NES Oddities (25th Anniversary)
October 18th, 2010 by Benj Edwards
If you’ve checked out this week’s Retro Scan and maybe even my NES teardown, you already know that Nintendo released the NES in the United States 25 years ago today (that would be 1985 — I’ll spare you the math).
In honor of the anniversary, I gathered up 13 examples of NES-related weirdness and conveniently packaged them in a slideshow format for Technologizer. The result is “Nintendo Entertainment System Oddities,” a gallery in the same vein as my Super Mario Oddities and Game Boy Oddities pieces for Technologizer. I hope you enjoy it.
Maybe all this NES lovin’ will inspire you to dust off your old console and revisit some NES classics. It certainly did me.
October 18th, 2010 at 9:12 pm
Wish I could view it in the downtime at work but alas, still blocked. and no internet at home, this makes me quite sad 🙁
October 18th, 2010 at 11:07 pm
Great slideshow Benj (as always). I have never even heard of or seen most of these.
For some reason the Speedboard makes me think of a trick people used to do when playing Track & Field in the arcade. They would take a Popsicle stick (or a tongue depressor) and position it in a way where they could mash just one button – as fast as possible – but cause both buttons to register. I was always the little kid watching the older kids play so that always impressed me.
…To this day I have still never completed the Hammer Throw.
October 21st, 2010 at 8:33 am
I will never dust off my NES. Because I don’t have to, it’s one of the 3 consoles hooked up in my living room. My favorite console of all time. And I play it quite frequently.
Growing up, we lived in Westchester County, NY. Which is not to far from Manhattan, where my father owned his business. I guess my dad bought an NES in 1985(as NYC was a test market for it). I remember him bringing it home, and I was all like “what’s a Nintendo?” No one I knew had one, so it was very mysterious. I was used to playing my step brother’s 2600. When the Super Mario Bros./Duck Hunt cartridge booted up, I was floored! Me, my dad, my younger brother and my step mom all took turns playing for practically the entire day. Ever since then, I’ve been hooked.
Here’s a funny story related to that era. My dad and step mom went out to dinner one night, and left my older brother to watch my younger bother and I. He left the requisite number to the restaurant they would be at in case of an emergency.
Well, we’re all playing SMB, and I find the warp zone for worlds 6, 7 and 8. I was going batshit! I made my brother call my dad at the restaurant to tell him the good news. He didn’t get the slightest bit upset, and I was allowed to show him the warp zone the following day. Good times!! 🙂
October 22nd, 2010 at 1:35 pm
Its also the 25th anniversary of the Sega Master System, which was much more popular in Europe. Where’s the Sega love?
October 22nd, 2010 at 2:25 pm
Bob: It’s the 25th anniversary of the Sega Mark III, which was released in Japan on October 20th, 1985. The 25th anniversary of the Sega Master System’s launch in the US will be June 2011 (there’s still time to celebrate that in the future). Since the SMS was not very popular in the US, we don’t have the intense cultural “love” for that console like we do for the NES over here in the States.
October 24th, 2010 at 7:14 am
Ah well, I was always a ZX Spectrum guy anyway. Till I got an Amiga, that is. 😀