Quiz: How Well Do You Know Nintendo Hardware?

“You scored 1 out of 10.”

I’m such a loser @_@

3/10 will stop attempting Nintendo life quiz at this juncture 😭.

I liked the quiz, 6 out of 10

Yikes 2/10 lol!

4/10 but I enjoyed finding out the proper answers.

10/10, but it was mostly luck with the Colour TV-Game and the Wii U launch.

These are fun, you need to keep doing them!

5/10. Not bad considering I'm a late comer to the Nintendo. Despite being 13 when the NES came to America (so I can't blame it on age), the first Nintendo system I ever owned was the DS.

8/10. Flubbed the last two questions, but not bad.

7 out of 10.

But how I supposed to answer on 6 question? I need to know not only about hardware, but all it's colors too? Even how it called?

And what about 9 question, if I live in Europe?

8/10. Wrong answers 1 and 9

6/10. Hardest one so far, but I'm not complaining.

You people need to correct the comma between jet and black in question 6: "Which Nintendo console was available in Indigo, Jet, Black and Spice colour variants (among others)?"

Jet and black were the same color in the GameCube ("jet black" was it called in all official papers) and thanks to the funtastique series the N64 also was released in orange, black, gray, purple, green, etc. So with that and the whole "among others" is somewhat confusing as it is right now.

I thought my brother had a Spice GC in the US, but he had a Silver GC and bought a Spice controller. So the Spice controllers, at least, were sold in the US.

6/10

Whatever.

4/10 sadly. In all my years following Nintendo and being very familiar with their journey into video games and console history, I've never ever heard of the Color TV-Game

How could anyone think the North American SNES was a better design?

Don't @ me.

5/10 not bad but I got one wrong which I actually knew the answer to lol.

7 out of 10 here. A winner is me!

6/10 I didn't know who or why the SNES was redesigned for the States. I still can't believe people approved that US version. Talk about ugly!

8/10. I never know about DS's codename. And I got the designer of the NA SNES wrong - I realized it wasn't the one I clicked as I hit the button, but it's ok, getting it right by process of elimination knowing who it wasn't doesn't really count as knowing it.

@Johnno137426 The SNES version spoke to the design aesthetic in the US of the time period though. It looks "ugly" in hindsight from 2020 but it looked awesome in 1993. Something as round as the original would truly have stuck out like a sore thumb next to everything else that was much squarer with sharper edges here.

Ah, even though I promised myself I wouldn't participate in these infernal, confidence-undermining quizzes anymore, I couldn't resist this one...

Got a 7/10, which SHOULD have been an 8/10, because that first question was an absolute stinker, @dartmonkey. Basically, three of the answers were right, so I was a bit disappointed when I found out that "the controllers could not be detached from the system" was wrong, because it DEFINITELY isn't wrong...

@NEStalgia I'd actually also add it's a demographic thing. Even today, stroll through Home Depot and tell me how many "curved surfaces" you find in things they're trying to promote? Everything is angles and edges, not curves. There's an underlying, mostly sub-concious and associative element of edges and angles that connotes "power" in American design context. NA SNES looked industrial and therefore powerful. Still does. Similarly there's the underlying aesthetic that the angles and edges are a "masculine" form while the curved product is either "safe" and childlike, or has a "feminine" form. Look in the tool aisle, and you'll see lots of edges and few curves. Look in the cosmetics case and you'll see lots of curved packages and tools, and few angles. Video games, at the time were marketed largely to a young male demographic. The design difference was a definite appeal to the subconscious of the target demo, as was the coloring - purple on gray.

8/10. I can remember codenames, product codes and names of staff, but I am hopeless at remembering years lol.

8/10. I've never seen a Famicom cartridge, and didn't know the N64 codename

6 out of 10... Not bad

It’s a 6 for me. Yeah I’m cool xx

7/10. Definitely didn't know a few of those.

@ThanosReXXX Maybe the quiz failed you. Mine had the correct answer marked (no lock-out chip).

Wow I did awful. 4/10.

