On Christmas morning 2025, the Video Game History Foundation dropped the ultimate gift for retro gaming enthusiasts. After 15 years of research, interviews, and archival digging, they released a 45-minute documentary titled “The Untold Story of the Nintendo Entertainment System.” And it’s not just another nostalgic look back at the console that saved gaming. This is legitimate historical research featuring never-before-seen documents, Atari-branded Famicom prototypes, and the forgotten stories of people who made the NES launch possible.
The timing couldn’t be more perfect. 2025 marks the 40th anniversary of the NES launch in North America, when Nintendo took a massive gamble on a market that had catastrophically collapsed just two years earlier. The documentary tells that story with a level of detail and access that’s genuinely unprecedented, pulling back the curtain on one of the most important product launches in entertainment history.
Why This Documentary Matters
There’s no shortage of NES retrospectives on YouTube. Everyone from AVGN to gaming documentarians has covered Nintendo’s console at some point. But the Video Game History Foundation brings something different to the table: access to actual archival materials, interviews with the people who were there, and research conducted with the rigor of academic historians rather than nostalgic content creators.
The documentary features real press kits from the 1985 Winter Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas where Nintendo first showed the Advanced Video System, the precursor to the NES. It includes never-before-seen Atari-branded Famicom prototypes that reveal Nintendo’s original plan to partner with Atari for North American distribution before that deal famously fell apart. And it highlights the contributions of overlooked individuals like Lance Barr, the industrial designer responsible for the NES’s iconic boxy aesthetic.
This isn’t speculation or secondhand reporting. The VGHF founder Frank Cifaldi has been researching this topic for 15 years, conducting interviews, tracking down original documentation, and piecing together the definitive account of how the NES came to be. The result is a documentary that feels more like a Ken Burns film than a YouTube gaming video, complete with primary sources and firsthand accounts from the people who lived through it.
The Advanced Video System Nobody Remembers
One of the documentary’s most fascinating revelations involves the Advanced Video System, or AVS. When Nintendo brought their console concept to the 1985 Winter CES in Las Vegas, it wasn’t the NES we know and love. It was a modular entertainment system with a keyboard, tape drive, wireless controllers, and ROB the robot, all designed to position it as something more than just another video game console.
The systems on display at CES weren’t even real. They were dummy boxes. The actual games running at the show were being played on Sharp Famicom TVs imported from Japan, cleverly hidden behind monitor bezels. Nintendo didn’t have final pricing, they didn’t have functioning prototypes, and they were showing a product that would look radically different five months later when they returned for the Summer CES in Chicago.
By June 1985, almost all of the AVS’s extraneous features were dropped. Gone was the keyboard, the tape drive, and most of the modular components. What remained was the Nintendo Entertainment System, a stripped-down gaming console in a VCR-style case that looked less like a toy and more like legitimate home entertainment equipment. The marketing focused heavily on ROB the robot, trying to convince skeptical retailers that this wasn’t just another Atari waiting to crash and burn.
The Atari Connection That Never Was
The documentary also explores Nintendo’s failed partnership with Atari, a story that’s been told before but never with this level of detail. Before the NES existed, Nintendo planned to license the Famicom to Atari for distribution in North America. Actual Atari-branded Famicom prototypes exist, and the VGHF has documented them.
The deal fell apart at the last minute, with conflicting stories about why. Some accounts blame Coleco showing a Famicom-powered version of Donkey Kong at CES, which Atari interpreted as Nintendo breaking exclusivity. Others suggest Atari’s own internal chaos and financial troubles doomed the partnership before it could get off the ground. Either way, Nintendo decided to go it alone, creating Nintendo of America and taking on the massive risk of launching a gaming console in a market everyone said was dead.
The Test Market Launch
The documentary spends considerable time on the New York test market launch in October 1985, just in time for Christmas. This wasn’t a nationwide rollout. Nintendo picked New York specifically, investing heavily in a limited market to prove the concept before expanding. They set up displays in stores, trained retail staff, and essentially hand-sold the NES to skeptical customers who had been burned by the video game crash of 1983.
The strategy worked. Despite retailers telling Nintendo no, despite the market saying consoles were dead, despite every logical reason to give up, Nintendo persevered. They knew the Famicom was exploding in Japan, and they believed that if American consumers could just try the games, they’d understand this wasn’t another Atari. This was something better.
That test market success led to a gradual national rollout throughout 1986, eventually becoming the phenomenon that defined gaming for a generation. But it didn’t happen overnight, and it wasn’t guaranteed. The documentary captures the uncertainty, the risk, and the determination that made it possible.
The Design Evolution
Lance Barr, the industrial designer responsible for the NES’s final form, gets his due in the documentary. His initial designs for the AVS were modular and forward-thinking, but when Nintendo decided to strip away features and focus solely on gaming, he had to adapt quickly. The final NES design with its front-loading cartridge mechanism and VCR-inspired aesthetic was developed under tight deadlines as Nintendo scrambled to get the product finalized.
That front-loading cartridge slot, which became iconic but also notorious for connection problems, required more internal space than Barr’s original design had. Nintendo’s engineers in Japan quickly devised a new outer shell based loosely on Barr’s work and handed it back to him for refinement. The expansion port on the bottom and the additional real estate in the cartridge design left room for future expansion, suggesting Nintendo was thinking long-term even when the immediate future was uncertain.
The VGHF’s Banner Year
This NES documentary is the culmination of the Video Game History Foundation’s biggest year ever. In 2025, they launched their digital library in early access, providing free access to over 30,000 files spanning 50 years of gaming history. They acquired the rights to Computer Entertainer, one of the earliest video game magazines, and released it into the Creative Commons so anyone can use it for research.
