Console Wars - 8-bit Era

8-bit Era

In what is known as the "8-bit era", the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) came out on top in North America and Japan (where it was known as the Nintendo Famicom), partially due to its earlier release, but mostly because Nintendo banned developers from releasing their games on other systems if their games were released on the NES. This put a damper on third party support for the Master System and the rest of Nintendo's competition. In Europe and Brazil, however, the Master System sold much better than the NES in those territories. Australia had similar success with the Master System in its early days, though when the NES was released there by Mattel, Master System sales started to slow down.

Nintendo of Japan continued to repair Famicom systems until October 31, 2007, attributing the decision to discontinue support to an increasing shortage of the necessary parts.