@Tandy255 I've never heard of a US spice orange 'Cube. You got any sauce?

@Tandy255 No, that wasn't it. But erm... you had the correct answer marked?

@gcunit, sorry, bad memory. I updated my post. He had the spice controller, but a silver GC.

@ThanosReXXX Yup, it marked it correct. It was the one false statement. The Famicom didn’t have the lock-out chip. They added the lock-out chip for the NES.

10/10
I got lucky with the Snes design question.

@NEStalgia Well, personally, I'd like my console to look sleek and sexy, and it would definitely feel very weird to stick a cartridge into a slot of something masculine...

But all kidding aside: that's just a discussion that neither side is ever going to agree on, seeing as, from my own experience as an expat, most Europeans absolutely detest the old American adage "bigger, better, faster" or "bigger is better", or whatever the hell it was.

And personally, where console design in general is concerned, I'm definitely also more in favor of sleek design. It makes it look futuristic, and fast, whereas a grey brick just looks slow and well... boring.

Arguably, the purple bits are also not really very manly at all, although His Royal Badness Prince would have probably disagreed...

@Tandy255 Ah, you mean AFTER you selected. I read that as if the answer was already marked for you, which is why I wondered.

9/10. I’m a nerd. I know

9/10. I missed the one that asked about Nintendo's best-selling console. I picked the Wii because I considered the DS a handheld and not a console. Gahhhhh!

@Zuljaras If you're that happy with that score, I'd have to seriously wonder about your school exams...

7 out of 10 but should be 8 because I messed up the first question.

Now everyone might understand my avatar haha

@Zuljaras Fake consoles? Hm, better not let a certain someone know about that one, aye?

@Zuljaras Is that a trick question?

9/10! Lance Barr stole my final point

2/10. Guess I don't like Nintendo that much!

@ThanosReXXX Well, even still "rounded design" is seen as very European design, so that's hardly a surprise. It's just the local aesthetic and a bias toward it, IMO

Europeans don't detest "power" and "bigger is better" otherwise nobody would care very much about teraflops over there.

But on the aesthetic, I do think that's just local expectations setting up perception. In europe things are rounded off to convey sleek as traditional design. In the US things are angled out to convey sleek as a traditional design. From cars to aircraft, to consoles, that's just the regional design language more or less. I don't think it's so much about which is "better", just so much as "you've always seen X=Y so you just associate it automatically." Here it probably started with the muscle cars in the 50's (because we can't see many examples of such design language prior to then...it was a very post-modernist design) which were blocky by design just because that's whats there. But that informed the copycat design language for decades.

Though, of course, today the SNES design is certainly very much a "period piece." In the late 80's early 90's everything was geometric to be futuristic. Trianagles were vogue. They were EVERYWHERE. Gray squares and angles like that were the futuristic powerful hotness in 1988-1995. Not so much today. Even shopping malls had randomly geometric designs in neon lights for no apparent reason at all at the time. It's just the style of the era and location!

2/10. I thought I knew more about Nintendo’s consoles.

@ThanosReXXX I'm so impressed you had the cojones to do the quiz today. I got 4/10. Not-a so good, ah?🤪

Poor @BabyYoshi65 2/10 🤪 haha. You got at least a 4/10 in my book <3 I thought I got a 2/10 before I saw the results.

10/10...lucked out on one of them though

@WoomyNNYes In my defence, my first gaming console was a DS.

@BabyYoshi65 I don't have that defense ☹ haha Still fun, though.

8/10. The answer on the original Famicom having detatchable controllers I thought was false. Also apparently I wasn't aware of the Color TV-Game as I thought the Game & Watch was the start.

Had to guess two questions, but still got a 10/10. 🥳

@JMR_Alden Yeah Lance Barr and his infamous high tech toaster design. He still works at Nintendo as a Design & Brand Director. He also designed the SNES, NES Zapper, NES Advantage, NES Max, and also worked on the Wii and Wii Nunchuk.

