Having witnessed the success of programmable consoles as well as the success of one of their own games, Donkey Kong, a pack-in with the Coleco Vision, Nintendo released their first very own console, the Famicom (Family Computer). This console was intentionally made to look like a toy and was released strictly in Japan only. It took 60 pin cartridges.

The Famicom was released in Japan in July 1983 at a price of US$100. The first games released were Donkey Kong, Donkey Kong Jnr and Popeye but by the end of 1983 they had made enhanced versions of Donkey Kong Jnr and Popeye that allowed 2 players, and they had released Baseball and Mario Bros as well as a Go game and an adult title.

In its first year of release, the Famicom was often found to be quite an unreliable console with numerous bugs and freezing problems. Yamauchi did not want this system's future to be threatened and so he recalled all sold systems and stopped further production until the problems were fixed. Famicom was re-released with a new motherboard but the same familiar design.

Specifications:
- CPU type: Motorola 6502 8-bit (MOS)
- CPU speed: 1.79 MHz
- RAM: 16 Kbit (2 Kbyte)
- Video RAM: 16 Kbit (2 Kbyte)
- Picture resolution: 256 x 240 pixels
- Colors Available: 52 colours
- Max colors at once: 24 colours
- Max sprite size: 8 x 8 pixels or 8 x 16 pixels
- Max sprites: 64 sprites (max per line: 8)
- Min/Max Cart Size: 192 Kbit - 4 Mbit
- Sound: PSG sound
- Picture Scroll: 2 h.v