Nintendo Ends NES/SNES Production
- May 30, 2003 00:00 AM PST
The end of the line for two fine consoles in Japan.
In a fax sent out to Japanese retailers today, Nintendo announced that it will stop manufacturing the Japanese versions of the Nintendo Entertainment System and Super NES this September. Nintendo will continue to repair broken systems, but that service will also end once they run out of replacement parts.Although the NES and SNES have long been out of production in America, their Japanese counterparts�the Famicom and Super Famicom�continued to find support from a diehard fanbase with a lust for cheap games. This announcement, however, marks the end of the line for two of the most well-known systems in video games.
"As the production environment of electronic products changes with time, it has grown difficult to procure the parts needed for production, so we have decided to close manufacturing," a Nintendo representative told Famitsu today. "The technology and assets we cultivated with the Famicom and Super Famicom will continue to serve us in future game development."
The Famicom was originally released in Japan on July 15, 1983, meaning that it�ll enjoy its 20th birthday in a month and a half. The NES was released in selected parts of America over two years later, on October 18, 1985. Both it and the Super NES were monstrous successes and played a major role in defining the game industry we enjoy today.
