Nintendo Entertainment System

Nintendo Entertainment System (NES)

Maker(s): Nintendo

Date: 1983 (JP), 1987 (UK)

On display: Yes

Object number: SHEVG.2025.2

Credit line: National Videogame Museum

The success of the Famicom in Japan meant that Nintendo were keen to launch the system internationally. However, as you may be aware the Famicom in it’s original form didn’t make it outside of Japan.

The Famicom was re-branded as the Nintendo Entertainement System (NES) internationally. But why was this? How did Nintendo market this machine? Well we pick this apart by looking at the US and UK markets at the time of release of the NES.

Coming to America

With the popularity of the Famicom in Japan plans were being developed for a US version – to be renamed the ‘Advanced Videogame System’. There was one slight problem, however. The US videogames market had suffered a catastrophic crash from which it had not recovered.

Developers and publishers flooded the market with quickly-developed, low-quality titles. High profile releases such as the much-anticipated blockbuster film tie-in ET: The Extra Terrestrial meant that players had become tired of videogames. By 1985, US games magazines were reporting that the market for videogames was almost non-existent and that Nintendo could be making a big and costly mistake. These were hardly the ideal conditions to launch a new videogame console.

Nintendo realised they would have to make some significant changes to their plans – and to their console – if they were going to succeed.

The whole console would be redesigned to look like a cross between a high-end toy and a sophisticated, expensive piece of Hi-Fi equipment (the playful red colour scheme would be replaced by a more serious-looking grey) and a name change was in order. If ‘videogames’ were a problem for US consumers and retailers, their new system would have to break away from what came before. And so the ‘Advanced Videogame System’ became the ‘Nintendo Entertainment System’.

To further distance the NES from other previous videogame consoles, Nintendo released a range of innovative, futuristic-looking accessories and controllers.

The NES in the UK

On the face of it, Nintendo should have had an easier job launching the NES in the UK than in the US. There was no market crash to contend with. In fact, quite the opposite, the UK had an extremely vibrant gaming scene with a host of different systems and platforms, a large number of enthusiastic players, and a well-developed network of shops selling systems, software and a variety of peripherals and accessories.

It might seem like conditions were ideal for Nintendo to lead another successful launch of its newly redesigned Control Deck. Yet, the NES had a surprisingly slow start in the UK. Launched in 1987, the console actually made very little impact in its first few years.

There were four key reasons:

1)  UK’s strong market and gaming culture

Throughout the late 1970s and early 1980s, there had been a huge growth in microcomputer ownership in the UK. Government-backed programmes to get computers into school classrooms, BBC TV and Radio series dedicated to computer literacy, and the availability of comparatively low-cost devices, all contributed to driving this trend.  It was certainly a market dominated by home computers rather than consoles.

And, while many home computers were bought with the dream of doing tax returns, managing family accounts, cataloguing a vinyl and learning how to program in order to find a new job in the information economy, many of these home computers were also used to play games. In fact, many of them were mostly used to play games and were increasingly designed and marketed around gaming.

In the US, Nintendo had come into a market where the competition had almost disappeared. In the UK, there were many well-established home computers like the Commodore 64, ZX Spectrum, Amstrad CPC464 and BBC Model B that could play games (and let you organise your record collection and do your taxes).

2)  The Sega Master System

For those gamers looking for a dedicated gaming system, Sega’s Master System had been available for many years and was well-established in the UK. and across Europe.

Adding to the challenge,  when compared with Sega’s Master System cartridges, Nintendo’s NES Game Pal’s typically retailed for £10 more.

3) Price and Piracy

Home computer software, including games, was usually distributed on cassette tapes. As cassettes were comparatively cheap to manufacture, UK gamers had got used to paying between £1.99 and £7.99 for games.

Plus, with cassettes so easy to copy with home Hi-Fi equipment, a culture of piracy had emerged which meant that groups of friends often built libraries of games by ‘sharing’ their purchases. With cartridges (or Nintendo ‘Game Paks’), prices were already higher and piracy was virtually impossible for most people.

4) Limited access to high street retailers

Probably most importantly, Nintendo had very limited access to high street retailers. When it launched in the UK, distribution of the NES was handled by Mattel. In fact, the first versions of the UK NES bore the Mattel logo reflecting the fact that Nintendo was comparatively unknown.

Better-known for their ranges of toys rather than videogames, Mattel only signed up Boots the Chemist to stock the NES. This isn’t quite as strange as it sounds as, in the 1980s, Boots did carry a range of electronics items including cameras as well as pre recorded music on cassette. However, a high street chemist might not necessarily be the place gamers would be looking for the next generation of playable technology and not seeing the NES alongside Commodores, Spectrums and even Master Systems did not help the visibility of this new and unknown platform.

The UK Market Breakthrough

Before long, Nintendo switched its distribution from Mattel to a smaller company called San Serif. Previously specialising in board games like Trivial Pursuit (which they marketed on the basis that videogames were a passing fad!), San Serif significantly expanded the number of retailers stocking the NES. Coupled with increased marketing, this brought the NES to the attention of more UK players. However, it was San Serif’s 1990 decision to create a special pack that included the Control Deck and a copy of the recently-released Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles game that really propelled the NES to success in the UK.

With the enormous popularity of the TMHT franchise offering a way into the platform, UK gamers subsequently discovered the rest of the NES catalogue of games and by the early 1990s, the system was competing directly with the Sega’s Master System and its successor, the Mega Drive.