Category: News

Published on Sunday, 15 September 2013

Written by y(oYo)

A page turns my friends!

The old website, that was hosting Nintendo boxes library since 2007 and until february of this year, has taken back his initial purpose, which is talking about how to bluid my "Nintendo portable Entertainment System" (the one I built in 1999).
You will no more be able to login, find or download any box files form there, NintAndBox is now the only reference.

At this occasion, I want to share with you a small retrospective covering the life of this old webite, and so on the Nintendo boxes library project.

The beginnings (2001-2006)

We are starting this overview with the very first NpES website version, taking us back in 2001 (I warn you this could hurt your eyes !):

This first version was only to deal with how to build a portable NES console, step by step:

The website was only made with static pages. Meaning that each page was edited offline, then uploaded from my computer to the website.
Each build step was explained as detailed as possible:

Nintendo boxes library stammerings (2007-2009)

As I wanted to take advantage of this first NpES website's audience (about 200 visitors each month), I decided to redesign it from scratch to add a new project to it.
The concept was fairly simple: I wanted to scan all of my game boxes and share them. Then, I wished that other visitors would scan theirs and send me them back in order to publish them in an online boxes (free) library.

Here is the home page of the 2th NpES website version back in 2007:

As you can see, it was flashy, but also was a good improvement regarding previous version.
At this time I started to use Joomla as my website's engine.
For the 2th website version, I used Joomla 1.0 (a prehistoric version for this popular CMS ).
On the website, there still was portable NES explanations, but it was no more the priority.
NpES version 2 was already offering the same screens as NintAndBox.

Starting with games list by console:

For each game, available files list:

You can notice that we were still searching for the best file presentation!

The third NpES generation, richer and better designed (2009-2013)

Second version was a test to feel the audience's feedback, regarding Nintendo boxes library concept.
As the boxes library had a quite good success, and thanks to constructive visitors and other retrogaming websites feedback (especially France Rétrogaming), I decided to improve the website again.
Here were the improvements:

- Better structured menus and categories (okay it's my personal feeling!)
- Mandatory registration to use the service, community beginning
- Forum creation, to help members deal with issues, or interact with each other
- A richer content, adding sticker and game manuals
- Joomla upgrade to 1.5

Version 3 home page:

Forum beginning:

For the boxes library, screens are reused, for instance games list by console:

You can notice that there is details for each game.
This feature is still not available on NintAndBox by the time of writing this article, but it will soon, trust me.

Available files list for a game:

Download page, you can also notice tops and members comments for files:

So here we are now on NintAndBox, the 4th website's generation, also bringing new cool features with it:
- We have moved to a professional and faster hosting server
- A french / english interface translation, to promote all over the world new contributions
- A brand new design
- New Nintendo consoles covered, coming from Oldiescovers.free.fr partner
- Joomla 2.5 is now used, and so many new cool web technologies

Analysing this last 6 years, we can now assert that this service filled a void in the retrogaming scene. You only have to look at the progression since the beginning, the number of games and consoles that are now covered, figures speak for themselves.
Audience is also great, starting with 200 unique visitors each months to about 3000 now, and it is still growing.
This project have brought a lot to me, proffessionally and personally, making me meet many awesome people.

So how else can I conclude this article except to sincerely thanks any of you who made this possible.