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The big picture: It's been 35 years since Nintendo released its first 16-bit home gaming console, the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. A follow-up to the wildly successful NES, the SNES was Nintendo's answer to Sega's 16-bit Genesis console and saw the company through the early 90s to the eventual launch of the Nintendo 64.
The Super Nintendo debuted in North America on August 23, 1991, after having launched as the Super Famicom in Japan a full nine months earlier. Nintendo was technically late to the 16-bit fight considering Sega's next-gen gaming machine had been around since the tail end of the 80s, but made up for lost time in a big way.
The SNES was vastly superior to its predecessor in terms of graphics and audio performance, but hardware is only part of the equation. Nintendo had committed to turning out quality games with the original NES in a bid to avoid the same fate as Atari, and that really became evident with the SNES.
