November 1, 2008by Chris

ZNES is the best Super Nintendo Emulator and is available for Windows, OSX, and Linux. ROMs are found all over the 'net but remain under copyright (you should at least own the associated cartridge if you procure a copy of the ROM - to fend off hungry lawyers).

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The Super Nintendo

Nintendo rolled out the Super Nintendo Entertainment System in 1990 and it proved to be the best selling 16bit system of all time - but still did not equal Nintendo's success with the 8bit NES which sold 60 million worldwide to the SNES's 49 million.

Called "Super Famicom" in Japan, it was an instant hit. A lot of ground was to be gained on the main competitor - Nintendo fought it out with Sega in North America for four years before retaking the market in 1994. Ever since then, Sega has remained Nintendo's rival.

Shipping with Super Mario World in the USA and Canada, the SNES delivered the fun with the proven Mario side-scrollers and the invigorating 3D games such as F-Zero, Mario Cart, and StarFox.

Toward the end of its run, SNES surprised many people with advanced games from the software company Rare. Generating a revolutionary methodology in the video game development paradigm - Rare introduced pre-rendered graphics beginning with Donkey Kong Country - resulting in games with silky smooth graphics and a warm feeling of real quality -- and were also (most importantly) a lot of fun to play.

The NES appealed more to kids than adults - SNES tried to break away from the mold with various sports titles from EA (NHL, Madden, PGA) but Genesis held onto that market.

The SNES was a great sequel. It would later be trumped by the Nintendo 64, the Game Cube, and of course, the Wii.

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