Nintendo Launches the NES and Super Mario Bros.

In October 1985, Nintendo released the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) in North America, alongside Super Mario Bros. — a side-scrolling platformer designed by Shigeru Miyamoto that became the best-selling game of its era. The NES revived a video game industry that had been declared dead after the 1983 crash. Nintendo succeeded by imposing strict quality control (the "Nintendo Seal of Quality"), limiting third-party releases, and delivering polished, imaginative games. Super Mario Bros. sold over 40 million copies and established conventions — power-ups, hidden secrets, world-by-world progression — that defined game design for decades. Mario became gaming's Mickey Mouse, and Nintendo's dominance established Japan as the center of the video game industry. The NES proved that video games were not a fad but a permanent and evolving art form.