October 18, 1985 — exactly twenty-five years ago today– is the date that Nintendo of America officially acknowledges as the birthdate of the Nintendo Entertainment System.
The NES was first sold in the United States in a test market launch limited to the New York area during the holiday season of that year. About half of Nintendo of America’s employees of the time relocated from their Seattle headquarters to a delapidated warehouse in Hackensack, New Jersey, where they worked 18-hour days tearing through the city streets, setting up and tearing down displays, and demonstrating the product to anyone who would listen. The test market was a success, and was followed in February by a similar test in Los Angeles and then, finally, a nationwide roll-out by the end of 1986. World domination came soon afterward.
