Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES)

Released in Japan in 1990 as the Super Famicom, the SNES was Nintendo's 16-bit masterpiece. Its custom hardware produced gorgeous, colourful visuals and clever effects, including a famous trick that could scale and rotate the screen to fake a 3D view, lending its games a richness rivals struggled to match.

Locked in fierce competition with Sega's Mega Drive, it became home to some of the most revered games ever created, from Super Mario World and The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past to Super Metroid. Its catalogue is routinely raided for "greatest games of all time" lists even now.

Backed by superb sound and that library of timeless classics, the SNES is for many players the high-water mark of 2D gaming, a console whose best moments have aged barely a day. Its influence on game design runs deep, and decades on, developers still return to it for inspiration.