Post by Fryguy64 on Dec 2, 2013 7:52:58 GMT -5
I've been immersing myself in the chequered history of the NES in Europe. I've been combining my personal experience with a number of sources I've managed to track down to try and bring some kind of structure to the madness.
From what I can gather, the NES was released in PAL-B regions (all of Europe excluding the UK and Italy) around September 1986, where it was released next to a small software library that inexplicably did NOT include Super Mario Bros. It did have Ice Climber though. *cough*
Around Aug-Sep 1987, the NES was released in PAL-B regions (UK, Italy and Australia). This time, it appears to have brought a bigger software library with it, but specific release dates outside of the year alone are near impossible to come by.
However, from 1989 onwards, Nintendo released the Club Nintendo newsletter. It was available 4-6 times a year and contained a list of all games available in that region. As it went on, some games that were no longer in print were removed, but I was able to create a fairly decent rough order of when the games were released. It appears that the PAL-A and PAL-B territories eventually synced up, although some titles were still exclusive to one region or another.
I compared the list against the games we had back in the day, and it matches up well. We first borrowed an NES in 1991 with Rad Racer, Castlevania II, Super Mario Bros., The Legend of Zelda and Fester's Quest (there may have been more, but that's all we played really). Then you started to see more titles come out that match the games we borrowed from friends or played round their houses. This method also shows that many of the "recorded" dates on GameFAQs etc. for Europe are wrong.
Before 1990, the NES was dead on arrival, at least in the UK. It was (surprisingly) the release of Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles that revived its fortunes and led to an increase in software. I actually remember this happening. I had one friend with an NES prior to this, and then suddenly everyone (including us) had one. This fact is often forgotten - the NES was only popular in the UK because of the damn awful first Turtles game.
And that popularity was short lived. Not long after, the SNES came out, and that was the start of the official Nintendo Magazine System, plus its many print rivals. The history starts to clear up a little at this point, as we're no longer in the prehistoric era.
One major problem is that there was no central distributor. Not only was Europe split into PAL-A and PAL-B, but each country also had its own releases. While these were compatible in the same PAL areas, that doesn't mean they were ever officially released there. And many popular European releases such as Devil World and U-Four-ia: The Saga were not released in the UK.
The Virtual Console has helped to muddy these waters a little by essentially rewriting the history of the NES in Europe as if it enjoyed the same success it had elsewhere. And while some of us LOVED our old grey box, it was always second place to Sega in the console wars, and consoles themselves behind the home PCs of the time, notably the ZX Spectrum and Commodore Amiga.
Hell, nearly everyone I knew had a Master System! Except us... Playing Mario for the 200th time...
From what I can gather, the NES was released in PAL-B regions (all of Europe excluding the UK and Italy) around September 1986, where it was released next to a small software library that inexplicably did NOT include Super Mario Bros. It did have Ice Climber though. *cough*
Around Aug-Sep 1987, the NES was released in PAL-B regions (UK, Italy and Australia). This time, it appears to have brought a bigger software library with it, but specific release dates outside of the year alone are near impossible to come by.
However, from 1989 onwards, Nintendo released the Club Nintendo newsletter. It was available 4-6 times a year and contained a list of all games available in that region. As it went on, some games that were no longer in print were removed, but I was able to create a fairly decent rough order of when the games were released. It appears that the PAL-A and PAL-B territories eventually synced up, although some titles were still exclusive to one region or another.
I compared the list against the games we had back in the day, and it matches up well. We first borrowed an NES in 1991 with Rad Racer, Castlevania II, Super Mario Bros., The Legend of Zelda and Fester's Quest (there may have been more, but that's all we played really). Then you started to see more titles come out that match the games we borrowed from friends or played round their houses. This method also shows that many of the "recorded" dates on GameFAQs etc. for Europe are wrong.
Before 1990, the NES was dead on arrival, at least in the UK. It was (surprisingly) the release of Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles that revived its fortunes and led to an increase in software. I actually remember this happening. I had one friend with an NES prior to this, and then suddenly everyone (including us) had one. This fact is often forgotten - the NES was only popular in the UK because of the damn awful first Turtles game.
And that popularity was short lived. Not long after, the SNES came out, and that was the start of the official Nintendo Magazine System, plus its many print rivals. The history starts to clear up a little at this point, as we're no longer in the prehistoric era.
One major problem is that there was no central distributor. Not only was Europe split into PAL-A and PAL-B, but each country also had its own releases. While these were compatible in the same PAL areas, that doesn't mean they were ever officially released there. And many popular European releases such as Devil World and U-Four-ia: The Saga were not released in the UK.
The Virtual Console has helped to muddy these waters a little by essentially rewriting the history of the NES in Europe as if it enjoyed the same success it had elsewhere. And while some of us LOVED our old grey box, it was always second place to Sega in the console wars, and consoles themselves behind the home PCs of the time, notably the ZX Spectrum and Commodore Amiga.
Hell, nearly everyone I knew had a Master System! Except us... Playing Mario for the 200th time...