Something that occurred to me recently-

Why didn't Nintendo cobble together the various hardware/abilities from their major Mappers (battery-backed RAM at $6000, scanline-based IRQ counters, extra square waves and PPU-RAM from MMC5, etc.) into a short, rectangular unit designed to be hooked into the NES's underside via that expansion slot? This would've make game production cheaper (especially for third-party developers), and would likely have resulted in better games at lower prices.

Second question: is there anything (aside from the knowledge and labor requirements) that would prevent a determined hacker from putting together something like this for the Playing-Hacks-on-the-Original-Hardware Community?

Doesn't that expansion slot have no door, instead needing the plastic cut off to access?

 If you were a gamer in that era, then you'd know exactly why the idea of an "addon" wouldn't work out well with the gaming consumer base. For gamers that grew up in that generation, no explanation is really needed I'm not going to explain/debate about it here, when there are tons of threads in gaming forums specifically for this. But the general consensus is that required addons don't work in the general public, relative to gaming. And something as small of an upgrade as that, definitely not. Not only that, but companies want to develop for the largest target audience, not a limited/smaller consumer base. I.e. best bang for the buck. It has to be something pretty amazing for consumers to go with it. Overall, it's a bad idea (with a few exception in history. Namely the PC-Engine CD addon).

Ah, silly me. And here I thought the Game Genie was an unbridled success... 

Moreover, I guess I dreamt all those Elementary School cub scout meetings, as they usually ended with the *four* of us playing Nintendo while we waited for our parents to come get us. What was that thing called... the 4-Player Adapter? Must've been a hallucination. (Damn Ritalinâ„¢...)

Fast-forwarding ten years to college, I recall a late-night trek out to K-Mart in order to purchase an N64 Expansion Pak so I could play Majora's Mask. And that was one of the few games which required it; most were optional:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nintendo_64_accessories#List_of_games_that_support_the_N64_Expansion_Pak

(Egads! I'm sharing a delusional reality with Jimbo Wales!)



Nintendo took their time and did things right, even if it meant enduring a short-term perceived one-upping. Sega mostly adhered to the strategy of "Blow wad early and often. Make lots of noise and go really fast. Only losers need a Plan B."

This reminds me of the Aladdin Deck Enhancer.
You'll have to scroll a bit.

http://www.retrogamingconsoles.com/consoles/nintendo-entertainment-system/nes-accessories-3rd-party/

If I had to guess, I'd say Nintendo never produced their own, since you wouldn't have to buy a new
Nintendo, your current system would be backward compatible, and/or homebrew/unlicensed carts.

Semantics.



More semantics.



It means I'm right and you're wrong. The Expansion Pak qualifies as an add-on (even by your strict semantic standards). You had the option of purchasing it, or not. All but four games in the N64 library worked fine without it; a sizeable crop just functioned better *with* it. As would've been the case with my proposed device.




Darkest? Probably. Difficult? The argument can be made. But low-quality?  :laugh:  You must not have been around to witness the unholy CD-i trilogy.



Ah, you misunderstood the query! The proposed add-on would've been completely optional, just as the N64 Expansion Pak was. As for the user-base, I'm old enough to remember the downright rabid devotion NES fanboys had back in the day (both before and after Sega trotted out their crackhead porcupine). If Nintendo Power had announced something along the magnitude of an official NES expansion deck, all the Ritalinâ„¢ in the world wouldn't have peeled us off the ceiling. Granted, we wouldn't have understood the significance of 8x8-pixel-block attribute data, or functional writes to the $5000-7 registers... but we wouldn't need to. "Better Graphics & Sound" summarizes it nicely.



It's a damn-accurate description of the companies' respective strategies during the 90's, delivered via whimsical prose. Since you're not having a good week, I'll elaborate a bit upon its relevance.

Someone brought up Sega's tortured legacy of producing add-on after add-on after add-on for their systems, most of which lacked any real subsequent attention in terms of games. (Which is rather ironic, as their failures eventually forced them to go third-party, i.e., now they make nothing *but* games.) The implication (intended or not) was that a similar fate would've met any hypothetical Nintendo add-ons. A worthy point, which I countered by pointing out the stark differences between Nintendo and Sega's respective business strategies. Nintendo took their time, did things right, lost some short-term glory but almost always emerged victorious in the long-run. This model would've doubtlessly been applied to a NES expansion device:

January: Miyamoto's team is already halfway done with their latest masterpiece, designed to take advantage of (and ship with) the device.

Spring: Third-party developers are given a heads-up about the paradigm shift, along with an updated devkit/FAQ.

Summer: Rumors circulate. Nintendo execs become unable to say "no comment" without wetting themselves whilst giggling profusely.

September: Nintendo Power makes the official announcement, designed to take advantage of the start of the new school year. Recess banter can now be broken down as follows: 58%- Prodecural Recreation (baseball, hopscotch, beat-the-crap-out-of-Phil, etc.); 23%- NES Expansion Unit; 12%- The Opposite Gender is Gross; 6.999%- Other; 0.001%- "Phil Sure is Taking his Sweet-Ass Time in that Candyvan..."

December: The product launch (along with a few teaser shipments in late November) exploits the hell out of the Xmas season. Third-party developers take careful notice, making the decision to get on board or continue watchful waiting.


Now, let's compare that to Sega's typical execution:


January: Announce the Uranus/Exodus-Q unit.

Spring: Hype the hell out of the Sega Uranus/Exodus-Q with commercials showcasing 1.3-second clips of various UEQ games (set to a zany electric guitar solo), contrasted with a ten-second real-time scene from Gameboyâ„¢ Tetris (set to "Popsicles, Icicles" by The Murmaids).

Summer: Continue hyping the hell out of SUEQ in company-friendly outlets such as EGM and Gamepro.

September: Um, when's this thing coming out again?

November: The SUEQ hits the shelves three weeks before Thanksgiving, with four launch titles (one of which is somewhat playable).

December: Announce the Venus/Leviticus-H unit on the 1st; spend the rest of the month wallpapering the conference room with death threats from third-party developers.

I would like to add that interestingly, Nintendo choose to go the same route on the SNES with the hardware add-ons being contained on the cart. This exact same discussion could be had applied to the SNES. Why didn't they just make an add-on with the SA-1 or SuperFX etc.? I'd guess it was just less complicated and more cost efficient for everyone involved from a business perspective to do it the way they did for years spanning two console generations.

If it really would have brought game prices down, I would have been in favor of it. When I was a kid, I was severely limited by how many games we could actually purchase because of the high cost. If an expansion unit cost $70 but made all subsequent games cost about $25 to $40, I would have appreciated it and probably would have bought it. But the gaming industry rarely prices things in favor of the consumer. Cutting edge gaming tends to drive up prices. I doubt it would have, in reality, made much difference in the price of the games if they chose to implement something like that.