Why Your SNES Turned Yellow

If, back in the day, you ever wondered why your old Super Nintendo tended to discolor, your curiosity will now be sated. Via Ars Technica's Opposable Thumbs blog, an article on the Vintage Computing and Gaming site which explains the mysteries of plastic discoloration. From the article: "Since ... different batches of plastics had ... different aging results ... then there must have been a difference of additives between them. Perhaps in one of the production runs of plastic, they didn't get the catalyst or flame retardant mixture quite right and more residues were left over in the top half's plastic batch, thus causing it to degrade more rapidly over time. And by the time Nintendo produced the later runs of Super Nintendos, they had perfected the manufacturing process of their plastic, meaning that those later models aren't as susceptible to oxidation as the earlier models are."

Great...

[LighterShadeOfBlack]

Now if someone can explain why my Megadrive turned yellow?!

Re:Wii Too

[the unbeliever]

If I've said it once, I've said it 1000 times, wash your hands after eating cheetos.

Amigas

[Anonymous Coward]

They did this too. -Fortunately- I painted mine and now it looks worse than it would have done should it have turned yellow :)

YUCK!

[Tomfrh]

EWW!

It's turned all boxy and the buttons have turned purple too!

Obligatory Russian reversal

[Anonymous Coward]

In Soviet Russia, plastic urinates on you!

It's all natural

[streptocopter]

The SNES turning yellow was a huge technological leap for Nintendo.
My old NES just decomposed - I kept it in the attic for a couple of years, but the day i went up there to get it, there was nothing nothing left but a pile of dirt. The only thing unaffected by the decay was the golden finish on my Zelda 2 cartridge.

I'm told that the wii has nuclear decay, now that's progress.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Important tip

[Half a dent]

Don't eat yellow SNES.

Re:Strange

[Anonymous Coward]

Just because you havent played for a couple days doesnt mean you have "quit"

Re:SNES

[collectivescott]

"My snes turned a yellowish huge"

Wait, it change color and got bigger too? I don't think that's tobacco you're smoking...

Silly Stuff...

[triso]

This is a silly, silly, little article. What's next? Why last years' newspaper turned yellow, Why my bananas turned black or Why the copper roof turned green.