Nintendo World Championships 1990 (NES)

Nintendo World Championships 1990

Platform: NES Year: 1990 Developer: Nintendo Co., Ltd.

Nintendo World Championships 1990 was a game that was used in a Nintendo competition around 29 cities in the United States (despite the name of the game being World Championships). The cartridge features three games, each with their own separate goals. In Super Mario Bros. (NES), you must collect 50 coins in the fastest time possible. In Rad Racer (NES), you must complete the first stage the fastest. In Tetris (NES), you needed to score as many points as possible. After this, your scores for the three games are tallied up and you are then given your final score.

The game is considered to be the holy grail of NES games because of how rare it is. Only 116 official copies are known to exist; 90 gray cartridges which were used in the competition and given to the finalists, and 26 gold cartridges which could be obtained through a Nintendo Power contest. The cartridges also featured switches which controlled the time limit of the game.

Screenshots

The game's title screen. About to play the game. The game has run out of time. The game has run out of time.

This page needs more screenshots.

Music

Besides the music from the three games in Nintendo World Championships 1990, the game has some unique music of its own. There are four songs, but one of them seems to be unused, as it's not found anywhere in the game. It was probably intended as the title screen music, or the music in between games.

The game Hello Kitty World (FC) uses the "Get Ready!" music from this game. However, the intro of the song is different. The Results Theme is Hirokazu Tanaka's arrangement of the ending music for Super Mario Bros. (NES) which was composed by Koji Kondo.

Hirokazu Tanaka programmed his own sound driver, in which he wrote the music in 6502 assembly machine code.

Recording

#	Title	Composer	Arranger	Length	Listen	Download
01	Get Ready!	Hirokazu Tanaka	Hirokazu Tanaka	0:18		Download
02	Time!	Hirokazu Tanaka	Hirokazu Tanaka	0:02		Download
03	Results Theme	Koji Kondo	Hirokazu Tanaka	0:55		Download
04	Unused Song	Hirokazu Tanaka	Hirokazu Tanaka	0:33		Download

Credits

• Ripper: N/A
• Recorder: Doommaster1994
• Game Credits:
  • Not Credited Composer/Arranger/Programmer: Hirokazu Tanaka
  • Not Credited Composer/Programmer (Super Mario Bros.): Koji Kondo
  • Not Credited Composer (Rad Racer): Nobuo Uematsu
  • Not Credited Programmer (Rad Racer): Toshiaki Imai

(Source: Hello Kitty World (FC), Hirokazu Tanaka's sound engine, musical comparison; game lacks credits.)

The game uses Hirokazu Tanaka's sound engine which (except for a few exceptions) was used exclusively by Hirokazu himself. The Get Ready! music is also used in the game Hello Kitty World which gives credit to Hirokazu.

Game Rip

Format	Download
	N/A

Ripping NES music is an arduous process that is beyond the scope of this site. The music was recorded in VirtuaNSF.

Audio Devices

The game uses the Ricoh 2A03 sound chip, utilizing the two pulse waves, triangle, and noise channels. The DPCM channel is not used.

Releases

USA Title: Nintendo World Championships 1990 Platform: NES Released: 1990-??-?? Publisher: Nintendo Co., Ltd.