The Japanese Family Computer (Famicom) (top) and international Nintendo Entertainment System (bottom)

An NES cartridge (top) is taller than a typical Famicom cartridge.

TheFamily Computer/Nintendo Entertainment System has a library of1376^[a] officially licensed games released during their lifespans, plus 7 official multicarts and 2 championship cartridges. Of these, 672 were released exclusively in Japan, 187 were released exclusively in North America, and 19 were released exclusively in PAL countries. Worldwide, 521 games were released.

Itslaunch games for the Famicom wereDonkey Kong,Donkey Kong Jr., andPopeye. Only first-party titles were available upon launch, but Nintendo started a licensing program the following year that allowed third-party companies such asNamco,Hudson Soft,Taito,Konami,Bandai, andCapcom to create titles and produce their own cartridges for the Famicom in exchange forroyalty payments;^[1][2] Nintendo later revised the program to mandate itself as the producer of all cartridges while carrying it with the console outside Japan.^[3][4] The launch games for North America were:10-Yard Fight,Baseball,Clu Clu Land,Duck Hunt,Excitebike,Golf,Gyromite,Hogan's Alley,Ice Climber,Kung Fu,Pinball,Soccer,Stack-Up,Super Mario Bros.,Tennis,Wild Gunman, andWrecking Crew.^[5][6][b] The final licensed game released is the PAL-exclusiveThe Lion King on May 25, 1995.

As was typical for consoles of its era, the Famicom usedROM cartridges as the primary method of game distribution;^[7] each cartridge featured 60 pins, with two pins reserved for externalsound chips.^[8][9] For the console's North American release in 1985 as the Nintendo Entertainment System, Nintendo redesigned the cartridge to accommodate the console's front-loading,videocassette recorder-derived socket by nearly doubling its height and increasing its width by one centimeter (0.39 in), resulting in a measurement of 13.3 cm (5.2 in) high by 12 cm (4.7 in) wide.^{[10]: 108 [11]} Referred to as "Game Paks", each NES cartridge sported an increased total of 72 pins, with two pins reserved for theCIC lockout chip and ten pins reserved for connections with the console's bottom expansion port.^[10]: 367 However, the two pins for external sound were removed and relocated to the expansion port instead; any Famicom game using them would have its soundtrack recomposed for releases on NES cartridges.^[9][12] Though the extra space of the NES cartridge was not utilized by most games, it enabled the inclusion of additional hardware expansions; in contrast, some copies of early NES games likeGyromite merely paired theprinted circuit board of the game's Famicom version with an adapter to convert between the different pinouts.^{[10]: 108 [13]} Cartridges had storage sizes ranging from 64 Kilobits to 8 Megabits, with 1 to 3 Megabit cartridges being the most commonly used.

Nintendo later released theFamicom Disk System (FDS) in Japan in 1986, intending to have developers distribute all future games on proprietary 2.8-inch (7.1 cm)floppy disks to avoid the cost and size limitations of cartridges; however, developers began re-releasing FDS games on cartridges as advancements in cartridge technology made them feasible again with the limitations of the floppy disks and their ecosystem apparent, pulling support for the FDS by the 1990s.^[9]