Lance Barr, the designer of the NES and SNES, has left Nintendo after well over three decades working with the company.
As spotted by Nintendo Life, the veteran designer updated his LinkedIn profile, confirming that he'd left his role at Nintendo after almost thirty-nine years with the company. After joining the company in 1982, Barr was credited with successfully redesigning the Japanese Famicom and Super Famicom for the North American market, giving birth to the NES and SNES.
A 1Up report in 2011 looked back at Barr's work on the NES and its prototype, the Nintendo Advanced Video System (AVS), which was shown off during the 1985 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, before being later replaced. Prior to being scrapped, Barr had worked on the designs for the AVS, which came paired with a piano keyboard, and futuristic-looking pistols.
Speaking in the report, Nintendo executive Don James said "[Nintendo] knew that the Advanced Video System was probably going to be too expensive for consumers to really jump into it at a reasonable rate," said James. "And so they had cost-engineered the unit back to what we currently know as the lunch box." Some of the designs in the AVS made it through to what became the NES. Whilst quirkier features such as the integrated keyboard were scrapped, the AVS's pistols were eventually reimagined in the form of the NES Zapper.
Speaking to Nintendojo in 2005 Barr spoke about his time working on the redesigns for the NES and bringing what was once the Japanese Famicon to North American audiences. "After the first public showing in the US at the Consumer Electronics Show, I was asked to redesign the case based on new engineering requirements. To reduce costs, the wireless function was eliminated, as well as some of the modular components such as the keyboard and data recorder." Barr said.
"But the biggest change was the orientation and size requirements to accommodate a new edge connector for inserting the games. The new edge connecter was a "zero force" design that allowed the game to be inserted with low force and then rotated down into the "contact" position. The case had to be designed around the movement of the game, and required the shape and size of the NES to grow from the earlier concepts. Many of the features remained, such as the two-tone color, left and right side cuts, and overall "boxy" look, but the proportions change significantly to accommodate the new edge connector."
Barr's LinkedIn profile notes that he has retired from his position at Nintendo as of July 2021 in order to move onto other unnamed projects.
Jared Moore is a freelance writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter.
Continue reading...
As spotted by Nintendo Life, the veteran designer updated his LinkedIn profile, confirming that he'd left his role at Nintendo after almost thirty-nine years with the company. After joining the company in 1982, Barr was credited with successfully redesigning the Japanese Famicom and Super Famicom for the North American market, giving birth to the NES and SNES.
A 1Up report in 2011 looked back at Barr's work on the NES and its prototype, the Nintendo Advanced Video System (AVS), which was shown off during the 1985 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, before being later replaced. Prior to being scrapped, Barr had worked on the designs for the AVS, which came paired with a piano keyboard, and futuristic-looking pistols.
Speaking in the report, Nintendo executive Don James said "[Nintendo] knew that the Advanced Video System was probably going to be too expensive for consumers to really jump into it at a reasonable rate," said James. "And so they had cost-engineered the unit back to what we currently know as the lunch box." Some of the designs in the AVS made it through to what became the NES. Whilst quirkier features such as the integrated keyboard were scrapped, the AVS's pistols were eventually reimagined in the form of the NES Zapper.
Speaking to Nintendojo in 2005 Barr spoke about his time working on the redesigns for the NES and bringing what was once the Japanese Famicon to North American audiences. "After the first public showing in the US at the Consumer Electronics Show, I was asked to redesign the case based on new engineering requirements. To reduce costs, the wireless function was eliminated, as well as some of the modular components such as the keyboard and data recorder." Barr said.
"But the biggest change was the orientation and size requirements to accommodate a new edge connector for inserting the games. The new edge connecter was a "zero force" design that allowed the game to be inserted with low force and then rotated down into the "contact" position. The case had to be designed around the movement of the game, and required the shape and size of the NES to grow from the earlier concepts. Many of the features remained, such as the two-tone color, left and right side cuts, and overall "boxy" look, but the proportions change significantly to accommodate the new edge connector."
Barr's LinkedIn profile notes that he has retired from his position at Nintendo as of July 2021 in order to move onto other unnamed projects.
Jared Moore is a freelance writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter.
Continue reading...