THE IMMERSION INTO VIDEO GAMES:
THE MECHANICS OF THE NINTENDO
ENTERTAINMENT SYSTEM (NES)
GAME CONSOLE
Juliana Marie Z. Gaballo
Department of Chemistry, Ateneo de Manila
University
Manila, Philippines
Juliana.gaballo@obf.ateneo.edu
I. Introduction
1. Brief Early Background of Video Games
Video games emerged in the 1960s, as a
result of the rise of computers during the 1940s -
1950s. The first video game was considered to be
'Tennis for Two', which was programmed purely for
entertainment in 1958. However, the game that
kickstarted the phenomenon of video games was
called 'Spacewar!', created by a group of MIT
(Massachusetts Institute of Technology) students that
sparked interest among college students and the small
programming community at the time.
From the idea of 'Spacewar!', Nolan Bushnell
executed the concept of arcade video games. He
released the 'Pong' machine in June 1972, which he
published under his company, Atari Inc., along with
business partner, Ted Dabney. It was considered to be
the first commercial video game.
'Pong' was heavily inspired by a table tennis
game made for the Magnavox Odyssey game console.
An engineer named Ralph Baer invented and released
the Magnavox Odyssey in 1972, which he licensed
under the Sanders Associates Inc. He saw an
innovation for video games on television. Despite not
being a big commercial success like 'Pong', his
invention of the Magnavox game console created the
video game industry for companies such as Nintendo,
a Japanese company that took the American market by
storm despite the industry crash that followed in the
1980s.
2. Gaming Consoles and The Rise of the Nintendo
Entertainment System (NES)
Atari Inc. helped make gaming consoles
popular due to its inspiration from the Magnavox
Odyssey, which made video games more accessible to
the public. Before 1972, consoles needed computers,
which were still uncommon devices in households.
Due to the Odyssey, it was made possible to play video
games through television, a more common device
found in homes. The first consoles were preloaded
with the game it was purchased with, but then
companies made it possible to add games instead
through cartridges over time. They were of the second
generation, produced between 1976 and 1983.
In 1983, however, the supply was greater
than the demand, which caused the industry into a
recession. Due to the many gaming consoles being
released by several companies, the choices for it
seemed endless. Furthermore, the games during that
time were of bad quality, resulting in less interest in
video games. But Nintendo soon transformed and
dominated the market with their Famicom gaming
system, also known as their Nintendo Entertainment
System (NES), in 1985.
The reason for Nintendo's overwhelming
success with the NES was due to the strict quality
regulations when it came to game releases, and
forbidding their developers to work for other
companies on their consoles. As a result, their games
were of high quality and even made one of the most
memorable video game characters, Mario from Super
Smash Bros. It became one of the best-selling consoles
of all time, selling over 61 million consoles [8]
II. Theoretical Background
Video games are a relatively modern media
that was popularized through gaming consoles.
Gaming consoles work similarly to computers, where
they also have their central processing unit (CPU),
memory (RAM/ROM), and graphics processing unit
(GPU). The NES was modified for western audiences
and is now considered to be an older model, but it
helped rebounded the video game industry with a new
generation of technological advancements [4]. As a
result, video games continue to evolve to reach their
fullest potential and have now become a subject of
study, where it applies the Game Theory.
Game Theory acts as a tool that
mathematically explores human behaviors in games,
where situations and interactions have to be
considered for the best strategy to get the desired
result. It serves as a model of interactive situations
among involved players, where their choices and
actions will result in various outcomes that will affect
each other's fate and different payoffs. Once an
outcome is reached, it means that no one can change
the payoff that they reached [2]. The limitations of this
theory are the lack of consideration for players'
emotions and the assumption that all players already
know how the game works, which does not apply to
many video games [7]. Those 2 limitations are what
this research considers to be the prominent faults of
this theory, but the research also believes that this
theory is what made the NES game console successful
as Nintendo most likely incorporated it to make high-
quality games. Present games now integrated it into
their game design, but Nintendo showed the results of
it through their strict quality control and advanced
technology, making themselves a beloved company
among gamers.
III. Discussion
(Figure 1. Block Diagram of NES Gaming System)
As mentioned before, gaming consoles share
similar components to computers such as the central
processing unit (CPU), memory (RAM/ROM), and
graphics processing unit (GPU). Video games are
processed into the console through cartridges, where
the game data is stored and the CPU's memory space
is pointed at. The game data is stored through a
Program ROM that contains the game's program.
What followed after inputting the game cartridge was
a lockout chip, character memory, mask ROM, and an
optional work RAM (WRAM). The lockout chip was
used to prevent piracy, located inside the console
where it would not be easily removed. It ran an internal
program that checks a complimentary lockout chip
that is also present in the game cartridge,
communicating constantly as the console was in
action.
For graphics, the character memory (inside
the game cartridge) and picture processing unit (PPU)
is in charge of this aspect of the system. The character
memory contains 2D drawings called tiles that are
organized into a pattern table. The PPU (inside the
console) is programmed to look for the character
memory tiles to produce the background and frames of
the video game. The PPU can process up to 8 KB
(Kilobytes) of character memory. 2 KB of Video RAM
assists both components by being dedicated to
graphics-related data only. The PPU will then give an
output of 2 layers into the monitor: the background
layer and the sprite layer. The background layer is
static while the sprite layer is movable and where the
player's input of movements will be shown.
The console's Work RAM (WRAM) and
Mask ROM interacted with its central processing unit
(CPU) called the Ricoh 2A03, which was connected to
another 2 KB of WRAM. It was also where the
console's controllers could be connected to. The
WRAM provided extra storage for variables to handle
the game better, or to be a buffer area for the console's
CPU to copy large data between 2 locations in the
motherboard. The Mask ROM contained the game's
binary code, which was a read-only type of memory
chip.
It also contained the Audio Processing Unit
(APU). The APU's function was to sequence audio
data over 5 audio channels unless there were extra
channels that were provided through additional chips.
Each channel has different properties to produce
unique sounds as output through the speaker.
IV. Learnings
This study discussed the components and
functions of the Nintendo Entertainment System
(NES) gaming console from the Japanese company,
Nintendo. Due to the company's gaming system and
strict quality control, it became a commercial hit in the
American video game industry with its release in
1985, which was a dying market due to it being
oversaturated and accompanying its products with
low-quality games. It revitalized the industry, selling
over 61 million units.
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