The Super Nintendo Entertainment System (also known as Super Nintendo, Super NES or SNES) was a 16-bit video game console released in North America in August 1991, and in Europe the following April. The system has also been released in Japan and South-East Asia in November 1990, but under the name Super Famicom.
The SNES was Nintendo's second home console, succeeding the Nintendo Entertainment System (or Famicom), which had been enormously successful in Southeast Asia and North America, although less so in Europe and other parts of Asia. The new system sold out within hours of its release in Japan and quickly gained control over approximately 85% of the Japanese console market, partly due to the wide range of third party developers available for the Famicom, such as Konami, Square, Enix, Capcom, Tecmo and Koei.
The unit was released in North America with a newly redesigned case as the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. The UK version released a few months later was identical to the Super Famicom, although it was labelled as the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. The system cost £150 on launch and included the game Super Mario World.
However, by the time the SNES launched in the US and UK, the Sega Mega Drive (Sega Genesis in the US) had already become highly popular, in part helped by the lower cost of the Sega console and games. In addition, UK and US gamers had come to expect backwards compatibility with older console (something offered by the Atari 2600 and 7800, along with the Sega Mega Drive); however, the SNES could not play any of the original NES cartridges, which made it unpopular with those who had already amassed a library of NES games.
Despite this, Nintendo managed to gain a strong markethold (particularly in the US), with their large library of exclusive games (such as Street Fighter) and popular character franchises. Other popular games included titles such as:
- Chrono Trigger
- Donkey Kong Country
- Final Fantasy II and III
- Killer Instinct
- Mortal Kombat and MK II
- Street Fighter Alpha 2
- Super Mario All-Stars
- Super Mario Kart
- Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island
- Super Metroid
- The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past
- Zombies Ate My Neighbours
By 1996, a new generation of consoles, including the Sony PlayStation and Nintendo's own Nintendo 64, caused the popularity of the SNES to wane, and in October 1997, Nintendo released a scaled down, cheaper model, known as the SNES 2 in North America and the Super Famicom Jr in Japan. This slimmer, lighter model lacked S-Video and RGB output and also the eject button.
The SNES ceased production in the US in 1999, with the Super Famicom continuing in Japan until 2003. By the end of its production, the SNES has sold over 49 million units worldwide. However, such was the popularity of SNES titles, that it has been announced that many will be available as downloadable games for Nintendo's newest console Wii, via the Virtual Console service.
Peripherals and Enhancements
A number of peripherals were released for the SNES to enhance its functionality, such as the wireless Super Scope light gun (somewhat similar to the NES Zapper) and an arcade-style joystick known as the Super Advantage, which featured adjustable turbo settings. Other peripherals included the SNES Mouse (to be used with the Mario Paint game), the Super Multitap (a multiplayer adapter that supported up to eight players) and the innovative BatterUP baseball bat controller.
However, one of the most successful and interesting peripherals released for the SNES was the Super Game Boy, an adaptor that enabled games for the portable Game Boy system to be played on the home console. This allowed Game Boy owners to enjoy their games in colour, with custom screen borders.
Owners of the Japanese Super Famicom could purchase the Satellaview, a modem that attached to the console's expansion port and connected to the St. GIGA satellite radio station, which broadcast signals from April 23, 1995 to June 30, 2000. This enabled users to download gaming news and specially designed games. US gamers could use a similar peripheral known as XBAND to connect them to a network via a dial-up modem to compete against other players around the country.
Nintendo also developed the SuperFX chip that could be added to game carts to enable the SNES to produce 3D graphics. This new chip gave the SuperNES a new lease of life, and was used in popular games such as Star Fox, released in 1993.
With other console manufacturers releasing add-on CD peripherals (for example, the Sega CD), Nintendo worked with Sony and then Phillips to develop a CD-ROM-based peripheral for the SNES. However, after numerous production delays and disagreements, Nintendo scrapped the project, with the two other companies going on to develop their own consoles (the Sony PlayStation and the Phillips CD-i).
