It looks to me that Nintendo tried turning the SNES into a full blown 'computer'

Great video that summarizes whats going on here. Seems like a big deal to a lot of people interested in this era of games: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jwDPwLE7DBw

After the video game crash several companies, including Nintendo, rebranded their next-gen systems as "home computers" to avoid the stigma of being a "video game" system. In that light I don't think it's terribly surprising.