FamiWiki (and why the Famicom is NOT an NES)

[@Akfamilyhome]

I want to say my stance on the whole debacle (which is probably less extreme than yours) is that the necessity to distinguish NES and Famicom depends on what is being discussed The physical systems and accessories? Yeah obviously, I imagine only a small handful of people are actually pointing at a Famicom and calling it a NES unless it's to refer to the whole platform itself The games? I'd say yes due to the platform exclusives, but for games that released for both systems you could probably get away with generalizing all of it as NES, maybe with the exception of physical games like selling a Famicom cart and listing it as an NES game The 8-bit Nintendo software platform in general? Probably not necessary unless you're referring to Famicom specific features, if you're making a generic homebrew game that doesn't use extra features, saying "I'm making a NES/Famicom game" or "NES/Famicom ROM" barely has a difference Historical context? It's obviously preferred I think, "The NES released as the Famicom in Japan" is objectively better than "The NES first released in Japan in 1983" but the latter is probably a nitpicky level of misinfo to a casual audience, unless you were to do a deep dive into the history etc etc

[@auxillify]

really, the NES is just a North American Famicon!

[@Bro3256]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/omeTfqF6f9CfpK8

[@PanchamBro]

Aux why

[@benreay6698]

i disagree, the models of switch are SKUs of the same console, a platform would be like steam machine with different companies making different computers with standard features.

[@Bro3256]

the reason we're sticking with these definitions is mainly for transparency when talking about specific consoles on the wiki the definition for platform on FamiWiki is meant to bundle up similar consoles that run on the same general ecosystem while consoles can still stand on their own legs we've established all of this just so we can bundle up consoles such as the Famicom and NES under the same general platform and giving that platform name 8-bit Nintendo while also letting both still stand on their own legs which many other online sources simply do not do and simply call everything an NES the same applies with the Super Famicom and SNES under 16-bit Nintendo

[@benreay6698]

@@Bro3256 ion know enough about the Famicom to say for sure, but those still sound like different SKUs to me. Famicom games run fine on NES, so the only difference i know is the Disk System, and the NA NES still has the expansion port.

[@danielmclaughlin2190]

They look different, play different looking carts, language is different, peripherals are different , different name , different box art (games and the actual console) . I mean, there is more than enough differences in them to be , well, different.

[@oracleoftroy]

This video convinced me that the European release of the NES was not an NES. After all, it had a completely different clock speed for both the PPU and APU, an Ricoh 2A07 instead of the JP/US 2A03, and output in PAL instead of NTSC. Aside from a few external differences, the US NES and JP Famicom are identical, so much so that several early NES games were just JP carts attached to an adapter to fit the NES. That is not as easily possible between NTSC and PAL releases especially the more the game pushes the limited hardware of the NES. Thus there is far more difference between the NES and the NES (US vs Europe, that is) than the NES and Famicom (US and JP that is). Having written an NES emulator, there is little difference between the US and JP systems (and most of that comes from the expansion hardware that never made it outside of Japan), and much more you have to worry about when supporting games from other regions.

[@Bro3256]

by definition on FamiWiki the european consoles and by proxy the variants of the PAL consoles are technically different here's the thing though, it still falls under NES in general which you cannot say for the Famicom both the Famicom and NES have completely different identities that currently sits under the umbrella of NES on most sites which FamiWiki aims to clear up

[@oracleoftroy]

@@Bro3256 So where does the Dendy fit in? The differences between the Famicom and the US NES are nearly entirely superficial and more representative of regional marketing differences. Sure, its branding (the thing it is identified by) is different between the two regions, but that's not unusual. It strikes me like insisting that Edy's and Dreyer's Ice Cream are completely different due to the name difference rather than it just being regional branding. Looking at the Japanese wikipedia page, they just treat the system as ファミコン (Fa-mi-ko-n, Famicom) regardless of what region they happen to be discussing, and they treat regional releases as Famicom releases while noting the regional names as needed. For example, the following roughly translates to: "[The Famicom] was released as the "Nintendo Entertainment System" (abbreviated NES) in the US, Canada, European Community member countries [the predecessor to the EU], Australia, and South Korea, with the same specifications for the main parts." 一方で北米のアメリカ合衆国及びカナダ、ヨーロッパのEC加盟諸国（当時）、オーストラリア、韓国[注釈 5]では主要部分の仕様が同一の“Nintendo Entertainment System”（ニンテンドーエンターテインメントシステム、略称：NES）として発売された[注釈 6]。 When talking about later editions, it again just treats them all as Famicom and sometimes notes a regional name if relevant. My favorite example is the NES-101, which isn't how the system was known in the US. The English version of the page refers to the "New-Style NES" and only mentions NES-101 in the footnotes. Even Japanese English dictionaries just treat ファミコン NES as equivalent words for the respective languages. I think the distinction you are making isn't very meaningful or helpful. The NES simply is a Famicom for a Japanese speaker and the Famicom simply is an NES for an English speaker, and if for some reason, more specificity is needed, one can use regional identifiers or whatever else is relevant to distinguish them. They are pretty much the same computer hardware in a different case. The 60-pin vs 72-pin connector might seem like a big difference at first, but it really comes down to 10 pins to control the expansion port that was never used, and 2 pins for the CIC lockout chip. Any US NES cart should work fine in a Famicom with a simple adapter (the CIC is completely independent from the rest of the cart), and any Famicom cart should work fine in a US NES once the CIC is dealt with (barring microphone support).