7/10 got 4, 9, and 10 wrong

@RogerFederer

6/10, first few questions were easy but around the middle point I started crashing hard.

@NEStalgia That's not what I meant by what they detest. I meant the American attitude towards what "is" better. Something along the lines of "screw the environment and the Prius, which is a car for you-know-whats, I'll just drive my Ford Monster truck, and run 'em all off the road, and afterwards, I'll use a crow bar to pry them all out of my grill... "

And TRUST me, Europeans DO detest that. I've had to fight that stigma for almost as long as I've been living here, because as soon as people found out where I was from, all the prejudices and assumptions came out of the woodworks, usually starting with "you Americans... ", so nobody can tell me that they all LOVE American design or (especially) their views on things in general here, because they definitely don't.

Of course, there are exceptions, such as there being a rather big interest in Americana and American cars from the '50s and '60s, but in most other things, modesty or subtlety of design is key over here. Definitely not the "we like big and bulky" culture...

Argh! Don’t show us a picture of a Gamecube unless it’s to tell us that the library is being remastered! Ha!

5/10. I guess I’m just an average Nintendo fan.

@WoomyNNYes Well, I'm somewhat happy that I got a positive grade, but still not happy that it's only a 7, so I'd probably better skip the next quiz...

3/10. Some pretty obscure facts, but at least I learned some new stuff

5/10 but most of them were just guesses..

8/10, wrong product code and SF designer (but would vote for Uemura again since his work looks better in my eyes. "Too soft and has no edge", seriously?🙄).

Completely forgot N64's development name but NDS's got stuck in my mind after theories that Yu-Gi-Oh Nightmare Troubadour (the first Yu-Gi-Oh game I ever played and beat) gave it a nod in the name, just as later games made the final name references like Resident Evil Deadly Silence.

And yeah, that awkward moment when everything you need to know for the first question hails from your several years of owning a Famicom's bootleg clone...😅

PS. Nintendo DS is still the best selling console ever in my heart. Especially with its 9 production years vs PS2's 12.

5/10. It was kinda hard ngl

8/10, mostly because I clicked the Wii before reading the other options.. xd and one I actually didn't know

8/10, goofed up the Best Seller question - hit Wii too soon before thinking...

I had no clue about the SNES redesign.

6 / 10 but to be fair the switch was my first home system so I didn’t doo too bad

6/10 honestly read the first question wrong though and thought it was a trick question since three of them were true statements. I am deeply disappointed in myself on that one.

I've had every console sans Game Cube from Nintendo (even the Virtual Boy, which my sister got one Christmas).

8/10. never heard of the guy who made the design of the NA SNES, since I'm in Europe.

3/10. that's abysmal lol

1/10 I know nothing

7/10. My lowest score to date.

6/10. Dang.

No, I can't think of anything more to say.

Nice. 10/10, tho, this one was definitely harder -

https://i.ibb.co/rcCPwSn/fdffff.png

1) Process of Elimination, as I knew 3 out of the 4 were right.
2) I've known this answer for a long time, and, it's also obvious if you just think about it
3) This had bee reported on a lot, during its run
4) I knew the "Ultra" codename, so, went with the only option with a "U"
5) Educated Guess. I didn't remember it, but I did remember reading about it. Thought it might of been another one, but, took a guess and got lucky
6) I had the Indigo version (with the 3rd party monitor attachment as well), so, I knew right away.
7) I knew this codename too, as well as the others for other consoles too
8) Day 1 Purchase for me. I was there from the beginning. I still love this console. Completely underrated.
9) Honestly, I didn't know. So, I guessed between the two American sounding names, as that seemed logical. Just got lucky with the guess.
10) This is the most recent one I've known about. And, I have the controller, and have shown it off too, so, I knew what it was before even having to look at the possible options

Still happy with with performance, but, again, definitely harder, and made more guesses than I normally do. But, still proud of the results. Even if I had missed some, these are good challenges.

Unhappy with my 7/10 😤 enjoyed the quiz though!

Got 7/10, quite decent I think

6/10, definitely the toughest quiz for me.

