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The Nintendo Entertainment System (often referred to as NES or simply Nintendo) was an 8-bit video game console released by Nintendo in 1985. Its Japanese and East Asian equivalent was known as the Family Computer (often referred to as FC or simply Famicom).

Overview[]

The most successful gaming console of its time in Asia and North America (Nintendo claims to have sold over 80,000,000 NES units worldwide), it helped revitalize the video game industry following the video game crash of 1983, and set the standard for subsequent consoles in areas like game design (the breakthrough platform game, Super Mario Bros., was the system’s first major success). The NES was the first console for which the manufacturer openly courted third-party developers, which heavily contributed to it playing host to the first few Final Fantasy titles.

Famicom Disk System[]

At some point during the original Famicom system's life, Nintendo also released a floppy diskette reader attachment known as the Famicom Disk System (FDS). This add-on used special 300 kiB, 3-inch floppy disks to store games and saves run through it. Though by some estimates the FDS and its disks were both very slow and somewhat frail compared to cartridges[citation needed], it was notable for having enough capacity to run enhanced versions of certain games. The original Final Fantasy was supposed to be one of these few games, but a clash between Square and Nintendo over the latter's copyright policy forced Square to reverse course and release a cartridge instead.

Classic Edition systems[]

On November 11, 2016, Nintendo released a limited-edition miniature replica of the NES as the Nintendo Entertainment System: NES Classic Edition in the US and the Nintendo Classic Mini: Nintendo Entertainment System in Europe. This pre-programmed version contained 30 built-in games, including Final Fantasy, with an onboard savestate feature as well as customizable display options and full HDMI output support. The Japanese Famicom Mini has Final Fantasy III instead.

Despite its inherent limitations and extensive criticism for gamepads being far too short to be usable[citation needed], the Classic Edition unit was Nintendo's best-selling item of 2016, to the point that the company did not keep up with demand[citation needed]. In late April 2017, Nintendo issued a press release stating that the microconsole would be discontinued.

Final Fantasy titles for the NES[]

External links[]

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