VS. System

A UniSystem model VS. System.

The VS. System is an arcade cabinet developed by Nintendo and sold from 1984 to 1990 which uses interchangeable game boards. It was released in Japan and the USA and predated the national US release of the Nintendo Entertainment System by about two years. The arcade cabinet's motherboard was essentially a Famicom and could play games released on the Famicom (and later the NES), but the games needed to be altered slightly to handle the pay-for-play system, although, in some cases, the games were modified extensively.

Two years after the release of the VS. System, Nintendo released the PlayChoice-10, which was another example of NES games being put into an arcade format, but, in the PlayChoice-10, players played for time rather than credits, so the games were often completely unaltered.

Personal

I only have two memories of the VS. System in the arcade. The first was from playing VS. Super Mario Bros. on a UniSystem when I was around 6 or 7 years old. Up until that point, I had only played the Atari 2600 and I had no idea what Super Mario Bros. was, but it looked interesting enough for me to use a precious quarter. I didn't understand how to play the game, so I avoided the question mark blocks and ran straight into the first goomba. I'm confident I never even beat 1-1. The second memory was a little later when I was around 8 years old and some older kids playing Vs. The Goonies, again on a UniSystem. I thought the game looked very interesting and would have loved to have played it, but I never had any money.

Models

The cabinet was released in three form factors, two "VS. DualSystem" cabinets, one upright the other sit-down, and a conversion of earlier NES arcade titles into a "VS. UniSystem" cabinet which featured a single system with a dual control panel. Each DualSystem had with two CPUs, two game slots, and two dual control panels. The upright model had the screens angled away from each other a little which made the cabinets difficult to place in a row, while the sit-down model, also known as the "red tent," had the monitors facing opposite directions.

Contents of a VS. System game kit (minus the ROMs).

Arcades had to purchase the cabinets from Nintendo, and then could buy a game kit for around $300-$400 which included the game's ROM cartridges, (later titles were shipped on daughter boards), marquee, manual, and instruction decal for the cabinet.

VS. DualSystem - Upright.
VS. DualSystem - Sit down ("red tent").
VS. UniSystem - Blue.
VS. UniSystem - Orange.

Technical

The VS. System uses the same Ricoh 2A03 CPU and APU as the Famicom/NES, and, like a Famicom, had a slot into which a game board could be inserted. However, instead of relying on the Famicom's single PPU, several different RGB PPUs were made for the system. Each PPU was essentially identical, but had a different color palette in ROM. Using the wrong PPU would still allow the game to run, but all the colors would be off. It seems Nintendo purposely did this in order to sell more hardware and prevent piracy. Namco was able to bypass this demand by adding dip switches onto their game boards which would allow their games to swap palettes to match the various PPUs.

The VS. DualSystem had a special bus which allowed the CPUs and PPUs of a handful of games to communicate. This allowed players to play the same game at the same time, but each looking at their own dedicated monitor. This would only work if both game slots had the same game, and if both were coded to handle this feature. If this feature was not incorporated in the game, the cabinet would work as just two different cabinets.

Games

In total, 42 games were published for the VS. System, however many games were planned to be released but were never realized due to arcades waning in popularity over the 1980s. The top four developers to release games on the Vs. System, in order of game count, are: Nintendo (20), Namco (9), Konami (4), and Sunsoft (3). Much like with the NES and PlayChoice-10, Nintendo developed most of the launch titles and then relied on third party developers to push the system along. Sunsoft would have outstripped Konami, but several of their games were never finished. As a late adopter, they must have learned quickly that there wasn't any money left in the VS. System and canceled their planned releases.

The original release dates for VS. System are not accurately known, so the years in the table below are based on dates found in advertisements and copyright years in the games, neither of which are particularly accurate. The game count released in each year shows a few years of steady development, then a rather sharp decline: 1984 (11), 1985 (9), 1986 (12), 1987 (6), 1988 (4), 1989 (0), 1990 (1). Nintendo had pretty much canceled first party development in 1985, but pushed three more US-only titles to try and keep the system alive in North America.

Nintendo released the bulk of their first generation Famicom / NES titles on the VS. System except for those which already had dedicated arcade cabinets, needed R.O.B., or just didn't fit arcade play, like educational games or board games.

