Family Computer Disk System

The Famicom Disk System, or FDS, a floppy disk drive for the Famicom (in Europe and the United States as the Nintendo Entertainment System known) and was released on February 21, 1986 at a price of about 15,000 yen in Japan only.

The accessory was connected via the expansion port of the console and could play games of 3 -inch floppy disks. The disks had the advantage of being much less expensive, in contrast to the modules. The games disks could be purchased in two ways: On the one hand there were the discs to buy usually in a small plastic box with cover and instructions, on the other hand you could for very little money to buy a blank disk and a vending machine, called Disk Writer, against a small fee itself select a game and can be written to the disc. This could be anytime and replaced by another game. Another advantage was that thanks to the many games offered a writable media storage capability, while one had to work outside of Japan either passwords or no storage possibility existed. As examples here Excitebike, Kid Icarus or Castlevania 1 & 2 are mentioned.

Since only a small profit, however, was to make for the games manufacturer with the discs, only a minority of their games exclusive to the disc system. Many of the titles published both as a module and disk or let the drive completely ignored. Nevertheless, about 4.5 million copies of the additional hardware were sold. In addition, some of the most famous classic games in Japan appeared exclusively on FDS disks.

Known Games

A selection of well-known games, which appeared for the Famicom Disk System:

• Akumajō Dracula ( Castlevania )
• Dracula II: Noroi no Fuin ( Castlevania II - Simon 's Quest )
• Yume Kojo: Doki Doki Panic
• Excitebike
• Kid Icarus
• Metroid
• Super Mario Bros.
• The Legend of Zelda
• Zelda II: The Adventure of Link