From never-realized backwards compatibility projects to hands-free controllers designed for gamers with disabilities, travel through memories of advanced video systems and Zapper: Lance Bar.
Lance Barr worked for Nintendo of America for nearly four decades, from 1982 to 2021, responsible for the design of much of the Kyoto company’s historical hardware: from the Nintendo Entertainment System to the Super Nintendo to the Wii Nunchuck. become one long interview Lance Barr Sharing a series of backstories and material never before seen online about the birth of some of the most iconic products in Nintendo’s catalog, with a particular focus on the NES and SNES eras.
Topics covered include an abandoned project to make the Super NES compatible with NES cartridges, the story behind a hands-free controller designed for people without the use of their hands, the mysterious advanced video system that preceded the NES, and the path to Zapper design.
Super NES that can read NES cartridges
During the design process of the Super Nintendo, there were many discussions within Nintendo of America about what to do with the library of NES games that players had accumulated. Barr said several members of the team were convinced that the new system would have to maintain some form of compatibility with older cartridges to avoid forcing users to abandon games they already owned. Barr explained that among the solutions being worked on, there are configurations that imagine the Super Famicom as a direct visual evolution of the Famicom, designed to physically sit next to or stack on top of older consoles.
“I remember a great debate about who owned 15, 20, 30 NES games,” Barr said. “You’re coming out with a new system, Super NES: will old cartridges run on it? Many people say it has to run old games as well, because no one wants to throw away something they’ve already bought.” So some of the sketches he drew adopted the aesthetics of the NES: “We went from the NES to the Super NES, and the two systems could be placed next to each other or stacked on top of each other, as a kind of adjacent evolution of that design.” Nintendo ultimately chose a different path, ditching physical backwards compatibility and giving the Super NES a completely new visual identity compared to its predecessor.
This letter led to the creation of the hands-free controller
One of the most important stories from the interview is abouthands-free controllera peripheral designed for those who cannot play with their hands. Barr explained that following the huge commercial success of the NES, Nintendo of America continued to receive letters from users, often asking for new features or game ideas. One of the letters, however, was from a mother who described how her daughter, who had been paralyzed in a car accident, owned eighteen Famicom games that she could no longer use from her hospital bed. “We asked ourselves if we could make a product that would help people who couldn’t play video games with their hands,” recalls Barr, who quickly developed a prototype with designers and engineers at Nintendo of America. The result is a hands-free controller, a device that can be placed on a desk and also used by people traveling in wheelchairs: Movement is controlled via a lever operated with the mouth, while the A and B keys respond to the blow and suction mechanism via small tubes. The peripheral was launched in 1989 and was priced at US$179 when combined with the NES game console and US$120 on its own. It was a fairly high figure at the time, but it was consistent with the professional nature of the product. Barr describes the hands-free controller as one of the projects he’s most proud of throughout his career at Nintendo.
Pre-NES: Advanced Video System Project
Before the NES entered the configuration of video game history, Nintendo worked on a far more ambitious and complex project, namelyAdvanced video system (AVS). Barr said he spent several weeks in Kyoto, working side by side with the R&D2 team, designing various components of the system. The idea behind the AVS was a modular and wireless system designed more like a home computer than a simple gaming console, consistent with the origins of the name Famicom (short for Family Computer).
The system includes a video game console, a cassette recorder for data management, a QWERTY keyboard, a wireless joystick, and even a wireless light gun that folds up and can be used as either a shooter gun or a wand. “All these components are stacked together,” explains Barr, who designed each element himself. The Advanced Video System debuted at the Consumer Electronics Show in January 1985, but lukewarm response from retailers forced Nintendo to abandon high-end consumer electronics in favor of a simpler, cheaper system that became the NES with a front-facing cartridge slot. However, some elements of AVS, such as the light gun and arcade joystick, remained as accessories for the new console.
How the NES Zapper was born
Even designed electric shockThe light guns sold with the NES were direct descendants of the advanced video system’s work. As Barr noted, AVS actually envisioned a more complex and deformable optical pistol that could be folded and used as both a fake gun and a baton. When the project moved on to the later NES, Barr developed a simpler version that eliminated loose parts that would have increased production costs.
“I wanted something that looked a little spacey but still recognizable as a gun,” says Barr, who adopted colors and graphics directly from the NES in the final design, including the small ventilation grille on the console. Zapper’s graphic concept also references previous work Gunpei Yokoi During the filming of the series, Lightgun was created for the Japanese Famicom, and Barr oversaw the aesthetic adaptation for the North American market. The first version of the Zapper was marketed in dark gray, followed in 1989 by a model with an orange barrel and handle, which was introduced to comply with US legislation that, since 1988, required toy weapons to be visually distinguished from real weapons.
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