#HTE

Super Nintendo Turns 25! Look How the Original Commercials Focused on the UX

In the 1980s, if you wanted to play videogames you had to clear some hurdles. First you had to save up some quarters. Then you had to journey to a smoke-filled arcade, and avoid being punched by a kid named Seth who smoked cigarettes and wore a bandanna and a jean jacket. Then you placed your quarter on the lip of the screen of a machine that someone else was playing–there was always a line–to indicate that you had “next.” And I remember that there were always cigarette burns on any horizontal part of the console, the laminated graphics burnt with little telltale brown ovals.

By the ‘90s arcades were dwindling like Seth’s lungs. Kids were playing at home, and in early 1991 the Sega Genesis was the dominant home platform. And then, 25 years ago this week, the Super Nintendo Entertainment System debuted in America, starting the 16-bit game console wars.

Early commercials were marketed towards those who well remembered arcades:

What’s interesting about the original rash of commercials is that they showed very little gameplay:

What the commercials were trying to get across to the consumer was the UX, the overall experience of the system. Watch this commercial and see what gets the most screentime:

As you’ve noticed, there’s a couple seconds of gameplay–and the rest of it is shots of the users’ faces. Never mind what’s on screen, the commercial seems to say, these kids are having a blast.

“No one else creates this kind of experience,” says this SNES commercial, which amusingly stars a young Paul Rudd:

Nintendo’s independent game developers, too, seemed to stay on-message with their own commercials: The word “experience” being a key part of the message. “You won’t believe the feeling you get…until you experience it for yourself.”

It’s possible that SNES’ marketing team simply felt the graphics weren’t up to snuff, and that it was more important to emphasize the overall UX.

Whatever the case, the SNES was a hit that knocked the Sega Genesis off of its perch; the SNES became the bestselling 16-bit console worldwide, and was so popular that it continued to compete even when 32-bit consoles began appearing in the mid-'90s. Nintendo kept selling them in America until 1999, and in Asia and Brazil, it shockingly survived until 2003. All told, Nintendo sold 49.1 million units worldwide.

Happy Birthday SNES!