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Nintendo Entertainment System facts for kids

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Nintendo Entertainment System
Official Nintendo Entertainment System logo
Family Computer logo

Nintendo Entertainment System with controller
Nintendo Family Computer

Top: NES Control Deck (with detachable controllers)
Bottom: Family Computer ("Famicom") main unit (with hardwired controllers)
Also known as Family Computer/Famicom (Japan)
Hyundai Comboy (Korea)
Samurai (India)
Developer Nintendo R&D2
Manufacturer Nintendo
Type Home video game console
Generation Third
Release date
  • [[JP|July 15, 1983 (1983-07-15) (Famicom)]] NA
Retail availability 1983–2003 (Famicom)
1985–1995 (NES)
Introductory price ¥14,800 (Japan)
US$179 (equivalent to $525.94 in 2022)
Discontinued
  • [[NA/EU/AU|August 14, 1995 (1995-08-14) (NES)]] JP
Units sold 61.91 million
Media ROM cartridge ("Game Pak")
CPU Ricoh 2A03/2A07 @ 1.79/1.66 MHz
Controller input 2 controller ports
1 expansion slot
Best-selling game
Predecessor Color TV-Game 15
Successor Super Nintendo Entertainment System
Related articles Famicom Disk System, Famicom 3D System

The Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) is an 8-bit third-generation home video game console produced by Nintendo. It was first released in Japan in 1983 as the Family Computer (FC), commonly known as the Famicom. The NES, a redesigned version, was released in American test markets on October 18, 1985, before becoming widely available in North America and other countries.

After developing a series of successful arcade games in the early 1980s, Nintendo planned to create a home video game console. Rejecting more complex proposals, the Nintendo president Hiroshi Yamauchi called for a simple, cheap console that ran games stored on cartridges. The controller design was reused from Nintendo's portable Game & Watch games. Nintendo released several add-ons, such as a light gun for shooting games.

The NES was one of the best-selling consoles of its time and helped revitalize the US game industry following the video game crash of 1983. It introduced a now-standard business model of licensing third-party developers to produce and distribute games. The NES featured a number of groundbreaking games, such as the 1985 platform game Super Mario Bros. and the 1986 action-adventure games The Legend of Zelda and Metroid, which became long-running franchises. It was succeeded in 1990 by the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. In 2011, IGN named the NES the greatest video game console of all time.

Technical details

The CPU (Central Processing Unit) in the NES is called MOS 6502 and is an 8-bit CPU. The chip that contains the CPU also contains other electronics that generate sound for games and help with some other things. There are two different versions of the chip called 2A03 and 2A07 that are used in different regions of the world (2A03 works with NTSC TVs, 2A07 with PAL TVs). It was made by a company called Ricoh.

The NES uses a chip called the PPU (Picture Processing Unit) to draw graphics on the TV. It has two different versions called 2C02 (for NTSC TVs) and 2C07 (for PAL TVs). It was also made by Ricoh.

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See also

Kids robot.svg In Spanish: Nintendo Entertainment System para niños

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