 2009, Nintendo did the global release of the "Nintendo DSi" hand held system.  Its an upgrade of the DS Lite with a camera, built in web browser, SD card slot and PDA similar applications.  The DSi does not have backwards compatibility with GBA games since Nintendo decided to remove the slot.  There are planed to be some "DSi only" games released, which had many people in the Nintendo community angry.