Title	Japan Release	US Release	Developer	Notes
VS. Atari R.B.I. Baseball	Unreleased	1987-??-??	Atari Games
VS. Balloon Fight	1984-10-03	Unreleased	Nintendo	DualSystem support.
VS. Baseball	1984-03-??	1984-07-??	Nintendo	DualSystem support. Japanese and American games are different.
VS. Battle City	1985-??-??	Unreleased	Namco
VS. Castlevania	Unreleased	1987-??-??	Konami
VS. Clu Clu Land	1984-12-05	Unreleased	Nintendo
VS. Dr. Mario	Unreleased	1990-??-??	Nintendo
VS. Duck Hunt	Unreleased	1985-05-??	Nintendo	Requires Zapper. Adds a new stage of play.
Vs. Excitebike	1984-12-05	1985-02-??	Nintendo	Significant changes to game.
VS. Family Tennis	1987-??-??	Unreleased	Namco
VS. Football	Unreleased	Unreleased	Nintendo
VS. Freedom Force	Unreleased	1988-??-??	Sunsoft
VS. The Goonies	Unreleased	1986-??-??	Konami
VS. Gradius	Unreleased	1986-??-??	Konami
VS. Great Tennis	Unreleased	Unreleased	Jaleco
VS. Head to Head Baseball	Unreleased	Unreleased	Nintendo
VS. Helifighter	Unreleased	Unreleased	Nintendo
VS. Hogan's Alley	Unreleased	1985-05-??	Nintendo	Requires Zapper.
VS. Ice Climber	1985-02-01	1985-03-??	Nintendo
VS. Ice Climber	1985-02-01	1985-03-??	Nintendo	DualSystem version.
VS. Gumshoe	Unreleased	1986-??-??	Nintendo	Requires Zapper.
VS. Ladies Golf	1984-07-26	1984-12-??	Nintendo	Reskin of Golf.
VS. Lionex	Unreleased	Unreleased	Sunsoft
VS. Mach Rider	1985-??-??	1985-11-??	Nintendo
VS. Mahjongg	1984-02-??	Unreleased	Nintendo	DualSystem support.
VS. Mighty Bomb Jack	1986-12-??	Unreleased	Tecmo
VS. Motocross	Unreleased	Unreleased	Nintendo
VS. Ninja JaJaMaru-kun	1986-04-??	Unreleased	Jaleco
VS. Nintendo 500	Unreleased	Unreleased	Nintendo
VS. Pinball	1984-07-26	1984-10-??	Nintendo
VS. Platoon	Unreleased	1988-??-??	Sunsoft
VS. Pro Baseball: Family Stadium	1986-12-??	Unreleased	Namco
VS. The Quest of Ki	1988-??-??	Unreleased	Namco
VS. Raid on Bungeling Bay	1985-??-??	1985-??-??	Brøderbund Software	Requires the second CPU of the DualSystem, but doesn't feature multiplayer.
VS. Sky Kid	1987-??-??	Unreleased	Sunsoft
VS. Slalom	Unreleased	1986-??-??	Rare
VS. Soccer	1985-??-??	1985-11-??	Nintendo
VS. Star Luster	1985-??-??	Unreleased	Namco
VS. Stroke and Match Golf	1984-07-26	1984-10-??	Nintendo	Re-titled version of Golf.
VS. Super Chinese	1986-??-??	Unreleased	Namco
VS. Super Mario Bros.	Unreleased	1986-04-??	Nintendo	Uses some levels from Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels.
VS. Super Xevious: GAMP no Nazo	1986-??-??	Unreleased	Namco
VS. T.K.O. Boxing	1987-??-??	Unreleased	Data East
VS. Tennis	1984-02-??	1984-03-??	Nintendo	DualSystem support.
VS. Tetris	Unreleased	1988-??-??	Atari Games	Has weaker graphic art.
VS. Tokaido Gojusan-tsugi	Unreleased	Unreleased	Sunsoft
VS. Top Gun	1987-??-??	Unreleased	Konami
VS. Tower of Babel	1986-??-??	Unreleased	Namco
VS. Urban Champion	1984-??-??	1985-??-??	Nintendo
VS. Valkyrie no Bōken: Toki no Kagi Densetsu	1986-??-??	Unreleased	Namco
VS. The Wing of Madoola	Unreleased	Unreleased	Sunsoft
VS. Wrecking Crew	1984-07-26	Unreleased	Nintendo	DualSystem support.