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> Nintendo established the blueprint for gamepads in 1985 with the iconic rectangular Nintendo Entertainment System

I'm pretty sure they did it two years before with the famicom gamepad.

Right, but Famicom is just the Japanese name for the NES, which, as you say, debuted in Japan first.

Op is right, the famicom/nes was released in 1983

I concurred with the 1983 release date for the Famicom/NES in Japan. Just pointing out that it's really the same system.

The NES actually had a pretty different shell, removable controllers, one audio channel less, and some other hardware differences.

Yeah a different shell catered for the American market and certainly some minor differences, and despite regional incompatiblity, the NES & Famicom have the same core chips and instruction set.

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