Specifications
The Super Nintendo/Super Famicom console was unusual for its time, as it featured a low-performance processor supported by powerful custom chips for video and sound processing. Although this was quite unlike other consoles of the time, this approach become common in subsequent video game hardware.
Processor
- Core: Nintendo custom '5A22' based around a 16-bit CMD/GTE 65c816 used by the Apple IIGS personal computer
- Speed: 3.58MHz. 1.5 MIPS using strictly 16-bit instructions. The theoretical peak speed was 1.79 million 16-bit adds per second.
RAM
- Work: 128 kB
- Video: 64 kB SRAM, composed of two 32 kB chips
Video
- Picture Processor Unit (PPU) composed of two separate but closely tied IC packages, labeled the PPU-1 and PPU-2.
- Colour Capability: 15-bit colour depth (RGB555) for a total of 32,768 possible colours.
- Palette: 256 entries
- Maximum colours per background layer per scanline: 256
- Maximum colours per sprite: 16 (colour 0 was always transparent)
- Maximum colours on-screen: 4,096 without blending and 32,768 using the colour arithmetic circuitry for transparency effects by blending multiple backgrounds together.
- Resolution: between 256x224 and 512x448.
- Maximum onscreen sprites: 128 (32 sprites per line, up to 34 8x8 character blocks per line).
- Maximum number of sprite pixels on one scanline: 272.
- Most common display modes:
- Pixel-to-pixel Mode 1 comprised of three scrolling layers: two 16 colour (4-bit) per tile layers and one 4 colour (2-bit) layer
- Per scanline affine mapped Mode 7 with 256 colours per tile and hardware assisted scaling and rotation
Sound
- Sound Controller Chip: 8-bit Sony SPC700 CPU for controlling the DSP chips independent of the main 5A22 CPU
- Clock Speed: 1.024 MHz
- Sound RAM: 64 kB shared between SPC700 and S-SMP
- Memory Cycle Time: 279 milliseconds
- Main Sound Chip: Sony S-SMP
- Hardware ADPCM decompression
- 8-channel PCM
- Hardware sound effects:
- Pitch modulation
- 8-tap FIR filter (typically used for reverberation)
- ADSR and 'GAIN' (discretely controlled) volume envelopes
- Polyphony of 8 notes per voice
- SFX sound chip: Sony/Nintendo S-DSP
- Second Order Low-pass Filter, one for each channel, for improved quality of low-frequency (bass) tones
- Pulse Code Modulator: 16-bit ADPCM
- Game cartridge size
- 2 to 32-Mbit (0.25 to 4 MB) which coulbe be accessed at two selectable speeds ('SlowROM' and 'FastROM').
- Custom address decoders employed bank switching techniques to allow for broader sizes, e.g. 48-Mbit (6MB) for Star Ocean and Tales of Phantasia.
Power Adapter
- Transformer input: NTSC: 120 volts AC, 60 Hz, 17 watts, PAL: 240 volts AC, 50 Hz, 17 watts
- Transformer output: 10 volts DC, 850 mA (NTSC), 9 volts DC 1.3 A (PAL)
Game Controllers
- Controller Response: 16 ms
- 2 seven-pin controller ports in the front of the machine
Connectors and Switches
May vary between console versions.
- Bottom
- Expansion port on the bottom, allowing for Satellaview and a planned CD-ROM expansion
- Back
- RF output, offering only mono-sound
- Channel 3/4 switch, controlling on which RF channel the audio and video are output
- Multi-out; outputs stereo (and Dolby Pro-Logic) sound, composite and S-Video signals, and on PAL versions of the console, RGB signals
- Power input
- Top
- Cartridge connector
- Power switch
- Power indicator
- Reset button
- Eject button
- Front
- 2 seven-pin controller ports
Favourites (IE)
Print This
Email This