They recovered over 140 ROMs from Sega Channel, including service-exclusive games thought lost to time. They finished and released Xcavator 2025, a long-lost NES game from legendary programmer Chris Oberth, with all profits going to the foundation. They ran museum exhibits at GDC, presented at conferences, and continuously added to their archive with materials from developers across the industry.
The NES documentary represents their final major release of 2025, timed perfectly for the Christmas holiday and the 40th anniversary of the console’s North American debut. It’s a fitting cap to a year where the VGHF proved that video game preservation isn’t just about dumping ROMs and emulating old games. It’s about telling the human stories, preserving the context, and treating gaming history with the same rigor and respect that we give to film, music, and other art forms.
Why Game Preservation Matters
The VGHF conducted a survey in 2023 that found just 13% of video game history is represented in the current marketplace. The remaining 87% is inaccessible without resorting to piracy or traveling to physical archives. That’s a staggering amount of cultural history that’s effectively lost to the average person who wants to experience or study it.
Projects like this NES documentary show why preservation work matters. Without organizations like the VGHF tracking down documents, interviewing developers before they pass away, and archiving materials that companies often throw away, these stories disappear. The Atari-branded Famicom prototypes could have ended up in a landfill. The press kits and internal documents could have been destroyed when companies closed or moved offices. The people who worked on the NES launch won’t be around forever to tell their stories.
By capturing this history now, the VGHF is ensuring that future generations can understand not just what games were made, but how they were made, who made them, and why they mattered. That’s the difference between knowing the NES launched in 1985 and understanding the unlikely story of how it happened against all odds.
How to Watch and Support
The Untold Story of the Nintendo Entertainment System is free to watch on the Video Game History Foundation’s YouTube channel. It’s 45 minutes long, thoroughly researched, and packed with information that even hardcore Nintendo fans probably don’t know. If you have any interest in gaming history, retro consoles, or the business side of the industry, it’s absolutely worth your time.
The VGHF is currently running their winter fundraiser through December 2025. As a 501(c)3 non-profit, they depend entirely on donations from the gaming community to fund their preservation work. All of their digital library materials are free to access, their documentaries are free to watch, and their research is freely shared with anyone who wants to learn.
If you appreciate what they’re doing, consider donating at gamehistory.org/donate. Every dollar goes toward preserving more gaming history, expanding the digital library, and producing more content like this NES documentary. The organization has proven they’re not wasting resources. They’re actively changing how video game history is studied and shared.
FAQs
Where can I watch the NES documentary?
The Untold Story of the Nintendo Entertainment System is free to watch on the Video Game History Foundation’s YouTube channel. It was released on December 24-25, 2025 and is 45 minutes long.
What makes this documentary different from other NES videos?
The VGHF has access to original archival materials, never-before-seen prototypes, and conducted interviews with people who worked on the NES launch. This is academic-level historical research, not just nostalgia content.
What are the Atari-branded Famicom prototypes?
Before Nintendo launched the NES themselves, they planned to license the Famicom to Atari for North American distribution. Actual Atari-branded Famicom prototypes were created before the deal fell apart. The VGHF has documented these rare artifacts.
Who is the Video Game History Foundation?
The VGHF is a 501(c)3 non-profit founded in 2017 by Frank Cifaldi. They preserve video game history through archival work, research, and making materials freely accessible through their digital library. They’re supported entirely by donations.
Can I access the VGHF digital library?
Yes, the digital library is free to access at archive.gamehistory.org. It includes over 30,000 files including vintage magazines, development documents, promotional materials, and rare archival content spanning 50 years of gaming history.
How long did this documentary take to make?
Frank Cifaldi, the VGHF founder, has been researching the NES launch story for 15 years. The documentary itself was produced over several months in 2025, timed to the 40th anniversary of the console’s North American debut.
What other projects did the VGHF release in 2025?
In 2025, they launched their digital library, recovered over 140 lost Sega Channel ROMs, acquired and released Computer Entertainer magazine into Creative Commons, finished the lost NES game Xcavator 2025, and ran multiple museum exhibits and presentations.
Is the VGHF affiliated with Nintendo?
No, the VGHF is an independent non-profit organization. They work with various companies and individuals across the gaming industry to preserve history, but they’re not owned or controlled by any game company.
The Bottom Line
The Untold Story of the Nintendo Entertainment System is exactly the kind of content the gaming community needs more of. It’s thoroughly researched, carefully documented, and tells the human story behind one of the most important products in entertainment history. The fact that it’s free to watch and created by a non-profit organization that shares all their research openly makes it even better.
This documentary proves that video game history deserves to be treated with the same seriousness and respect as film, music, and literature. The NES didn’t just appear fully formed in stores in 1985. It was the result of calculated risks, hard work, brilliant design, and a little bit of luck. The people who made it happen deserve to have their stories told before those memories fade or the individuals themselves pass away.
The Video Game History Foundation is doing essential work preserving an industry that’s notoriously bad at preserving itself. Companies focus on the next big thing, often discarding or destroying materials from previous projects. Developers move on or retire, taking institutional knowledge with them. Without organizations actively working to capture this history, it disappears.
If you grew up with the NES, if you’re curious about gaming history, or if you just want to understand how one of the biggest entertainment comebacks in history actually happened, watch this documentary. It’s 45 minutes of your time that will change how you think about the console that defined a generation and saved an entire industry from extinction.
And maybe, if you appreciate what the VGHF is doing, throw them a few dollars during their winter fundraiser. They’re proving that preservation work doesn’t have to be locked behind paywalls or university access. It can be free, accessible, and presented in ways that engage casual fans and serious researchers alike. That’s worth supporting.