Finally,a quiz on this site where I haven't come bottom!3/10 go me!

9/10, Just that SNES question, I knew Howard Lincoln was Chairman of Nintendo of America at the time so guessed him, the rest were easy peasy, for me at least. I've owned everything listed at least once, apart from ROB.

9/10, although I guessed most of it. I love Nintendo products, but I wouldn't call myself an expert on their little details. The only one I knew for sure was that the DS series was Nintendo's best selling hardware.

Me: “I’m one of Nintendo’s biggest fans!”
::takes quiz::
Also me: “I’m just a poser.”

@Anvold Only 2 consoles that I know that came in Jet GBA & the Gamecube.

7 out of 10 - not so bad.

8/10. Not too shabby!

10/10! I'm happy with that!

my ranking for this Quiz is 10 of 10, and the question that mentioned Lance Barr was a lucky guess, i trought Masafima Haruda did the SNES design in america.

Six different versions of pong.

pong

Wow.

Came in 😎 confident
Left 😔 I'll leave now

Woohoo, 9/10! The only one I got wrong was the N64 product code because I just had no idea. I got a lucky guess on the SNES redesign, although I think "Satan" should have been an option.

This was interested. I scored a 6 out of 10.

@aetios same. It said "console", and I think of the DS as a handheld, not a console.

I got 3 out of 10 and they were all guesses for the most part.

4/10 which is in line with every test I’ve ever taken, to be fair 😅

I got 4 out of 10.

7/10. But it would have been 8/10 if the question had been more clearly worded. "Console" usually sounds like NES, playstation, plug into a TV, home console type machine. I would not call the DS a "console" but a handheld or a portable.

@Heavyarms55 exactly this. I would have gotten an 8/10 if not for the question about the best selling "console." I clicked Wii thinking of TV consoles and not even seeing the Nintendo DS option.

I had absolutely no idea about the N64's 3-letter code and the designer of the SNES for NA markets, though.

Oof 4/10. I thought I knew Nintendo better than that!

@veeflames Yup, same.

I was a 6 first time round, but a fat 10 when I cheated and had another go

Dang, could've sworn Wii was the best selling. And I only knew the SNES redesign was done by an American (obviously), but guessing the name proved to be a bad idea...

@NEStalgia "Similarly there's the underlying aesthetic that the angles and edges are a "masculine" form while the curved product is either "safe" and childlike, or has a "feminine" form."

All i can think of is Johnny Bravos masculine square jaw 😂

Only 7/10 for me.

9/10 and it was actually the DS codename that stumped me. I guessed carbon, which I remembered shortly after was the name of Apple's MacOS Classic's compatibility API for ensuring that classic programs could run on the (then) new Mac OSX environment...I also thought about Need For Speed Carbon even though I never played it...yeah, that was a bad reach, lol.

310 have owned a DS, Wii, ,New 3ds and Switch, my older brother had a GameCube. I got up to speed on older machines via Wii virtual console and I have a snes mini too. I'm no expert but 310 is pretty bad.

Had to guess 7 and 9, but got a 10/10. Nintendo is life

10/10, video game wizard power glove status!

3/10 I'm disappointed in myself haha

I had only 6, hmmm.

9/10. The only one I didn't know was who designed the American SNES. It was quite a challenging quiz overall, well done.

7/10 Ooo, this was a hard one. First quiz I didn’t get 10/10. Got the sales hardware question wrong, thought it was Gameboy but of course it was DS. I had no idea who sorted the North American redesign of the SNES. I’m just an idiot for not remembering the Wii U launch date though...

I knew it very well, but after the WII fiasco (yes it was fun at beginning, but after a bit you want a real controller in your hand) and it was matched as xbox original hardware wise.. i mean you didn't push yourself at all did ya nintendo. After that my interest all gone about Nintendo. Became a cheap hardware.. high price for an old hardware that's outmatched already @ release. I bet more people felt like this. After that I only follow the games review here because I like to read and see if there's an improvement at all. But atm no interest. Happy gaming

6 out of 10.

