Super Famicom / Super Nintendo Entertainment System

Original Japanese gray console

Launched in Japan on November 21, 1990 at ¥25,000 in a rounded gray shell with the iconic four-color (purple, red, green, yellow) face buttons. **The first 300,000 units sold out in 30 minutes**, and the delivery trucks reportedly required police escort because the Yamaguchi-gumi was eyeing them. The Japanese SHVC-001 motherboard later became infamous for its **yellowing problem** — ABS resin oxidation over years of light exposure — one of the best-known plastic-aging case studies in collecting.

Post-Atari-crash visual rebrand

The North American SNES, launched August 1991 at $199, was redesigned from the ground up — purple buttons, hard-edged casing, dark gray-and-purple palette. Nintendo deliberately distanced it from the Japanese sibling to escape retailer anxiety around the word 'console' that lingered after the 1983 Atari crash. The European version (1992) reused the Japanese gray shell but added PAL 50Hz lock — making this one of the most regionally divergent generations in industry history.

Late-life cost-reduced slim

Released November 1997 (Super Famicom Jr., ¥9,800) and 1998 in North America (SNES Mini), the slim revision dropped RGB output, simplified Multi Out, and removed the eject button. It was Nintendo's cost engineering to keep the SFC line alive into the N64 era for Brazilian and Southeast Asian long-tail markets. Today it's the affordable entry point for collectors, but the missing RGB output is a constant headache for the modding scene.

Three signature expansion peripherals

The Satellaview (1995, ¥18,000) was a satellite-broadcast download attachment for St.GIGA's service — **the first commercial satellite-distributed download platform on a home console**, with weekend-only timed broadcasts of titles like BS Zelda. Sufami Turbo (1996, by Bandai) was a mini-cartridge adapter for SD Gundam G Generation and similar light-format games. Super Game Boy (1994) ran Game Boy cartridges on the SFC with custom decorative borders. All three are oddities that defined the SFC's expanded ecosystem.

Licensed integrated unit and Korean release

Sharp's SF1 (1990 JP, over ¥100,000) integrated a 14- or 21-inch CRT television with a Super Famicom motherboard into a single luxury appliance — Sharp's continuation of the Twin Famicom approach to consumer-electronics fusion. The **Hyundai Super Comboy** (1992 KR) was the licensed Korean release: at the time, Korean law banned imports of Japanese popular culture (a legacy of the postwar Japan-Korea Basic Treaty), so SFC could only legally enter Korea through a domestic brand.