JoeYabuki

@juliobrand I agree with you that it's hard to have exact numbers to corroborate things. We'll never know for sure how many SNES consoles were sold. The information that floats around, is that Playtronic shipped 2 million consoles from 1993 to December 2000, but that's counting all systems (after '96 it was Gradiente alone).

TecToy claimed in 1996 to have sold 1,7 million consoles (all systems, but the Mega was the best seller). And I would say these Playtronic numbers are mostly SNES (and maybe a lot of GB Color...?), because the GB Classic was rare, the N64 was obliterated by the PS1 with its piracy.

Count that with all the pre-1993 gray market SNES and it matches the reality I saw. But I agree it's still a subjective vision. The pay-to-play rental stores were very common here too, some even had the PC-Engine and Neo Geo AES.

Not trying to rewrite history, but Sega was more popular than Nintendo only if you compare official releases. The NES clones dominated the market, back then you rarely saw anyone with a Master System.

The Mega Drive was more popular than the Master, but you couldn't compare with the amount of people who had a SNES. I only knew one kid who had a Mega. Nintendo officially arrived in 1993 with the Playtronic joint-venture, but way before that the SNES was selling a lot. Before the american release in mid-1991, you could buy the Super Famicom on the gray market.

The consoles entered the country through the border with Paraguay, which imported them without tax. So even after the official release, it was cheaper to buy an imported console than a Playtronic one. The sales numbers from Playtronic are not to be trusted to get a real picture of popularity. The official NES sold almost nothing, in 1993 when it arrived everyone already had moved to the next generation.

For example, the Switch 2 was officially launched by Nintendo themselves the same day as the rest of the world, but the official release costs around 825 USD, while the Hong Kong version that's coming from Paraguay is around 655 USD shipped. Very few people are buying the official ones.

First thing that came to mind was this Interview with Miyamoto:

Miyamoto:
Yeah! (laughs) And we tried to divide the buttons into groups. We assigned priority, so the primary buttons are A and B, with X and Y as secondary. That’s why we decided to call them X and Y instead of C and D.

Sao:
That makes sense.

Miyamoto:
We also decided to use four different colours for the buttons. I actually wanted to call them the ‘Red Button’ and ‘Yellow Button’ and so forth, but…

Link https://www.nintendo.com/en-gb/News/2017/September/Nintendo-Classic-Mini-SNES-developer-interview-Volume-1-Star-Fox-Star-Fox-2-1273086.html

I have watched the GTV Japan video a long time ago, and after the Hainline video, I went through the comments and found this, from 2 years ago, by Youtube user @AUDlOstar:

"Hey-
So you can believe me or not "whatever" But It's a real person.

When I was a kid In elementary, a guy by this name told me he had won this contest but that they never told him what game it was going to be in-
this was before a link to the past had come out.
If I remember right he played final fantasy with his dad and they got the picture together.

I always figured Nintendo Power had just picked a name that matched allot of the names who entered, but if "nobody" is coming forward then it 's probably actually just the one person.
No idea if the guy Is still alive, and no idea why he would be particularly quiet about it.
As adults now- I don't want to go and give people a bunch of details about someone who doesn't want to be bothered you know?
In essence- Not answering any questions and not looking for attention over this-
Just thought I'd give what I know so the game historians don't dub the room/contest as bunk."

Sure a lot of parents played games with their kids, but that's a funny coincidence. Also, I don't think Nintendo would just fake a random name to put in ALTTP, because, as far as I know, they never promised to put the winner's name in that specific game.

I wanna take the chance and suggest this awesome article from a NintendoLife writer, who imported a Super Famicom in 1990, and even took a picture the night the console arrived!

https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2010/11/features_celebrating_super_famicoms_20th_anniversary

I think this article is worth a repost here on TimeExt.

Does anyone remember the AES version of NAM-1975 literally censored with a marker by hand, direct from the distributor? Now we have this elegant censoring and people are complaining. 😛

I recommend the Ultima Retrospective by Noah Antwiler on YouTube, if you are a fan of the series. Richard Garriott himself is in a sketch in one of his videos. 😛

I always wondered if the palm tree graphics (and other things in the game) were pre-rendered, like in Donkey Kong Country.

History tells Tetris was (part of) the reason adults bought GameBoys for themselves. I agree, because I absolutely hated Tetris as a kid - and any puzzle, to be honest. All I wanted was RPG's and platforming.

As I grew older, I got hooked on the genre. 🧩

I've beaten Super Mario Land 1 for the first time on a japanese SGB, using a Super Famicom, decades ago.

I also remember calling a local shop after seeing an ad that stated it was a "cartridge that allows you to play more than 450 GameBoy games on your SNES", genuinely convinced that it shipped with all these games, like a multi-cart. 😛

Reminds me of the beginning of Double Dragon for Game Gear. I started playing, walked a few meters, and there was a freaking GUN on the floor for me to pick up! What the...?! 😛

There's even shotguns for you to use.

To be honest, I found it funny as hell. 😅 🦔

I'm guessing it was a "marketing" stunt...? If so, it worked for me. 😛

I remember finding AndroidArts' site a few years ago and obsessed over the Famicube. Nobody made a real one based on its design, but you can find a realistic rendering on Google images.

Edit: turns out someone actually DID the Famicube. 🤩

When I read her surname in the title, my mind casually said "hmm, is she related to Pete Sampras..?". Kinda surprised she really was.

Not much to say about her condition, just hope she responds well to the treatments.

On a side note, the '95 MK movie was the last time I've been to the theaters. Yes, never set a foot on a theater in almost 30 years!

Also, let's not forget the Double Dragon movie. 😑

Since it's a hobby and not a business, "maybe" he's a purist and leans towards the unmodified versions.

If it's the first time I'm gonna play something, I never use an improved version (unless it's a translation). And if it has multiple ports, I always go for the oldest possible. This is just part of the fun for me.

I was obsessed with The Smiths in my early 20's. Their songs are on spot if you are having a bad personal life (not that I've improved that much...).

Isn't amazing the amount of great games the system had in such a short lifespan? I remember the 2001 launch like it was yesterday - suddenly it's 2004 and the DS is announced!

The only thing that's missing is a full, exclusive Mario platform. To this day I don't undertand why they didn't make one. Hmm... yes, the GBC had a similar lifespan and also had none. 🤔

I absolutely loved the Game Boy version. The music was awesome, and I liked the fact that it kept playing between stages without interruption. 👻

I've been following Chris Covell for more than 20 years. Always wanted to try this kind of retro-programming-adventures, but being the lazy programmer that I am, ASM ends up frying my brain before anything gets done. 😛

I always though he removed it fearing some Nintendo lawsuit because of the pipes, never knew about that Amazon detail. 🤔

From 1994! And seems like a lot of games made use of this collection, including early N64.

On a side note, I was always intrigued by the cover of Märchen Veil 1 and 2 (the originals for PC-88, not the Disk System port). But since it came out in 1985, it's probably some random stock image. I don't believe this kind of CD existed in mid 80's...

I've been investigating and people are reporting it's a malware that copies the login cookies from the browser cache, not a brute force attack. Then they use the "logged in" cookies without needing the password or 2-step verification.

Kinda scary, since there's not much a user can do to prevent this.

I've been "following" them for awhile, and thinking how they were getting away with their releases, since they were providing roms of copyrighted stuff. It was a very gray area. I still think this is a cease & desist thing.