Nintendo has an amazing room devoted to its coolest (and least-known) console
In case you've never seen one, this is the Famicom. Internally, it's the same as the original Nintendo we had in the west, but it had a different design and the controllers were hard-wired to the system.
Check out this shelf. Nintendo just has a shelf full of mint-condition, boxed Famicom Disk Systems at Nintendo HQ. It was sold separately as an add-on for the Famicom after launch.
This is ridiculously cool. You don't see old, semi-obscure tech (outside of Japan, anyway) in perfect condition like this every day.
The Disk System is a little less attractive than the Famicom itself. It's just a big ol' red box. Function over form.
You attached it to the bottom of the Famicom and shoved those floppy disks into it. The disks were cheaper to produce than cartridges, had more storage capacity and players could actually save their games instead of relying on passwords. "Metroid" allowed players to save in the Japanese disk version, but in the western cartridge version, they had to use passwords.
"The Legend of Zelda" was originally a disk game before being converted to cartridge for its western release. Nintendo actually figured out a battery-based solution for the cartridge version, meaning this was the first cartridge-based game that allowed players to save their games. It was genuinely revolutionary.
Here's where the Disk System becomes really cool. Retail outlets in Japan had these disk writers that allowed players to write new games onto blank disks for a one-time fee, which was cheaper than buying a game on a cartridge. Just put a disk in there, pay the fee and you have a new game on it. That's awesome.
Some stores even had "Disk Fax" machines, where players could use their disks to upload their high scores for certain games. The information was stored in a nationwide leaderboard and prizes were given out to the best players!
Sadly, Nintendo's website hasn't delved into any of their other rad storage rooms. The Nintendo 64 also had a disk drive add-on that was only released in Japan, and surely they have a room full of those, too!
For a special bonus, here's a YouTube video that shows off one of Nintendo's coolest Easter Eggs. The GameCube's system menu music was actually the Famicom Disk System startup music, but extremely slowed down!
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