Nintendo fellow and Mario's dad Shigeru Miyamoto has said that the company felt the NES – known as the Family Computer or Famicom in Japan – challenged the perception that home consoles were "just toys." Originally released in 1983, it was officially part of the third generation of home consoles, but broke away from the pack with its innovative games.
In an interview with Famitsu, that's been translated by GamesRadar+, Miyamoto speaks on Nintendo's move from creating arcade cabinets to home consoles. "At the arcades people can't just spend money like water, so the idea for the Famicom came from the thought that 'they'd be able to play as many times as they wanted if they had this game at home,'" he says.
The NES wasn't part of the original wave of home consoles, but previous hardware like the Magnavox Odyssey and the Atari 2600 wasn't as sophisticated. "There were already things out there called 'home consoles' and PCs like the NEC's PC-6001 or the MSX came out around the same time as the Famicom," Miyamoto recalls. "However, PCs were held in higher regard than consoles, which were 'just toys.'"
Miyamoto believes that the NES carved its own path by showing that it was more than a toy by providing gameplay that was close to the arcade experience. "I think the Famicom bridged the gap between console and PC as it was a toy, but also it wasn't just a toy," he says. "If you can port games to it that are almost as good as the arcade versions, then I don't think it's just a toy."
