Thirty years ago today, on July 15, 1983, Nintendo released the Family Computer game system, affectionately (and pretty much officially) called Famicom. The designing process began back in ’81 by Masaki Uemura and his team who dealt with tight budgets and little hope of success. However, this machine breathed much-needed life into a suffocatingly over-saturated gaming market that was only in its infancy.

Uemura had named the machine with the idea of it being a standard living room fixture for the whole family to enjoy. Little did he know how right he’d be. I recall when the Famicom‘s American counterpart, the Nintendo Entertainment System, reached my living room. At the tender age of seven, after graduating from my wood-paneled Atari 2600, I thought Super Mario Bros’ vibrant colors looked just like a cartoon.

Looking back, I think someone was lacing my chocolate milk with something. The once mighty machine was rocking an 8-bit processor and 2 kilobytes of RAM for an eye-dazzling resolution of 256 by 240 pixels and palette of 48 possible colors to choose from.

But that all didn’t matter, it was Nintendo’s ability to tap into people’s imaginations with creative games and ways to play them that led to the success of the Famicom. This method of design continues today with bold moves that challenge the status quo of rival high-powered game systems.

So why not celebrate the Famicom‘s 30th birthday by picking one up. We just happen to know a guy looking to unload some.

Source: RBB Today (Japanese)
Image: Amazon, Wikipedia 1, 2