The , also known as the Famicom Net System and Famicom Modem, is a peripheral for Nintendo's Family Computer video game console, and was released in September 1988 only in Japan. Predating the modern Internet, its proprietary dial-up information service accessed live stock trades, video game cheats, jokes, weather forecasts, betting on horse racing, and a small amount of downloadable content. The device uses a ROM card storage format, reminiscent to the HuCard for the TurboGrafx-16 and the Sega Card for the Master System. Nintendo gained experience with this endeavor which led directly to its satellite based Satellaview network for the Super Famicom in the early 1990s. History Development In 1986, Nintendo's entry into basic online communications was the Disk Fax kiosks, preannouncing the deployment of 10,000 kiosks throughout Japan's toy and hobby stores within the following year. This allowed Famicom players with Famicom Disk System games to bring their writable Disk Cards into stores and upload their high scores to the company's central leaderboards via fax, enter nationwide achievement contests, and download new games cheaper than on cartridge. By 1987, Nintendo president Hiroshi Yamauchi foresaw the impending information age, developing a vision for transforming Nintendo beyond a toy company and into a communications company. He wanted to leverage Famicom's established and totally unique presence in one third of all of Japan's homes, to bring Nintendo into the much larger and virtually limitless communications industry and thus presumptively on par with Japan's largest company and national telephone service provider, Nippon Telegraph and Telephone (NTT). He believed the Famicom should become an appliance of the future, as pervasive as the telephone itself. Beginning in mid-1987, he requested the exploration of a partnership with the Nomura Securities financial company, to create an information network service in Japan based on the Famicom. Led by Famicom's designer Masayuki Uemura, Nintendo Research & Development 2 developed the modem hardware; and Nomura Securities developed the client and server software and the information database. Uemura cautioned that they "weren't confident that they would be able to make network games entertaining". Five unreleased prototypes of network-enabled games were developed for the system, including Yamauchi's favorite ancient Japanese board game, Go. Production The Famicom Modem began mass production in September 1988. The accompanying proprietary online service called the Famicom Network System was soon launched the same year alongside Nippon Telegraph and Telephone's new DDX-TP telephone gateway for its existing