As the 90's chimed in, gaming was starting to get redundant. There was potential in the creativity of the software developers, but their games needed something more advanced to play on. NES carts could only be pushed so far, and there was no way of getting around the system's severely basic processor. In order to keep up with racing imaginations, R&D developed the Super NES, a machine that to many still today is considered the best gaming console of all time.

The release of the Super NES could have been like the release of a new Atari system 10 years prior, in which all you got was a new controller with slightly different looking graphics. But players quickly began to notice how powerful it truly was in comparison with their old NESs, first and foremost with a dizzying lineup of all-star games. Its revolutionary technology made for complicated worlds that with time only got deeper and more fascinating. Beginning with the rich, vibrant settings of Super Mario World, to the revolutionary 3D-esque sprite-scaling effects in games like F-Zero and Super Mario Kart, to the lush pre-rendered environments and characters of games like Donkey Kong Country, Killer Instinct, and Super Mario RPG. Nothing even close would have been possible on the original NES. Thus is the nature of the second renaissance.

Nintendo tried their hardest to make the SNES an enjoyable machine for gamers of all types around the world. Although it would be another 10 years before the company would release a disc-based system, it was always a project on their hands. Below is the SNES-ND ("Nintendo Disk"), an add-on deck that played a proprietary compact disc media that would presumably interact with a regular SNES cartridge. Had it been released, it surely would've launched Nintendo into the CD-gaming market, but the project was cancelled due to financial issues. However, the dream didn't die - one team of hardware developers moved their technology over to Sony, the result of which has become Nintendo's greatest competition in history, the Playstation. Oh, the taste of irony.

In 1994, Nintendo gave dedicated Nintendo fans a chance to bring their two systems together with the Super Game Boy; an adapter device that could play Game Boy titles on your TV screen in a selected, limited color scheme. This sort of handheld-to-console connection was the first of its kind, and it was highly successful. However Nintendo decided for whatever reason not to continue the idea on the N64.

Since the SNES's release, every developer has imitated the console's popular button layout (dubbed the "diamond layout"), except for Nintendo themselves. Sure, the design was inventive, as it first allowed for that perfect ammount of buttons right at your thumbprint. However Nintendo is the only company so far to seriously strive toward innovating upon innovation, realizing that more can be done with these same four buttons to make gaming even smoother. Regardless, the Super NES controller has since its conception been the standard by which all non-Nintendo controllers are designed - the most basic of basics, if you will.

With the system's power came a golden age of console gaming that very few developers weren't a part of, and some say died with the SNES. Without a doubt, the Super Nintendo made a heck of an impact on the video gaming industry. Here at NGEB, we choose not only to honor this 16-bit system, but to keep it out and play it just as much as we did in the golden days, for it's our proud belief that the Super Nintendo sported the best gaming lineup in history, and surely saw the most of our good times next to all other systems we've played. Nintendo seems to feel nostalgic as well for their 16-bit buddy - many consider the Game Boy Advance a revival of this bold era in gaming.