New-Style NES / New Famicom

Compact, cheaper 1993 redesign with a top-loading slot and the "dog bone" controller. It never reached Europe.

The New-Style NES is a compact, cost-reduced 1993 version, called the New Famicom in Japan, where it keeps the Family Computer branding. It launched in North America that October at US$49.95 and in Japan on December 1 at ¥6,800. It was not released in Europe. Redesigned by Lance Barr, it loads cartridges from the top to avoid the reliability problems of the original NES's spring mechanism, and it drops the 10NES chip, so it accepts unlicensed games.

The American version loses composite video and keeps only RF output, although a rare variant had the Super Nintendo multi-out port. It came with a new "dog bone" controller. The New Famicom, by contrast, adds composite output and detachable controllers, which rules out games that used the microphone, and shipped without cables because Nintendo assumed buyers owned a Super Famicom. The NES version was made until August 1995 and the New Famicom until September 2003.

Models: NES-101, HVC-101