That DS question was a bit of a trick question. When they said console, I thought home console. I didn't include handhelds.

8/10 because I couldn't be bothered to look at my Switch Pro controller. I will slink away in shame now.

8/10, ROB had me doubt between two options, and I chose wrong (even though I felt like it was "Buddy" and not Bot...) and I wouldn't ever have known who designed the SNES mini. I also wouldn't have been able to say some others without seeing the correct one among the possible answers, or wouldn't have been able to tell which statement about Famicom was false if I didn't know which three were true.

6/10 for me but some of these questions were region specific so wasn't able to answer them properly, some I did guess correctly too.

@StuOhQ I swear that the pro controller in Europe says something different, can anyone confirm it's the same or both for each region?

@Krisi the fact that only know about the pal snes console but I guessed right on that question though 😎

@AlienX same, thorght it was the wii, was suprised.

9/10. Damn DS and it’s code name.

@ThanosReXXX well, I'll agree with screw Prius. Not everyone that buys a prius is the kind of person that says things like "microaggression", but everybody who says things like "microaggression" owns a prius. Though sometimes they only use it to impress their like minded friends and drive the Cayenne around the rest of the time.... . Though most of the true dirtbags have the european oversize suvs (Mercedes, BMW etc.) With the offense lights. So screw Europe, too . In my world the whole world would use those little box cars everyone uses in Tokyo. And they'd all be uniform size like they mostly are there. From a physics perspective it simply makes sense!

But yeah, snes design really just fits is time and place. It blended. The angles and "powerful" approach worked, but in a toy like fashion like many toys marketed to middle school boys at the time... Matched the advertising, electronics decor (i first tried snes in the electionics section of a discount store. Demo unit with smw in a plexi security case. The department had mirror trim around the whole area, chrome rails fencing electronics from the rest of the store, and atop the mirror trim along the ceiling was neon tubes in different colors as a wavy line around the whole thing.

Dang i miss 80s design.... . Today everything is in shades of hospital white.

@NEStalgia Prius was just an example, obviously. I don't even like that car, but the demeanor I created with that example comment, is exactly what people over here expect and/or think of Americans in general...

But yeah, agreed on the hospital aesthetics. A lot of cars now also look far too samey, at least from the side or from behind, of course also due to the everlasting quest for the lowest air resistance values and such, but still. There are still some differing designs, but sometimes, it's only the nose of the vehicle and some exclusive extras that make you realize that it's actually another brand of car that you're looking at.

Actually also agreed on the Super Famicom matching in design for your area, back in the day. But nowadays, it stands out because of not standing out, and just being a grey block of nothing, with some purple accents. In that respect, the other two parts of the world got the design with the better longevity, in my opinion.

Either way, I'm helping you hoping that we all get those same little Tokyo box cars. That'll teach your neighbors...

Maybe they can even make them autonomous, so we don't have to do anything at all anymore.

Funny that you mention several types of European vehicles that I also don't like. That Porsche Cayenne for example. I mean: who the HELL came up with that crap design, and what is up with that? Far as I'm concerned, it has NOTHING to do with Porsche. I certainly don't see it, anyway.

@Anvold On question 6, it does require you to know which consoles released in Indigo and Jet Black. I had a problem with that one too, because I wasn't sure what the official names were for the N64 colors, and it had many variants. However, Indigo is that famous GameCube purple.

As for question 9, it helps if you know who Howard Lincoln is from Nintendo History. Since the console design was changed in North America, not Japan, it's unlikely to be the two Japanese names, and it would have been strange for Lincoln to redesign the SNES himself, since his job was closer to Reggie's. I honestly guessed on that one, through a shaky process of elimination.

This is a test that I know some answers! I got an 8/10

@Knuckles I never remember how this colors officially called. It was for me just black and purple.

I know about Lincoln, but my choice was wrong anyway

3/10
I bring shame to my family.

9/10! Now I'm playing with power. **Super power.**

6/10

I feel ashamed.

7/10
Not too shabby!