Happy Birthday Nintendo

Ahh 1985, I wasn't alive back then. Because of this I can't reminisce about that year, so I'll just assume it was all drugs and hair metal. But that is the year we also got the original Nintendo Entertainment System.

While the console didn't get a widespread release until 1986 (the same year it was released in Europe) it was in late 1985 at the FAO Schwarz in Manhattan, New York (as part of an advance market test) that the first of millions of the machines would fall into the hands of eager consumers.

Now as I stated I wasn't born until the beginning of the dark ages known as the 90's but I still owned an NES, and it unarguably had one of the strongest catalogs of launch games of all time. This included classics like Excitebike, Duck Hunt, and Ice Climbers. It also gave us some of the most beloved video game characters, nay, icons we know today like Link, Samus, and of course the Mario Bros.

The NES lasted 10 years in the U.S market ceasing production in 1995, and in that decade it managed to mold a foundation for video games that has carried into 2010. So lets all give Nintendo a song and a birthday cake (this time it's not a lie).