The British NES Documentary - This Console launched TWICE !? - Nintendo History 

Lady Decade Could you please do a video on the Hong Kong NES and famicom

Like David Pleasances from commodore doing the batman pack Simpson packs etc. Then he came over to OZ and opened up a Mexican restaurant

“𝙱𝚞𝚝, 𝚜𝚙𝚎𝚊𝚔𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚘𝚏 𝙽𝚒𝚗𝚓𝚊 𝚃𝚞𝚛𝚝𝚕𝚎𝚜, 𝙸 𝚏𝚒𝚗𝚍 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚒𝚍𝚎𝚊 𝚘𝚏 𝚊 𝚌𝚘𝚞𝚗𝚝𝚛𝚢 𝚎𝚡𝚒𝚜𝚝𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚠𝚒𝚝𝚑𝚘𝚞𝚝 𝚑𝚎𝚛𝚘𝚎𝚜 𝚟𝚎𝚛𝚢 𝚜𝚊𝚍.” They were described as "heroes in a half shell" on both sides of the Atlantic.

Amazing, I always assumed the NES was as popular in the UK as it was in America, Canada and Japan. It’s so strange that something so integral to the childhoods of US kid’s childhood’s wasn’t popular at all across the pond. Now I’m wondering how popular the NES was or wasn’t in the rest of Western Europe, specifically France and West Germany.

@@cyrus2546 not very. Micros were more popular by far in Europe as a whole.

All I can say is, as an American, I feel a little bad for you 80's kids in the UK. I can imagine the NES there was the equivalent of the Neo Geo AES but not nearly as impressive. I guess I don't feel too bad though because you still had things like the Master System and the ZX Spectrum, things that we Americans hardly ever even heard of. Yeah, we had the Master System but the only people who owned that were contrarians that weird kid trying to tell you how great an "Alex Kidd" was. To be fair, the game play of Alex Kidd was far more varied but less fine tuned than Super Mario Brothers but is still a great game in it's own right. When I started getting into emulation I realized that there was a much broader world of gaming out there and I started feeling a sensation that I personally call "vicarious nostalgia" where I imagine being the kid that grew up with the Master System instead of the NES. This kind of thing is just fascinating to me.

When we could get five blank C90 for less than £5 ……. 😉

is part 2 ever coming?

@@rabidguineapig Adam don't feel bad, the Master System in many ways was superior to the NES. And 8bit computers basically meant free games. There weren't tons of kids wishing they had an NES. By the time it came out it was already obsolete and the Megadrive soon hit.

@@robjackson4050 Yeah, I made it years ago, it was part of a Fact Hunt episode!

Part of it was that where most console owners had half a dozen games (because price), micro owners had hundreds of less than £10 games to pick from. Add in pirating tapes and disks …..

UK ones are PAL A but some other European countries are PAL B. You can disable the lockout chip though with pliers to play them all Xxxxx

@@LadyDecade So the Mattel version won't play PAL B versions without removing the lockout chip? Is there a universal PAL NES console that plays both regions? My NTSC top loader can play both regions, but with some graphical and sound issues.

@@BigOleWords unfortunately not to my knowledge xx

@@LadyDecade In Germany it's PAL B

Yes, although in Italy the SNES and the N64 were sold under another toy brand: GiG (a brand that fans of the G1 Transformers should know). P.S. Although now that I think about it, the partnership with GiG may have started towards the end of the NES life.

That must b ewhy all my NES carts are in Italian on the back

This is also true for the mainland Europe, like France, Germany, Spain and Italy

@@typhoonth8689 yes. Sega dominated Western Europe but the Gameboy got people into Nintendo, and then the SNES.

I never really thought about how the crash affected other markets. I guess it was just a US-only thing.

Sega delivered something different with their presence there for sure. Bummer Nintendo did not have more incentive, unlike Sega.

Definitely a history lesson, we were not aware of, but it's still fascinating. Shows how vastly different marketing consoles back then used to be.

I got my Super Nintendo from Boots back in the day lol

*I Got Turtles IV on SNES and played Tennis in Boots* 💡

My boots just have laces. What a rip. . .

Yes Boots used to sell a lot of games as well was music etc in the 80s

Yeah same here, my Hull branch, up the escalator, turn right, toys and games galore 👍👍🤪🤪

It did! It tends to get totally forgotten by 80s nostalgia fans, as it didn't really get going until the 90s here, where things are overshadowed by the Megadrive's success.

@@iantellam9970 exactly

Oh god no...I was afraid of this joke!

Toys R Us for me. I still remember going into the store and picking out Little Nemo and Bugs Bunny’s Birthday Blowout

Glad you enjoyed it xxx

High praise to compare Lady Decade to Jeremy Parish!

I didn't know a single person that had a NES. I remember seeing NES in different films during the 80s thinking wouldn't it be cool if they sold them here. Everyone had amstrad, spectrum, c63 or master system.

@@NaeMuckle commodore 63?

@@linuxameteur Like a c64 but the keyboard didn't have the number 4 on it as a cost saving exercise.

@@NaeMuckle only key that comes to mind is the numerical keys, which just sounds fucking weird to remove

Not one kid in my school had a NES (I'm from the UK). Everyone had Master Systems.

They also released way too late into a market that had major players enjoying huge success, whereas they timed it right in the US with the downfall of Atari. They always had an uphill struggle in the UK, and there were more powerful systems on the market by 1987 anyway. The NES missed the boat until they repositioned it as a budget console with the Turtles pack in 1990.

The NES did fine in most European countries. It was only in the UK where Nintendo really failed.

@@dm8579 I'm interested in a brief history of Nintendo consoles in every country of Europe.

Nintendo was (and probably still is) bigger in Germany than in the rest of Europe because they set up shop there themselves straight away instead of leaving the matter into other importers' (First Mattel, then local distributors) hands. Italy had a similar situation to the UK, probably even more skewed in Sega's favour thanks to Preziosi's aggressive marketing. Hence, Nintendo home consoles were barely a thing - even later down the line. Growing up in Italy, everyone had a PS2, the well-off hardcore gaming kids had a Xbox, nobody had a GameCube. After moving to Germany, I was astonished to see how many people in my age group grew up wlth the N64/NGC.

The Amiga was really popular in Germany in the late 80s and early 90s.

@@iantellam9970 Maybe with a more hardcore audience? But where I grew up - kids of the rural middle class in Western Germany - nobody knew about it. We only knew the NES (which we called "the Nintendo"), the SNES (= "the Supernintendo"), Gameboy and later on the first private Windows PCs. Some people I know had a Megadrive, but back in the day I didnt even know it existed.

@@CB-py1xh The Amiga was popular, for a home computer. But the NES outsold the Amiga many times.

Yes the Gameboy was the first Nintendo success that got people in Nintendo in the UK.

@@alexojideagu No it was game and watch

@@mrglasses8953 Ok fair enough. But I'm talking about consoles with cartridges.