Back in the 1970’s, arcades were all the rage. Powerful machines that could run the latest games and only required a coin for a good time. They were incredible, but inconvenient. In the 1980’s, home consoles started to become the norm. And while less powerful, the convenience proved more enticing.

This is the market Nintendo cornered early on with theNES, and took the world by storm. The NES is fondly remembered now, but just how successful was it at the time, and how many games did it get in total?

How Many Games Were Made For The NES?

Being Nintendo’s first foray into the home console market, andone of the earliest home consoles there was, the NES was a bit of a gamble. The Famicom, as it was known in Japan, was a roaring success, though the videogame collapse in the US made its later introduction delayed. Europe came afterwards, and much of the rest of the world beyond that.

As such, there is quite a wide gap between releases and consoles, and plenty of games were made exclusive to each region to promote the console, and some never came back into circulation. As such,getting the exact number of NES games is hard, and the number varies quite a bit.

A more conservative estimate, according to The NES Encyclopedia, is thatthere are 876 games. A wider estimate, like that of Wikipedia,could put the total number closer to 1,300. It’s a very variable number, including a fair number of ports and duplicate releases across other regions and localisation changes. As such, the real number lies somewhere between both extremes.

When Was The Last Game Released For The NES?

With the NES having such a staggered release around the world,the final game that launched on the console is also a bit variable. To reflect that, we’re showcasing the final game in each major region to give you an idea of how long the console lasted.

Despite there being around a year between the release of the final Japanese and European game, the life of the console was longest in Japan, supported for almost the same length of them as every other region. Regardless though, that does still makesThe Lion Kingthe final game ever released for the NES.

What Were The Launch Titles For The NES?

With the long delays between the NES launching in every other region beyond Japan, you would have expected the console to be overflowing with games ready for release in each region. WhileEurope and North America definitely had more games than the Japanese release, they were still surprisingly smaller than you might expect.

Of course, gaming was a much smaller industry back then, and the teams that could be dedicated to translation works were miniscule in comparison to what we have today. As such,the North American launch had quite a few more games than the European launch, in sharp contrast with most consoles that would come later.

Wild Gunman

Wrecking Crew

In Japan,only three titles were available at release,and none of them Mario. It seems like an impossible idea to conceive of with the Nintendo of today. Next up is America, which launched withan impressive line-up of 17 games, a commendable number indeed. The European launch trailed behind that, though still greatly surpassed the Japanese launch withten games.

A rather interesting fact, there wasno game shared at releaseacross all three regions.