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Super Nintendo (SNES): Sixteen Bits of Pure Joy
In short
Ask a room full of retro fans to name the greatest console ever and the Super Nintendo will come up within seconds. It arrived late to the 16-bit fight, but with a stack of all-time classics and some clever hardware tricks, it more than made up for lost time.
Fun fact: The SNES has 128 KB of general-purpose work RAM. That's 64 times the 2 KB inside the NES it replaced.
The full story
The Japanese launch was so heavily anticipated that Nintendo reportedly shipped consoles overnight to avoid theft and disruption. In North America the console got a boxy purple-and-grey redesign, while Europe and Japan kept the rounder, prettier shell with the colourful buttons that most people now picture.
Key games
The SNES library reads like a "best games ever" list:
- Super Mario World (1990) – the pack-in that showed off the system and introduced Yoshi.
- The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past (1991) – the blueprint for top-down Zelda ever since.
- Street Fighter II (1992 on SNES) – brought the arcade sensation home and shifted consoles by the bucketload.
- Super Mario Kart (1992) – created a genre and countless friendships-ruining evenings.
- Super Metroid (1994) – atmospheric, brilliantly designed and still a speedrun favourite.
- Donkey Kong Country (1994) – Rare's pre-rendered graphics made people double-check it wasn't a new console.
- Final Fantasy VI and Chrono Trigger (1994–95) – the golden age of the Japanese RPG, though Europe sadly missed out on both at the time.
- Star Fox (1993) – polygons on a 16-bit machine, thanks to the Super FX chip inside the cartridge.
That last point was a SNES speciality: extra chips on the cartridge let developers push the hardware far beyond its launch-day limits. Mode 7, the scaling and rotation effect used in F-Zero and Pilotwings, was another visual party trick.
Sales and legacy
Nintendo's historical data puts the Super Famicom and SNES at 49.10 million units shipped worldwide, with about 379 million games sold. Japan accounts for 17.17 million of those consoles and the Americas for 23.35 million, with 8.58 million elsewhere.
The SNES's great rival was Sega's Mega Drive, and the "console war" between the two was fought hard in playgrounds and magazine adverts alike. Worldwide the SNES finished ahead, but the race was much closer in the West, and the Mega Drive was widely reported to be ahead in North America in the early 1990s.
Its legacy is everywhere. The SNES controller added shoulder buttons and the diamond-shaped four-button face layout that almost every modern pad still uses. Many of its games defined genres and remain hugely playable without any nostalgia filter.
Nintendo's SNES Classic Mini (2017) included the previously unreleased Star Fox 2, and a growing range of SNES titles is available through Nintendo Switch Online.
For the nerds (click to open)
Launch dates and prices
| Region | Launch | Launch price |
|---|---|---|
| Japan (Super Famicom) | 21 November 1990 | ¥25,000 |
| North America (SNES) | 23 August 1991, nationwide from 9 September | US$199 with Super Mario World |
| UK/Europe | 11 April 1992 in the UK | £150 |
UK launch
- When and how much: 11 April 1992 at £150, as listed in the table above.
Chips and specs
| Part | Detail |
|---|---|
| CPU | Ricoh 5A22, built around a 65C816-compatible 16-bit core |
| CPU clock | Variable: about 3.58 MHz for fast access, 2.68 MHz for most ROM/RAM access and 1.79 MHz for the slowest registers |
| Graphics | Two picture chips (S-PPU1 and S-PPU2) |
| Work RAM | 128 KB |
| Video RAM | 64 KB |
| Sound | Sony SPC700 8-bit sound CPU plus an 8-voice S-DSP, with 64 KB of its own audio RAM |
| Colours | 32,768-colour palette |
| Sprites | Up to 128 on screen, 32 per line |
| Typical resolution | 256×224 (higher interlaced modes exist) |
Variants and region differences
- Super Famicom vs PAL SNES vs US SNES: Japan and Europe share the rounded shell and colourful buttons, and North America has the boxy purple-and-grey design (see the full story). PAL consoles run at 50 Hz.
- Cartridges: PAL and Super Famicom carts share a rounded shape, while US carts are a different shape. The CIC region lockout also differs by region.
- Later model: a cost-reduced "SNS-101" model (the "SNES Jr.") followed in North America in October 1997, and the Super Famicom Jr. in Japan in 1998. Neither came to the UK.
Values, fixes and builds
Buying tips
- PAL machines run at 50Hz, so many games play slower than their US and Japanese versions; a 60Hz-modded console or an import is worth considering.
- The grey plastic on many consoles has yellowed with age. It's cosmetic, but it affects price.
- Enhancement-chip games (Star Fox, Yoshi's Island, Super Mario RPG) often need a good contact clean to boot reliably.
Where to buy now
Original hardware is still easy to find second-hand, but condition varies wildly. Check that a console has been tested, look closely at photos of ports and cartridge slots, and remember that a reputable retro shop will usually offer a short warranty that a private seller won't.
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