"SNES. Cult console. Futuristic format. Can we predict its success by scrutinizing its launch titles? Can we sense in this selection the broad outlines of a strategy? These are the vague questions that I hope to answer in this long video which will tour the three major launches of what some still call the Super Famicom. What titles. Why. Lots of extracts. 34m29.

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Credits directed by Christian Sanfiel
(https://sanfieldeleon.com/)
Music composed by Epic Schmetterling (https://epicschmetterling.bandcamp.com/)

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The Super Nintendo — called Super Famicom (スーパーファミコン?) in Japan and Super Nintendo Entertainment System (Super NES or SNES) in North America — is a video game console from the Japanese manufacturer Nintendo marketed from November 1990. In North America , the console was released with a decidedly different look. Note that in South Korea, the Super Nintendo is distributed by Hyundai Electronics under the name Super Comboy (슈퍼 컴보이).

To compete with the popular Nintendo Entertainment System / Famicom which was crushing the market, NEC launched the PC-Engine in 1987, and Sega followed with its Mega Drive in 1988. The two systems then offered much better performance, notably graphics and sound, than Nintendo's 8-bit. Although the NES continues to be the leader in the video game market, the good reception of the Mega Drive3 and the PC-engine by the various market players forced Nintendo to create a console that could compete with its new competitors4.

Designed by Masayuki Uemura, the designer of the original Famicom, the Super Famicom was released on Wednesday November 21, 1990 for a price of ¥25,000, 982 francs at the time, the equivalent of €149 (€236 in 2021 with the 'inflation). It was an immediate success; the initial delivery of 300,000 units sold out within a few hours and the disruption caused led the Japanese government to ask video game console manufacturers to plan, in the future, to release their consoles at the end of the week5. This success even aroused a certain interest among the Yakuza, the risks of theft leading to the decision to transport the devices at night.

The Super Famicom quickly sold better than its rivals and Nintendo reasserted itself as the leader in the Japanese console market. Nintendo's success is partly due to the support of most of its previous system's core third-party developers, including Capcom, Konami, Tecmo, Square, Koei and Enix. In August 1991, Nintendo released, in North America, the Super Nintendo Entertainment System or Super NES (and often abbreviated to SNES), a redesigned version of the Super Famicom, for the price of US$199.

The Super Nintendo Entertainment System (official name) was released in Europe on April 11, 1992. Initially planned to have the same design as the American version, it ultimately used that of the Japanese Super Famicom. Quickly, the name Super Nintendo will be the term most often used in France to designate the console.

Like the NES for several years, it was distributed in France by Bandaï France, which first planned a release in 1993 then in September 1992. But given the success of the Mega Drive, the choice was made to bring forward the release even further to April for the most consuming countries (such as France or the United Kingdom), while other countries will have to wait until June 4. At launch, it was sold in a pack with two controllers and Super Mario World for 1,290 FF (initially planned for 1,490 FF but Sega and their new Megadrive + Sonic pack at 1,290 FF will push them into line) and accompanied by four optional games at a unit price of 449 FF: F-Zero, Super R-Type, Super Tennis and Super Soccer.