page_title: Nintendo
section_title: 1990–1992: Game Boy and Super Nintendo Entertainment System
hierarchical_section_title: Nintendo / History / 1973–present: History in electronics / 1990–1992: Game Boy and Super Nintendo Entertainment System
caption_attribution_description: English: An original Nintendo Game Boy.Deutsch: Der originale Nintendo Game Boy
context_page_description: Nintendo Co., Ltd. is a Japanese multinational consumer electronics and video game company headquartered in Kyoto. The company was founded in 1889 as Nintendo Karuta by craftsman Fusajiro Yamauchi and originally produced handmade hanafuda playing cards. After venturing into various lines of business during the 1960s and acquiring a legal status as a public company under the current company name, Nintendo distributed its first video game console, the Color TV-Game, in 1977. It gained international recognition with the release of the Nintendo Entertainment System in 1985.
  Since then, Nintendo has produced some of the most successful consoles in the video game industry, such as the Game Boy, the Super Nintendo Entertainment System, the Wii, and the Nintendo Switch. Nintendo has also released numerous influential franchises, including Donkey Kong, Mario, The Legend of Zelda, Kirby, Metroid, Fire Emblem, Splatoon, Super Smash Bros., and Pokémon.
  Nintendo has multiple subsidiaries in Japan and abroad, in addition to business partners such as The Pokémon Company and HAL Laboratory.
context_section_description: In 1988, Gunpei Yokoi and his team at Nintendo R&D1 conceived the Game Boy, the first handheld video game console to be compatible with interchangeable game cartridges. Nintendo released the Game Boy in 1989. In North America, the Game Boy was bundled with the popular third-party game Tetris after a difficult negotiation process with Elektronorgtechnica. The Game Boy was a significant success: in its first two weeks of sale in Japan, it sold out its initial inventory of 300,000 units, while in the United States, an additional 40,000 units were sold on its first day of distribution. Around this time, Nintendo entered into an agreement with Sony to develop the Super Famicom CD-ROM Adapter, a peripheral for the upcoming Super Famicom capable of playing CD-ROMs. However, the collaboration did not last as Yamauchi preferred to continue developing the technology with Philips, which would result in the CD-i, and Sony's independent efforts resulted in the creation of the PlayStation console.
  The first issue of the magazine Nintendo Power, which had an annual circulation of 1.5 million copies in the United States, was published in 1988. In July 1989, Nintendo held the first Nintendo Space World trade show under the name Shoshinkai for the purpose of announcing and demonstrating upcoming Nintendo products. The same year, the first World of Nintendo stores-within-a-store, which carried official Nintendo merchandise, were opened in the United States. According to company information, more than 25% of homes in the United States had an NES in 1989.
  The late 1980s marked the slip of Nintendo's dominance in the video game market with the appearance of NEC's PC Engine and Sega's Mega Drive, game systems designed with a 16-bit architecture that allowed for improved graphics and audio compared to the NES. In response to the competition, Uemura designed the Super Famicom, which launched in 1990. The first batch of 300,000 consoles sold out in a matter of hours. The following year, as with the NES, Nintendo distributed a modified version of the Super Famicom to the United States market, titled the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES). Launch games for the Super Famicom and SNES include Super Mario World, F-Zero, Pilotwings, SimCity, and Gradius III. By mid-1992, over 46 million Super Famicom and SNES consoles were sold. The console's life cycle lasted until 1999 in the United States, and until 2003 in Japan.
  In March 1990, the first Nintendo World Championship was held, with participants from 29 American cities competing for the title of "best Nintendo player in the world". In June 1990, the subsidiary Nintendo of Europe was opened in Großostheim, Germany; in 1993, subsequent subsidiaries were established in the Netherlands (where Bandai had previously distributed Nintendo's products), France, the United Kingdom, Spain, Belgium and Australia. In 1992, Nintendo acquired a majority stake in the Seattle Mariners baseball team, and sold its shares in 2016. Nintendo ceased manufacturing arcade games and systems in September 1992. In 1993, Star Fox was released, which marked an industry milestone by being the first video game to make use of the Super FX chip.
  The proliferation of graphically violent video games, such as Mortal Kombat, caused controversy and led to the creation of the Interactive Digital Software Association and the Entertainment Software Rating Board, in whose development Nintendo collaborated during 1994. These measures also encouraged Nintendo to abandon the content guildelines it had enforced since the release of the NES. Commercial strategies implemented by Nintendo during this time include the Nintendo Gateway System, an in-flight entertainment service available for airlines, cruise ships and hotels, and the "Play It Loud!" advertising campaign for Game Boys with different-colored casings. The Advanced Computer Modelling graphics used in Donkey Kong Country for the SNES and Donkey Kong Land for the Game Boy were a technological innovation, as was the Satellaview satellite modem peripheral for the Super Famicom, which al
caption: Game Boy
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