I was surprised recently when I found out that Nintendo actually continued to produce the original 8-bit Fabicom (the Japanese version of the NES) until just a few years ago, finally stopping production in 2003 (although they continued to repair them until 2007). The NES console had some of the best video games ever made, but who know it was still competing against brand new systems that were light years (and two decades) ahead of it in technology?
The Mario games on the original NES, for example, launched a series that dominates video gaming to this day. Who doesn’t know Mario? Even people who don’t play console games, or prefer Microsoft’s X-box 360 or Sony’s PlayStation 3, will be able to recognize the iconic plumber, who has appeared in over 200 video games since he first showed up in the early 80s.
Of course, there was only so much you could do with 80s tech; aside from the limitations of the hardware, programming techniques have improved greatly over the past few decades, and games the complexity of the original NES cartridges are now simple minigames thrown in as a bonus, along with the real games. Due to advances, video games now actually cost less than they did back in the eighties, even without adjusting for inflation; once inflation is taken into account, they are incredibly cheaper. Why? Disks are cheaper to make than cartridges, and new programming practices and faster computers make creating games easier than ever. While he still plays a mean platformer, Mario has become much more defined and realistic, and has gotten into a variety of different activities, from racing bikes in the latest versions of Super Mario Kart to fighting in the Smash Bros series and playing a wide variety of sports in way too many sports titles to mention. He does it all. With games like this, and the quality hardware that Nintendo puts together (many of the old NES consoles are still in perfect working condition), is it any wonder how long the system has lasted?