[bena]

While the Famicom was decent, the NES had mechanical problems.

The Famicom was a top-loading console, like the SNES, but had hard-wired controllers that came out of the back of the console. There was a controller port on the front that was used for the light gun peripheral.

The NES had pluggable controllers, but the cartridge was front-loaded. The cartridge would plug into the bus in the back, then the whole thing was pushed down, which allowed the contacts on the bus to touch the contacts on the board.

Those contacts often became worn and lost their elasticity over many uses, basically becoming more curled over time. These would then not make full contact with the board, causing games to not load.

They eventually redesigned the system to be a top-loader like the original Famicom. They also introduced this design to Japan so they would gain swappable controllers.

Also, the Famicom cartridges were smaller, just large enough to contain the board. NES cartridges were much larger with a lot of empty space. Didn't cause any issues technially, but it was a choice.

[eek2121]

Note that the actual cause of failure in the NES was NOT the cartridge connector, but rather, the poorly implemented security chip.

You can take a flaky NES, cut 1 pin on the security chip, and it will work near perfectly.

I am not saying what you stated isn’t true, however, it wasn’t the reason for the solid pink or flashing screens many of us saw.

[zzzeek]

in my Atari days, I went through half a dozen of those stupid joysticks, which broke easily as they were poorly designed and put way too much repetitive strain on the plastic insides that broke regularly.

contrast to my SNES controllers that still work today and feel more or less like they did literally 34 years ago. that blows my mind.

on the console side, the 2600 itself had some components go out which had to be replaced back in the day (remember when you'd take your console to the video game shop and they'd repair it?). The 800 itself didnt have any failures but the 810 disk drive was always a nightmare.

my comparisons are all to the SNES so admittedly these are all unfair comparisons, I never had an NES.

[staticman2]

Adding to what you wrote the NES was front loaded because it was designed to look like a VCR because they thought that aesthetic would sell better in the U.S.