Having been successful in the Japanese market with the Famicom in 1983, Nintendo believed it was time to bring their console to America. Having been knocked back by Atari, Nintendo joined with Worlds of Wonder to help distribute the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) in 1984.

The system is very similar to the Famicom except it is front loading, has 72-pin cartridges and is designed to look less like a toy. It was test-marketed in New York and the 100 000 consoles were sold out immediately.

Being one of the few systems on the market after the crash and having Super Mario Bros as the pack-in game meant that the NES would be very successful, which it was, out-selling its competitors 10 to 1.

The sales of the NES outdid the Sega Master System and Atari 7800 even though they were both released after it.

Because the NES lived so long, the games kept getting better and better as programmers gained better knowledge and equipment to produce games. In the end more than 50 million consoles and over 350 million games sold. This is by far one of the greatest and most successful consoles ever made.

Specifications:
- CPU type: Motorola 6502 8-bit (MOS)
- CPU speed: 1.79 MHz
- RAM: 16 Kbit (2 Kbyte)
- Video RAM: 16 Kbit (2 Kbyte)
- Picture resolution: 256 x 240 pixels
- Colors Available: 52 colours
- Max colors at once: 24 colours
- Max sprite size: 8 x 8 pixels or 8 x 16 pixels
- Max sprites: 64 sprites (max per line: 8)
- Min/Max Cart Size: 192 Kbit - 4 Mbit
- Sound: PSG sound
- Picture Scroll: 2 h.v