Nintendo Ends NES And SNES Production

Thanks to an anonymous reader for pointing out the news on Gamespot that Nintendo is ending production of the classic Famicom (NES) and Super Famicom (SNES) consoles. Apparently, a limited amount of AV Famicoms and SFC Jr. Super Famicoms were still being manufactured in Japan - but sadly, not any more. Also, according to Gamespot, "Nintendo will also stop its disk-rewriting services for the Famicom Disk System, a supplemental device released in 1986" - amazing that Nintendo was still allowing Disk System re-writing after almost 20 years, and that they allowed Gameboy/SNES cartridge re-writing, which also never made it outside Japan, until late 2002.

Re:I find what the author spoke of to be very

[baloogan]

yes thats probally true, I have been there (after going to Hong kong) and there, comparably to both western and HK, is no pirating. Worst I saw was Kazaa installed on one of my japaneze friends computer....

LOTS of porno, like reading a porno magazine on the subway is like acceptable....

Japan was fun....

Re:I find what the author spoke of to be very

[Lazyhound]

What the hell are you talking about?

Read the fricking articles, for Christ's sake. It was a peripheral that let you write games onto special carts from kiosks in drug stores.

Re:I find what the author spoke of to be very

[KaizerWill]

Actually, the reason that disk drives for the NES and N64 didn't make it to america was because of the rampant piracy in asia.

Also, the Famicom Disk System made the creation of unlicenced NES games all the easier, so there are a considerable number of pr0n games and such floating around.

NES

[funkhauser]

Ahh. The Good Old NES. I love that system. Collecting old NES games, systems, and peripherals has essentially become my current collecting obsession, overtaking Magic cards and Legos. All those great games. All those bad games that are just absolutely hilarious. It really is an amazing system from a truly formative time in the video game history...

Yes. I'm a nerd. A normal person wouldn't get that worked up about a game console. :)

Re:NES

[OneBarG]

I pulled out my old NES a few weeks ago to play the 4 or so games I had for it. Got 3 of them working (Excitebike won't, but I've got the N64 version of that at least) most of the time. Takes 8 or 9 tries to get them working.

So, my latest obsession has been just trying to get games to work. Just like the good old days.

Re:NES

[funkhauser]

Heh heh. Yep. That was always the problem with the NES. Of course, when they released the updated model around the time the SNES came out, it was a hell of a lot better. Of course, being raised on the original-style consoles, I prefer them, so me and a friend "refurbish" systems, cleaning cartridges, replacing connectors, that sort of thing. It's good fun for a couple of geeks. :)

Re:NES

[Wog]

You know, you can get replacement connectors that will make your old NES work like new. Do a search on eBay for "nes pins" and you can get the part for under $15.

Re:NES

[OneBarG]

I know, but I like the challenge. Plus this way is free and I'm cheap. Very cheap.

SNES Dead?

[Captain Large Face]

Fortunately, ZSNES [sourceforge.net] is very much alive.. You never appreciate a games controller until you're forced to use a keyboard to play a fighting game... :P

Re:SNES Dead?

[bluemeep]

Oddly enough, I'm better with a keyboard than a gamepad/arcade stick... Though I think I can blame marathon sessions of One Must Fall [omf.com] for setting the precedent there. MAME [mame.net] and SNES9x [snes9x.com] just honed the ability ^^;

Re:SNES Dead?

[bsharitt]

I'm finally getting pretty good at mortal kombat with the keyboard, but Mario just isn't the same at all.

Re:SNES Dead?

[Thedalek]

Or, you could spring for a PSX controller (pretty cheap: around $5 used) and get a PSX-to-USB connector from Radio Shack for $10. There you go. The best 10-button controller money can buy, perfect for SNES emulation.

Re:SNES Dead?

[Juanvaldes]

except the PS d-pad eats up your thumb worse then the orginal NES one did.

Re:SNES Dead?

[Rellik66]

I have found the Gravis Gamepad Pro [gravis.com] to be the perfect gamepad to use with ZSNES as the layout is exactly the same plus the two additional shoulder buttons work well for speeding up/slowing down emulation

The only problem is I got a dodgy gameport model that the d-pad is overly sensitive with down-angles

Im amazed

[Loosewire]

That they were still making these at all anyway.... ah well another instituation of gaming has to come to an end :(

Re:Im amazed

[haggar]

I'm stunned, too! I thought the NES wasn't being produced since a long time. I have several carts and a couple of working NES consoles (I fixed them myself), and was waiting for their prices to pick up, a little bit (as collectable items), but it never happened. Now I know why!

Stock up on spare parts.

[ivan256]

It has always been very easy to get replacement parts for older NES and SNES systems to keep them in full working order dispite thousands of hours of play time and countles cartridge removals and insertions... until now. I suspect that with Nintendo no longer needing parts to build new systems, the manufacture of the parts will stop too. It can't hurt to order a few extra cartridge slots and other components now in case you need them in the future and they are no longer available.